VI INTRODUCTION. 



article of food, that should be as plentiful as it is 

 excellent, will grow more scarce, and a branch of 

 industry will be cut off, which employs a large amount 

 of labor and of capital and so contributes to the wel- 

 fare of the State, the region, and the country. The 

 interior as well as the seaboard, the farmer as well as 

 the oysterman, will be injured unless some remedy is 

 found. 



The author of this volume is well known in all 

 scientific circles as an accurate, clear-sighted and trust- 

 worthy observer. His papers are received and quoted 

 by the best authorities in every place where the study 

 of natural history is carried on. Not only can he see 

 with his trained eye and powerful glasses, more than 

 most people, but he can state distinctly and without 

 any deviation from the exact truth, what he sees, and 

 what he thinks of what he sees. His life has been 

 devoted to the careful observation of the forms and 

 changes of form in living beings. 



To the study of the oyster he has devoted a large 

 part of his time for more than ten years past, having 

 been encouraged to do so by the Johns Hopkins 

 University, in which he is an honored professor, and 

 by the legislature of the State of Maryland, which he 

 served as an oyster commissioner in 1883-4. He can 

 hold his own not only among naturalists, but also 

 among practical men. He has dredged in every part 



