SUPPLEMENT. I 1 9 9 



candour, less severity of criticism than it will probably 

 experience. The books, pamphlets, manuscripts, news- 

 papers, and correspondence from which it has been com- 

 posed, have been very voluminous, and the public was 

 already looking for the work before the writer was fixed 

 on, and the papers, &c., from which it was to be compiled 

 placed in my hands. The impatience since discovered by 

 many of my subscribers has carried the following (and 

 even many of the earlier) sheets to the press much more 

 precipitately than my judgment would have permitted me 

 to part with them, and I cannot flatter myself that they are 

 free from many defects which, on a reperusal, will attract 

 even my own observation. 



THE REPRODUCTION OF THE OYSTER. 



If the surfaces of all the Schleswig-Holstein oyster- 

 beds should be united together, they would not cover a 

 space equal to the one-hundredth part of that portion of 

 the sea-flats which remain under water. Why is this ? Is 

 it because, from a lack of oyster broods, all the places 

 between the banks are yet to be peopled ? I cannot accept 

 this view, for the following reasons : The entire number of 

 full-grown oysters existing upon the Schleswig-Holstein 

 beds I estimate to be not far from five millions. Accord- 

 ing to rny observations, 44 per cent, at least of these 

 oysters will bring broods of young oysters in the course of 

 a summer. 



The data from which I arrived at the conclusion that 

 at least 44 per cent, of full-grown oysters spawn during 

 each spawning season were derived from the following 

 observations : 



