1230 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



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Class B. 

 INANIMATE ENEMIES. 



Sand is the most fatal of inanimate bodies to oysters, 



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and therefore will be treated of first. Where there is a 

 sandy coast, or shifting sand-banks are in the neighbour- 

 hood, the accumulation of sand proves destructive to . 

 oyster-beds, though all other conditions for their successful 

 establishment may be very favourable. This is more or 

 less the case near the Maplin Sands, Southend, the east 

 coast of Jersey, in the estuaries of the Exe, Solway, Flint- 

 shire Dee, and Severn, the mouth of the Aln (Northum- 

 berland), Cardigan Bay, and many other places. 



In 1868 Mr. Dilnot, who was working with Mr. Buck- 

 land at the Reculvers Fishery, near Herne Bay (where, by 

 the way, his oyster culture establishment would have been 

 an entire success had not an accident happened to the 

 embankments) wrote : "It occurred to me to try the 

 experiment of covering some oysters, in the experimental 

 trough, with sand and fine gravel ; I put just enough over 

 them to cover the shells. I have just examined them, and 

 find those under the sand all choked ; others in the same 

 trough, on which I placed no sand, are all alive. I find 

 when the oyster opens to feed, the sand is drawn in 

 between the valves of the shells, and it is unable to throw 

 it out ; consequently it dies." Those who think of culti- 

 vating or fattening oysters should try first whether the 

 locality is subject to these marine sand-storms ; as Mr. 

 Buckland remarks, the question whether it is favourable or 

 unfavourable will be answered by a few oysters as well as 

 by a thousand pounds' worth. 



The following amusing lines appeared in Punch in 

 November, 1880, apropos of this subject : 



