STATISTICAL AND OTHER INFORMATION. 895 



Experiments have been tried, both on the French and 

 English coasts, to acclimatize the large American oyster, 

 Ostrea Virginica, or Ostrea Virgmiana, (p) but they did not 

 succeed, and although when the weather was warm they 

 seemed to fatten and grow, they still would not spawn or 

 spat. Large quantities of American oysters are sent over 

 to Liverpool and other parts of England, and are sold at a 

 moderate price from i/- to 1/6 was the cost of them in 

 1876. In 1879, 90,663 barrels of oysters were shipped to 

 England from New York and its neighbourhood, at a total 

 value of 90,661. 



Mr. Nichols, in his " Forty Years in America," tells us 

 that oysters are never out of season in New York. They 

 are brought from the shores of Virginia and planted to 

 grow and fatten ; so that every quality and flavour can be 

 produced by the varying situations of the banks, and the 

 time of planting and the depth of water regulates the season 

 of the oyster and keeps the market in constant supply. 



There is a celebrated restaurant for oysters in New 

 York, No. 783, Sixth Avenue, and the late proprietor, Mr. 

 Robert Burns, informed Mr. Marshall, in November, 1879, 

 that he had then in stock about 50,000, and in holiday time 

 he kept from four to five thousand oysters. The shells of 

 one of the large Cow Bay oysters measured 10^ inches in 

 length and averaged 4^ inches in width, and the fish inside 

 averaged 6 inches by 4 inches. Mr. Marshall was shown 



(p) Mr. Say (q) says, that a small crab (a species of Pinnoteres], 

 which lives in the shell of the common American oyster, is much valued 

 by oyster eaters in the United States, and that in opening a large 

 quantity of oysters these little crabs are collected apart and serve to 

 gratify the palate of gourmands. They are only seven-twentieths of an 

 inch long by two-fifths wide, (r) 



(q) " Journ. Acad. Sc. Phil.," i, 68. 

 (r) "Popular Hist. Brit. Crustacea." 



