GULF OP MEXICO: LOUISIANA. 570 



pauies lately started iu the city. The best grounds seetu to be the Chaudaleur Islands, Bayou 

 Muscle, Bayou Boulfeii near Mobile, aud the shell-bank outside of Biloxi. " The Bayou .Muscle 

 oyster is peculiar. It is large, very black, aud the shells are covered with hair and barnacles. 

 The Boulfeus are round, rich, and fat, and sell very high." The Picayune stated that thirty boats 

 canic to the city from Biloxi aud along the sound, iu the winter of 1879-'80, but this seems to have 

 understated the case, for our careful inquiries registered fifty boats of 5 tons and upward, aud two 

 hundred boats of less than 5 tons, as trading along the eastern coast; many of these, however, 

 are otherwise engaged during a portion of the year. The boats are generally small, rarely having 

 more than two men. 



Turning to the district west of the delta, we find that oysters are procured from all the 

 marshes and bayous, nearly as far as Galveston, Texas. The Picayune, in an article during the 

 winter 1878-'79, gives a fair account of this source of supply, as follows : 



" This portion of our State seems best suited to the propagation of the best, aud Bayou 

 Chalons, Four Bayous, and Fontenelle are known only for their oysters. Yesterday a representa- 

 tive of the Picayune, iu order to place before its readers something more definite than the confused 

 ideas generally prevailing about our oysters, visited a number of veterans in the trade. Even 

 among them there is still some confusion regarding the merits of certain oysters, but what was 

 agreed upon by all was taken as the basis of what we gi ve. 



"There are engaged iu the business of supplying the cify about one hundred and twenty lug- 

 gel's, with a carrying capacity each of 75 to 100 barrels. From Barataria, which comprises Bayou 

 Cook, Chalons, aud Four Bayous, there are eight, making at least one trip a week. From the 

 Southwest Pass, Saliua, or the Salt Works below Fort Jackson, about thirty boats. From Tim- 

 balier. including Bayou Cyprian, Fonteuelle, and Lake Peliot, about fifteen. These vessels, and 

 the labor at the fishing banks, give employment to over four thousand five hundred men. * * * 

 There has been a general impression here that Bayou Cook furnishes our best oysters, but that 

 little water course has long since giveu up its natural supply, aud those that are now received 

 from there are only a few that are planted. 



" Our best oysters come from Bayou Chalons, Four Bayous, Bayous Foutenelle and Cyprian, 

 aud a small supply from Lake Peliot. These rank the highest and are called the first-class. The 

 Bayou Chalons oyster is a large, long oyster, with a clean shell; the Four Bayous are middling, 

 round, aud firm; the Bayous Foutenelle aud Cyprian are small, hard, and round, and much pre- 

 ferred by connoisseurs. The Lake Peliot is a round oyster, very fat and salt, and on account of 

 the hardness of its eye preferred for frying. The second-class oysters are the Timbaliers, where 

 they are taken from the reef, not the one planted in the bay. They are in bunches and are long. 

 In the same class are the Salinas, or those taken at the Salt Works near Fort Jackson. They are 

 what are called the 'summer,' aud by restaurateurs the 'kitchen' oyster. They cook well, but are 

 not as rich in flavor as those of the first-class. At the Southwest Pass, proper, all the bivalves 

 are dead now, but uear there, at East Bay, they have a very good kind, with a light-colored shell 

 aud very white inside. Theu there are the Great Lakes, from the viciuity of Fort Livingston, 

 uear Grand Terre. Although the supply is not very great there is always a demand far them, as 

 they have a peculiar flavor." 



METHODS OF GATHERING OYSTERS. Most of the oysters brought to ISTew Orleans are from 

 naturally growing, uucultivated reefs, with which the whole coast is barricaded, and to which, iu 

 a large measure, it owes its preservation from the teeth of the ocean. These reefs are ridges of 

 oysters, packed one above another, each generation supported on the compact and dead shells of 

 the preceding. In general the oysters are found not singly but in great clusters, some of which 



