I 1 22 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



Inform them upon every point necessary to their know- 

 ledge. Unceasingly ply their memories with lectures on 

 the subject. Stimulate their energy by quoting statistics 

 of their successful French neighbours, and tell them that 

 if " imitation is the sincerest flattery," it were a nobler and 

 more beneficial sincerity to themselves, and an honester 

 piece of flattery to their neighbours, would they but copy 

 their ostralogical wisdom and practise their thrift, rather 

 than to slavishly imitate their fashions, their theatrical 

 foibles, and minor frivolities. 



To this attained, and the vanity of their national honour 

 pricked into consciousness of their folly, and roused to a 

 lively comprehension of the necessity for oysters and oyster 

 culture then, and not till then, you may have the joy of 

 reading about an " Oyster Bill " in Parliament. 



One faint beginning of this much-to-be-desired ful- 

 filment one little gleam of hope (?) for its accomplish- 

 ment, throws a beam of comfort athwart this vexatious 

 question, and that is the formation of a Marine Biological 

 Association, and, in connection therewith, the establish- 

 ment of a laboratory. As I shall be enabled to point out 

 the fact that even the possession of such an institution 

 cannot rouse our government from their fishy apathy, I will 

 give a brief sketch of its rise, and, with a leap over its few 

 years of very indifferent progress, touch slightly upon its 

 present state in relation to the support it receives. 



At the Conference on Friday, July 20, 1883, held in 

 connection with the International Fisheries Exhibition, 

 Professor E. Ray Lankester rightly complained that : 



The value of zoological science in relation to fisheries 

 is not, I think, so fully appreciated in this country as is 

 desirable in the interests of the public, and of those who 

 make profit by enterprise in fisheries. 



