THE OYSTER-INDUSTRY. 233 



as most abniulant of tliem all, is the Urosrilphi.r cinerea of Stinipson. It is this which is the common "driH" of the 

 ovster-beds; and it is its eggs, laid in small vase-shaped capsules, which are often found attached in groui)s to the 

 under surfaces of stones. Several of the small nioUusks mentioned above lay eggs in this way, but the drill's 

 cai^sules have very short stalks, or are almost sessile, and are compressed with an ovate outline, while angular 

 ridges pass down their sides. The natural home of the drill is the tide-pools and weedy borders of rocky shallows, 

 where barnacles, hydroids, anemoues, rock loving limi)ets, and other associated ibrnis that find shelter among the 

 alg.T, aflbrd it abundant food. Though this is ])recisely where the mussels grow till the rocks are almost black 

 with them, it is said that they are never attacked by the drills. 



The Uroxdlpiitx sometimes stray to the oyster-beds, but is usually carried therewith the seed- supplies, and 

 finding i)lenty of nourishment live aud increase. Though its multiplication is not very rajiid, it is fast enough 

 to make it a very serious obstacle to success, in the course of a few years. In nearly every case, I was told that 

 formerly there were no drills, but now the oyster-beds were overrun. This was reported in particular of the Great 

 South bay of Long Island and at Keypoi't, ifew Jersey. I heard less of its ravages in New Jersey, except in the 

 Delaware; but in Chesapeake bay nearly every dredge-haul in any part of Maryland or Virginia waters, brings 

 up; the Potomac seems to be the district least infested. Of course, in such natural haunts as the rocky shores 

 of Buzzard's bay and Connecticut, would be present if there were no oysters, and are all the harder to dislodge. 



Once having attacked an oyster-bed, they work with rapidity ; and seem to make sudden and combined attacks 

 at considerable intervals. Their disappearance from certain restricted localities, too, for a long time, is 

 unex]>lained. 



What is the best way to combat them, or whether there is any hojie of ridding the beds of them, are questions 

 often discussed by oyster-culturists. It is certain that a great deal of trouble might be avoided, if care were 

 exercised in culling seed, to throw out — not into the water, but on the ground or deck — all the drills, instead of 

 carrying them to one's beds, deliberately planting them, and then grumbling at destruction which previous care 

 would have avoided. It would cost less, in point of mere labor, no doubt, to prevent this plague than to cure it 

 when it becomes no longer endurable. Some planters clean up pieces of bottom very thoroughly before planting, in 

 order to get all this sort of vermin out of their way, as well as to stir up the mud and fit it for the rece[)tion of spat. 

 It is on hard bottom that drills are especially troublesome, aud here some planters go over the ground with a tine- 

 meshed dredge in order to get them up, but they fail to catch all. This is done at Norwalk, Connnecticut, I know, 

 and the men who have steamers, find in the celerity with which they are able to accomplish this sort of work, a great 

 argument against any restriction to exclusively sailing rig. 



The drill can be exterminated to a great extent, also, by diligently destroying its eggs. Small boys might well 

 be paid to search for them and destroy them, among the weedy rocks by the shore, at low tide. A gentleman 

 at Sayville, Long Island, assured me that in those years when large eels were plentiful, the drills were kept 

 down because the eels fed on their eggs. This gentleman said, that in the Great South bay the drills were nearly 

 conquering the planters; and he advised the removal of all shells from the bottom of the bay, in order that the 

 drills might have nothing left on which to ])lace their eggs. This might do there, where there are no rocks along 

 the shore and the drill is not native; but I doubt whether so sweeping a measure of protection could ever be carried 

 out. 



On the Pacific coast Gastrochceno, and various pholadiform mollusks are a great bane to the oyster-beds, but they 

 penetrate by digging burrows wherein their whole shell is lodged. Large numbers of these, with the help of boring- 

 worms and sponges, may so riddle a reef as to cause its entire disintegration. 



The winkle. — Destructive pests on the oyster-beds are, also, found in the two large, spiral mollusks, Si/cotypiis 

 canaliculutus aud Fuh/ur carica, which along the coast are confounded under the names "periwinkle", "winkle", 

 "wrinkle" (New England), and "conch" (southern), with occasionally a distinguishing prefix. Various other large 

 shells also come under these generally applied names ; and in the Gulf of Mexico we have, additionally, the " king 

 conch", "queen concli", and " horse conch", all of which are edible. 



The Sycotijpns is more common north of New York — though it does not exist at all beyond Cai>e Cod — while 

 along the coast of New Jersey and southward it is the Fulgur which is chargeable with nearly all mischief 

 perpetrated, since the other species is rarely seen. Occasionally, as Verrill mentions, specimens of both may be 

 found crawling on sandy tlats or in the tide pools, especially during the spawning season, but they do not ordinarily 

 live in such situations, but in deejjcr water aud on harder bottoms off shore. It is needless to say that they do not 

 burrow at all, though they are able to insert the posterior part of the foot into the sand sufficiently to afibrd them 

 a strojig anchorage against currents. A very soft or a very rocky bottom they equally avoid. 



The curious egg-cases of these mollusks, to which the names "sea-rufde" and "sea-necklace" are often given 

 by fishermen, always attract the attention of visitors to the seaside, who fiiid them cast upon the beaches; and we 

 can well echo the i)ious exclamation of the old historian of Martha's Vineyard, "the Author of nature makes a 

 wouderl'ul and copious provision for the projiagation of this worm". 



As shown in the figure, the eggs are discharged in a series of disk-shaped, subcircular, or reniform, yellowish 

 capsules, parchment like in texture, united by one edge to a stout stem of the same kind of material, often a foot 

 aud a half or two feet in length. "The largest capsules, about an inch in diameter, arc in the middle, the size 



