HARD WICKE ' S S CIE N CE- G O SSIP. 



175 



leave much margin. It is a new sensation, when a 

 friend at Adelaide asks you to lunch, to have one 

 oyster set before you fried in butter, or eggs and 

 bread-crumbs ; but it is a very pleasant experience, 

 for the flavour and delicacy of the Port Lincoln 

 mammoths are proverbial in that land of luxuries." 



The need of such a book, if it only accomplishes 

 its purpose, is obvious, for with an ever-increasing 

 demand the supply of oysters is rapidly dwindling 

 away. Prices have been goiDg up for many years, 

 until at last the rich can alone command the attentions 

 of oyster dredgers : for others, such things as Natives 

 are as though they did not exist. And yet how 

 cheap they once were ; a single shilling would have 

 bought a larger number than any sane person would 

 have ventured to eat at one sitting, unless he were a 

 Vitellius or a Coesar. London, Dublin, and Edin- 

 burgh all rejoiced in apparently exhaustless supplies, 

 offered at prices so moderate that they painfully 

 disturb the equanimity of the present generation of 

 oyster buyers. Fifty years ago tenpence would, in 

 the Modern Athens, buy a hundred, and now they 

 may some day reach tenpence apiece. 



Thirty-five or forty years ago a thousand millions of 

 - oysters are said to have been consumed in London 

 alone, and that at threepence a dozen, which seems 

 then to have been the ordinary price, would represent 

 much over a million pounds. In 1864 the metro- 

 polis is computed to have got through 700,000,000, 

 the price being then sixpence a dozen, so that the 

 total paid for them reached a million and a half. 

 Mr. Henry Mayhew made, a little later, an elaborate 

 estimate of the number passing through Billingsgate : 

 it was 495,896,000; but in spite of diminishing 

 supplies, the Colne Oyster Company alone still sends 

 up 11,200,000 to the metropolis every year. In the 

 Firth of Forth the supply has dwindled to such an 

 extent that in place of the millions dredged there 

 two generations ago, and the hundreds of thousands 

 of twenty-five years ago, the present total is not 

 5,000. The reason of this amazing decrease is the 

 stupid recklessness of the dredgers ; not only are 

 the scalps — as the natural oyster-beds are called — 

 literally cleared of all tenants fit for the table, but in 

 some cases every oyster is removed, and the bed is 

 positively destroyed once and for all. The same 

 thing was happening in France, but the law inter- 

 fered, and restrictions on the time allowed the 

 dredgers led to a wonderful improvement ; indeed we 

 hear that some of the beds are only allowed to be 

 dredged two hours a year, but in that brief time it 

 is said that the little army of practised hands em- 

 ployed will pick 22,000,000 bivalves. 



The fecundity of this mollusc is marvellous, as, 

 indeed, is that of all so-called shell-fish. Mr. Buck- 

 land computed that a crab can reproduce its kind at 

 the rate of over a million a year, and the oyster is 

 not less remarkable. One curious fact is that over 

 twelve million limpets have been gathered on the 



Berwickshire coast for bait in a single year, without 

 any notable diminution of their numbers. Before 

 the recent careful oyster cultivation 01 our French 

 neighbours commenced the fate that has overwhelmed 

 our Natives seemed likely to befall their French 

 cousins. In 1847 over 70,000,000 were computed to 

 have their home on the single bank cf Cancale, but 

 seven years later the number had fallen to 20,000,000, 

 while in i860 it only reached 10,000,000, and soon 

 after that the oyster colony had wholly disappeared. 

 In 1859 French oyster cultivation began, and matters 

 speedily mended. 



The oyster abounds in every sea, tropical and 

 temperate. In America the oyster fisheries are 

 estimated to be worth ,£2,500,000 a year, the prices 

 there being far lower than with us, and it is computed 

 that 22,000,000 bushels are annually picked. A 

 bushel ^of Natives represents 1,600 individuals, but 

 the American oysters are so much larger that they 

 only number 300 ; that would give the American 

 trade as representing 6,600,000,000, while 53,000 

 men are employed in the fishery, and 4,155 ships. 

 New York is said to eat 900,000,000 oysters a year. 



An English oyster has been computed to deposit 

 1,012,925 ova, but the American giants reach 

 9,000,000 ova apiece for each full-grown female 

 oyster, so that an abundant supply of spat might 

 easily be kept up. 



The only effectual remedy for the dearth of oysters 

 is the imposition of proper restrictions on dredgers. 

 Not only is a close time needed — and some pretence 

 at a close time indeed we have, from the 15th of 

 June to the 4th of August — but only good-sized bi- 

 valves should be allowed to be taken. We. are now 

 killing off our stock, and before long we may hear of 

 the prices of old Rome being once again asked. 



Among the facts hidden away in the curious and 

 little known literature of the oyster, we must mention 

 that Ch'ang Te, who was sent as the envoy of the 

 great Khan Mangu to Hulagu, conqueror of Bagdad, 

 and brother of the said Mangu, has some interesting 

 zoological notes ; more particularly one on the pearl 

 oysters of the Persian Gulf, and the method of 

 obtaining them. Were all that has ever been written 

 on oysters collected,, a score of volumes as bulky as 

 the one Dr. Philpots has favoured the world with 



would be needed. 



Alfred J. H. Crespi. 

 Wimborne. 



THE AMERICAN COCKROACH. 

 By the Rev. Hilderic Friend, F.L.S. 



THERE is something both amusing and tantalising 

 in the way in which this handsome insect is 

 treated by our English authorities (?). As I take 

 down text-book after text-book, I come across the 

 same cool statements, the gist ot which may be 

 gleaned from the following typical extract. After 



