Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1893 — The Mechanism of an Oyster. [ARTICLE]

The Mechanism of an Oyster.

Evcry oyster has a mouth, n heart, nf liver, a stomach, besides many curiously devised little intestines and other organs, necessary organs such as would be handy to a living, moving, iutiilligent creature. The mouth is at the end of the shell, near the hinge, and adjoining the toothed portion of the oyster’s pcurly covering. This liny little apology of a mouth is oval in shape, and, although hardly legible to one unused to making such anatomical examinations, can be easily discovered by gently pushing a bodkin or a piece of blunt, smooth wire along the suiface of the locality mentioned. When the mouth is at last locate!! you can thrust your instrument through between the delicate lips ami a considerable distance towards the stomach without causing the oyster the least pain whatever. From this mouth thero is, of course, a miniature canal leading to the stomach. Food pusses through this canal to the stomach, and from the latter organ into the intestines, just as reudily as though the little bivalve wereas large as an elopbunt or a rhinoceros. Remove the shell (this operation is rather rough on the oyster, but can be done in a comparatively painless manner by an expert), and you will see the crescent, which lies just over the so-called heart. 'Fins half-moon space is the oyster’s pericardium. Within is the true heart, the pulsations of which can be readily seen without the aid of a glass. The heart is very human-like, made of two parts, one of which receives the blood from the gills through a network of reul blood vessels, the other portion contracts and drives the blood out through the body. The other organs of an oyster’s anatomy are all in the proper places and performin'* their several functions. If you don’t believe this story, examine one for yourself.—[Bt. Louis Republic.