1066 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



time without a microscope, it is impossible to trace their 

 wanderings directly ; but it is possible to show indirectly 

 that they are carried to great distances, and that the water 

 for miles around the natural bed is full of them. They 

 serve as food for other marine animals, and when the con- 

 tents of the stomachs of these animals are carefully exa- 

 mined with a microscope, the shells of the little oysters are 

 often found in abundance. While examining the contents 

 of the stomach of lingula in this way, I have found hun- 

 dreds of shells of the young oysters in the swimming stage 

 of growth, although the specimens of lingula were cap- 

 tured several miles from the nearest oyster bed. As lin- 

 gula is a fixed animal, the oysters must have been brought 

 to the spot where the specimens were found ; and as lin- 

 gula has no means of capturing its food, and subsists upon 

 what is swept within its reach by the water, the presence 

 of so many inside its stomach shows that the water must 

 have contained great numbers of them. 



It is clear, then, that the sharp limitation of the area 

 of a natural oyster bed is not due to the absence in the 

 young of the power to reach distant points. There is 

 another proof of this, which is familiar to all oystermen- 

 the possibility of establishing new beds without transplant- 

 ing any oysters. The following illustration of this was 

 observed by one of your commissioners. 



On part of a large mud flat, which was bare at low 

 tide, there were no oysters, although there was a natural 

 bed upon the same flats, about half a mile away. A wharf 

 was built from high tide mark across the flat out to the 

 edge of the channel, and the shells of all the oysters which 

 were consumed in the house were thrown on to the mud 

 alongside the wharf. In the third summer the flat in the 

 vicinity of the wharf had become converted into an oyster 



