Genre:

Miscellaneous, Drollery

Subjects:

Natural History, Animal Behaviour, Reason, Phrenology

    Discusses the sedentary habits of the oyster in humorous terms, and declares that it seems primâ facie impossible that such a creature should think. 'In spite of Spurzheim, who affirms that the substance of the human brain resembles that of an oyster, it is difficult to believe that there is any intellectual faculty in such a lump of animal blanc-mange—that it ever even thinks of thinking' (290). It is difficult to establish whether it has any thoughts. Even if it did have 'cogent Thoughts on the Corporation and Testaceous Acts' it is 'inevitably condemned to keep its Thoughts to itself'. Hood reports that his servant has brought a crab with an oyster attached to its carapace from the fish-market; he notes 'there is much seeming sagacity in the selection of an Amphibious reptile' to provide for 'occasional travels on land'. (291)