Il8 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



quantities from Wales, Falmouth, and the coasts of Kent 

 and Essex. These latter, when arrived at maturity, are in 

 all respects equal to the produce of either of the great 

 fisheries, and constitute the larger proportion of the exqui- 

 site ' native oysters ' so familiar at the dinner-tables of 

 London and Paris. The Thames oyster fisheries are, in 

 short, the finest fattening grounds in the world. This is 

 the secret of their extraordinary prosperity, and on this 

 basis primarily they are worked. 



" It happens, however, that besides this, there occurs 

 every now and then an unusually heavy fall of spat (there 

 was always a certain quantity) on the Thames beds them- 

 selves and their neighbourhood, and this is of course a god- 

 send to the oyster companies, as it is sometimes worth 

 hundreds of thousands of pounds. But it is now seven 

 years, or thereabout, since they had such a golden shower, 

 and, for aught they can tell, it may be seven years more 

 before they have another," 



" Some people," says Mr. Bertram, () " have asserted 

 that the oyster can reproduce its kind in twenty weeks, and 

 that in ten months it is full grown. Both of these asser- 

 tions are pure nonsense. At the age of three months an 

 oyster is not much bigger than a pea, and the age at which 

 reproduction begins has never been accurately ascertained, 



but it is thought to be three years Oysters 



are usually four years old before they are sent to the Lon- 

 don market. At the age of five years the oyster is, I 

 think, in its prime, and some of our most intelligent 

 fishermen think its average duration of life to be ten 

 years. 



" In these days of oyster-farming, the time at which the 

 (n) " The Harvest of the Sea," p. 234. 



