I 

 978 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



Beaumaris, and laid down on the beds there for a time. 

 These oysters form the chief supply of Liverpool and the 

 manufacturing districts during the summer months. The 

 fishing of the Arklow beds is open in May, but in that of 

 the Wexford beds, which join those of Arklow, May is a 

 close month. 



The oyster-beds which lie within the three-mile limit 

 are divisable into two classes. In the first class, which 

 comprises the beds of Kent and Essex, chiefly in the 

 estuary of the Thames, no close season has ever been 

 observed, and " no attempt has been made to enforce a 

 restriction as to the size of the oyster taken from them." 

 Dredging, for the purpose of procuring young oysters for 

 deposition on private beds, is carried on during the summer 

 months ; but in the second class which comprises the 

 beds on the south and west coasts of England, in the 

 Solent, Portland Bay, Poole Harbour, Falmouth Harbour, 

 Milton Haven, Swansea, and Carnarvon Bays ; in Ireland, 

 those of Clew Bay, Sligo, Tralee, Lough Foyle, Belfast 

 Lough, and Carlingford ; in Scotland, those of Loch Ryan 

 and the Forth " the close time is everywhere strictly 

 observed, as well within the three-mile limits as without ; 

 in some of them a restriction as to size is observed, and in 

 most of them the fishermen are opposed to taking the 

 brood, on the ground that it injures the bed." " It 

 becomes," the Commissioners add, " a very material ques- 

 tion, with a view to an increased supply to the public, 

 which of the two systems is, in the course of a long period, 

 likely to produce the greatest number of eatable oysters." 



It is interesting to observe that the system pursued in 

 the estuary of the Thames is a very ancient one, while that 

 which is carried on in most of the bays on the coasts of 



