80 THE OYSTER. 



They are long and narrow, are fastened together in 

 clusters, and are known as "coon oysters." 



When such a bed is carefully examined it will be 

 found that most of the rock is made up of empty shells, 

 and a little examination will show that the crowding 

 is so great that the growth of one oyster prevents ad- 

 jacent ones from opening their shells, and thus crowds 

 them out and exterminates them. Examination shows, 

 too, that nearly every one of the living oysters is 

 fastened to the open or free end of a dead shell which 

 has thus been crowded to death, and it is not at all 

 unusual to find a pile of five or six shells thus united, 

 showing that number two had fastened, when small, 

 to the open end of number one, thus raising itself a 

 little above the crowd. After number one was killed 

 number two continued to grow, and number three 

 fastened itself to its shell, and so on. Usually the 

 oysters upon such a bed are small, but in some places 

 shells twelve or fourteen inches long are met with. The 

 most significant characteristic of a bed of this kind is 

 the sharpness of its boundaries. In regions where the 

 oysters are never disturbed by man it is not unusual to 

 find a hard bottom, which extends along the edge of 

 the shore for miles, and is divided up into a number of 

 oyster rocks, where the oysters are so thick that most 

 of them are crowded out and die long before they are 

 full-grown, and between these beds are areas where 

 not a single oyster can be found. The intervening 

 area is perfectly adapted for the oyster, and when a few 

 bushels of shells are scattered upon it they are soon 

 covered with young, and in a year or two a new oys- 

 ter rock is established upon them, but when they are 



