1220 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



i. SKATES AND RAYS. 



Among this tribe of fish, the eagle-skate or sting-ray 

 is the most destructive ; and where it is a frequent visitor, 

 as on the French coast, it commits sad depredations on 

 the oyster-beds. The French call it " le there'' and they 

 protect their beds from its ravages by means of palisades 

 of short pointed stakes firmly fixed in the mud under 

 water, and sloping outwards at an angle of 45. If these 

 protections are not made use of, the rays will swoop down 

 obliquely on the young oysters, and crunch them up in 

 their powerful jaws, fitted, as they are, not with teeth, but 

 with compound crushing-machine palates, in which the 

 shells of a young oyster are ground apart as between two 

 millstones, and the ray can thus easily possess himself of 

 the succulent contents. The male sting-ray is furnished at 

 the tail with two daggers having barbed edges, the female 

 having only one of these formidable weapons. 



2. OCTOPODS. 



Cuttle-fish and other octopods are determined foes of 

 the oyster. Deep-sea fishermen tell us that wherever octo- 

 pods are dredged up in considerable numbers, a bed of 

 oysters will probably be found not far distant. 



Octopods are found in quantities around the sub- 

 merged rocks and reefs in the English Channel. The 

 Channel Island fishermen have partly attributed the deca- 

 dence of the oyster and scallop fisheries of late years 

 around Guernsey to their depredations, though they admit 

 that many other causes have been at work besides octopods 

 to account for the scarcity. The method of attack of these 

 animals is to seize the oyster in their powerful tentacles, 

 and force an entrance through the thinnest part of the shell 



