DETERIORATION OF AMERICAN OYSTER-BEDS. 151 



probably show a diminished mortality, as the animal will be better 

 able to protect itself as it increases in size, but the destruction among 

 the unprotected, delicate embryos must be immense, and, as it is as 

 great as fifty per cent, after attachment, it must be much more serious 

 prior to that event. 



From observations made during the summer of 1879, I find that, on 

 a natural, unworked bed, the ratio of young oysters, or those over one 

 and under two years of age, to those mature and over that age, is as 

 one to two, or in a community of fifteen hundred there would be one 

 thousand mature and five hundred young oysters. 



There is no reason to suppose that, circumstances being favorable, 

 this entire number does not spawn, for, of all those I have examined, I 

 have never in the spawning-season found an animal that did not con- 

 tain the generative matter, or that had not recently expelled it. Num- 

 bers send forth the products of generation at unfavorable times and 

 in either an unripe or overripe condition, and some fail to void the 

 fluids at all, but only unfortunate combinations of natural causes have 

 those effects ; and it is probable, if not absolutely certain, that in most 

 spawning-seasons all the animals spawn. Dr. Brooks estimates the 

 number of eggs voided by the American oyster at from nine to sixty 

 millions ; for convenience, we may take ten millions as the average 

 number, which is probably less than what is actually the case. The 

 thousand mature oysters in the community would, then, spawn ten 

 billion eggs, and, as the young European oyster has been found to 

 spawn about one third as many eggs as the mature animal, we will 

 consider the same to be true for the American variety. The five 

 hundred young would, then, spawn 1,600,000,000 eggs, or the total 

 number in the community would spawn 11,600,000,000 eggs, from 

 which would result five hundred oysters, or about twenty million eggs 

 or oysters would perish where one was preserved ! 



It is evident, then, that the vast number of eggs spawned by the 

 oyster is no assurance that even a small proportion of them will reach 

 maturity, or that any external or abnormal agency, natural or unnat- 

 ural, may not be sufficient to destroy the beds by removing either 

 young or old oysters, or in other ways preventing them from repro- 

 ducing their kind. 



My personal observations convince me that the beds of Pocomoke 

 Sound at least are in a condition very similar to the French beds be- 

 fore they were subjected to the action of protective laws ; and, as the 

 French beds have, by a wise and efficient protection, been made to 

 yield again a profitable return, it will be instructive to see how that 

 protection is afforded. Artificial cultivation in any way is not con- 

 sidered, as not being pertinent, and because, in however bad a condi- 

 tion our own fisheries may be, the time has not yet arrived when we 

 will be reduced to those laborious and expensive methods of obtaining 

 a supply of oysters. 



