122 EDIBLE OTSTEES FOUND ON THE ArSTEALIAN COAST, 



does not exist the least specific difference between B. Gunni and 

 B. TasmanicuSj the last name will have to be laid aside. 



Length of specimen 33 millemetres. 



0^ THE Edible Oysters found on the Australian and 

 Neighbouring Coasts. 



By J. C. Cox, M.D , F.L.S., &c. 



Some years ago I read a paper before the Acclimatization 

 Society of New South Wales, on '' The Oysters and Oj^ster Beds 

 of New South Wales," which was published in the columns of 

 the Sydney Morning Herald. In it was embodied all the infor- 

 mation I then possessed on the different species of Oysters found 

 on our coasts, and it went fully into the different varities of the 

 same species which were found at most of the beds that were 

 then being worked. 



Since then our knowledge of the different species found on 

 this and the neighbouring coasts of Tasmania, New Zealand, 

 Lord Howe's Island, and Queensland has so improved that it 

 will not be uninteresting to many scientifically, and to others 

 commercially, to have a condensed resume of the species as now 

 defined, published in our journal. 



In 1867, Mr. 0. F. Angas published in the Proc. Zool. Soc, 

 London, a list of the species of Marine MoUusca found in Port 

 Jackson, in which he enumerated four species of Ostrea as having 

 been found there, (see page 934), namely, Ostrea purpurea, Hanly, 

 Ostrea mordax, Gould, Ostrea circumsuta, Gould, and Ostrea 

 virescens, Angas. 



The same author, also in a valuable list of the Marine Fauna 

 of South Australia, published in the Proc Zool. Soc, London, 

 for 1865, mentioned that two species of Oysters were found on 



