PREFACE. I I 



animal easy of access, which can be seen and handled all 

 the year round and all day long, we have almost no exact 

 knowledge of its habits, of its real power of reproduction, 

 or of the circumstances which govern the rise and fall of 

 oyster spat" 



In conclusion, I must record my indebtedness to past 

 and present works, including Reviews and Magazines, 

 together with grateful acknowledgments to living authors, 

 whose names are mentioned with the extracts quoted from 

 their instructive volumes. 



My thanks are also due to those friends by whose kind 

 assistance my voluntary and congenial task has been con- 

 siderably lightened and encouraged ; the foremost of whom 

 are Messrs. J. H. Henderson, C. Carus-Wilson, A. J. H. 

 Crespi, F. Slater, and Lieutenant Francis Winslow, of the 

 United States Navy, with others whose names are men- 

 tioned in these pages wherever their contributions come 

 into requisition. 



Lastly, but by no means least, in tendering my sincere 

 thanks to those by whose kind permission I have been so 

 well enabled to adorn my work, I am especially grateful to 

 Mrs. H. N. Moseley, whose generosity in allowing me to 

 draw ad libitum from the valuable work of her eminent 

 father, Dr. John Gwyn Jeffreys, F.R.S., F.G.S., &c., I 

 cannot sufficiently repay with a " Thank you very much." 



That I have availed myself somewhat largely of the 

 golden opportunity thus happily presented to me, in Chap- 

 ters 8 and 9, I candidly admit ; but I have done so under 

 the influence of several motives, the principal of which are 

 (i) an ardent desire to promulgate the Gospel of Nature, 

 combined with a Zoologist's respect for the learned, 

 accurate research, and masterly conchological knowledge 



