312 OSTREADiE. 



days, though they commonly let them continue there 

 six weeks or two months, in which time they will be 

 of a dark green. "^^ """ '"' The oysters when the tide 

 comes in lie with their hollow -shell downwards, and 

 when it goes out they turn on the other side ; they 

 remove not from their places unless in cold weather to 

 cover themselves in the oose. The reason of the scarcity 

 of oysters, and, consequently, of their dearness, is because 

 they are of late years bought up by the Dutch. There 

 are great penalties by the Admiralty Court laid upon 

 those that fish out of those grounds which the court 

 appoints, or that destroy the cultch, or that take any 

 oysters that are not of size, or that do not tread under 

 their feet, or throw upon the shore, a fish which they 

 call a five-finger, resembling a spur-rowel, because that 

 fish gets into the oysters when they gape and sucks 

 them out. ■^' ^''^ "^^ The oysters are sick after they have 

 their spat ; but in June and July they begin to mend, 

 and in August are perfectly well. The male oyster is 

 black-sick having a black substance in the fin ; the female 

 white-sick having a milky substance in the fin. They 

 are salt in the pits, Salter in the layers, saltest at sea." 



From this old paper the greater part of the matter 

 contained in articles on the subject of oyster-fisheries in 

 the several Encyclopedias has been derived. In the 

 earlier volumes of the " Philosophical Transactions,*" are 

 several notices on the subject of oysters, especially a short 

 account of the spat by the celebrated Leewenhoeck, and 

 a letter from the Rev. Mr. Rowland to Dr. Derliam, in 

 which it is stated that though the beds in the Manai 

 furnished then (1720) as they do now, abundant oysters, 

 twenty-four years previously none existed in the locality ; 

 they were originally laid down there by a private gentle- 



