240 On the Geographical Distribution and Uses of the 



selves that we see, at this day, it is confined to some narrow 

 creeks of one single county." The paper is so short, con- 

 cise, and important, in its hearing on the history of British 

 oyster-fisheries, that we transcribe it nearly entire. It is en- 

 titled " The History of the Generation and Ordering of Green 

 Oysters, commonly called Colchester Oysters," and runs 

 thus : — " In the month of May the oysters cast their spawn 

 (which the dredgers call their spat) : it is like to a drop of 

 caudle, and about the bigness of an halfpenny. The spat 

 cleaves to stones, old oyster-shells, pieces of wood, and such 

 like things, at the bottom of the sea, which they call cultch. 

 It is probably conjectured that the spat, in twenty-four hours, 

 begins to have a shell. In the month of May the dredgers (by 

 the lawof the Admiralty Court) have liberty to catch all manner 

 of oysters of what size soever. When they have taken them, 

 with a knife they gently raise the small brood from the cultch, 

 and then they throw the cultch in again, to preserve the 

 ground for the future, unless they be so newly spat that they 

 cannot be safely severed from the cultch ; in that case they 

 are permitted to take the stone or shell, &c., that the spat is 

 upon, one shell having, many times, twenty spats. After the 

 month of May it is felony to carry away the cultch, and 

 punishable to take any other oysters, unless it be those of 

 size (that is to say) about the bigness of an half-crown piece, 

 or when, the two shells being shut, a fair shilling will rattle 

 between them. The places where these oysters are chiefly 

 catched are called the Pont-Burnham, Maiden, and Calne- 

 water. * * * This brood, and other oysters, they carry 

 to creeks of the sea at Brickelsea, Mersey, Langi'o, Fringrego, 

 Wivenho, Tolesbury, and Saltcoase, and there throw them 

 into the channel, which they call their beds or layers, where 

 they grow and fatten, and, in two or three years, the smallest 

 brood will be oysters of the size aforesaid. Those oysters 

 which they would have green they put into pits about three 

 foot deep, in the salt marshes, which are overflowed only at 

 spring-tides, to which they have sluices, and let out the sea- 

 water until it is about a foot-and-a-half deep. These pits, 

 from some quality in the soil co-operating with the heat of 

 the sun, will become green, and communicate their colour to 



