SUPPLEMENT. I 23 I 



THE MOAN OF THE NATIVE. 



'Tis the voice of the oyster I hear him complain, 



" I can't live in this place ; here's a sandstorm again ! 



I had settled at rest 'mid the rocks and the tiles, 



They had made me a home, but this sand, how it riles ! 



It gets into my shell and the delicate fringe 



That I use when I breathe ; and I can't shut my hinge 



"When the grit lodges there ; so the crabs come at will, 



Since my poor mouth is open, they feed and they kill. 



I've complained to Frank Buckland, who quite understands, 



But he can't undertake to abolish the sands." 



Thus the native made moan, and I took up the brown 



Bread-and-butter and lemon, and swallowed him down. 



MUD. 



Shifting mud is a bad thing for spat or young oysters. 

 If spat happens to fall on mud, it is fatal to its chances of 

 existence. After the oyster grows older it does not appear 

 to mind reposing on a muddy bed, as long as the mud is 

 not too soft, and it does not get buried too deep. Oysters 

 laid on soft ground often sink in the mud ; but if this takes 

 place gradually, the animal contrives, by the flow of water 

 which it takes in and passes out, to keep an air-hole open. 

 When covered over by a mud storm, however, they have 

 not time to establish communications with the sea, and 

 they get " slubbed" up and die. There are many places in 

 France, such as at Auray for instance, where the oysters are 

 raised three or four times a year from the mud into which 

 they have sunk, and relaid on the surface. There is a bed 

 of oysters in Cancale Bay where the dredge will come up 

 quite full of mud, but it also brings up living and healthy 

 oysters. 



A continuous calm is not considered favourable by the 

 French authorities, especially at spatting time ; this is 



