Note 158 — Chapter XXI · THE VARIOUS KINDS OF OYSTERS.
Reading edition
It is at the spawning season that this milky liquid is found in the oyster; a period at which the meat of the fish is considered unwholesome as food. We have a saying that the oyster should never be eaten in the months without an r; that the same, too, was the opinion in the middle ages is proved by the Leonine line:
“Mensibus erratis vos ostrea manducatis.” “In the r’d months you may your oysters eat.”