[53] THE OYSTER AND OYSTER-CULTURE. 735 
what thicker and more cream-like in color than the males, whose bodies 
are more transparent and watery. In the middle of winter these differ- 
ences are not so apparent as shortly before the breeding season. Im- 
mediately after the emission of the generative products, oysters are poor- 
est and they are more watery then than at any other time. After the 
breeding period their size increases from month to month, and, in case 
their nourishment is not interrupted by long-continued severe cold, their 
flavor becomes fuller and richer in proportion to the rapid development 
of the generative organs. From this it follows that winter, but more 
especially spring, are the periods of the year for the enjoyment of oys- 
ters. I have repeatedly heard people, who rated themselves as genuine 
oyster-eaters, say that ‘“‘oysters ought never to be bitten, but should be 
swallowed whole.” If this were so, then one might better use, in the place 
of the high-priced oyster, a succedaneum made of tasteless thin paste, 
and having merely the form of the oyster. 
As with all other kinds of food, the flavor of the oyster is more 
effective and can be better appreciated the more intimately its con- 
stituent elements come in contact with the surface of the organs of 
taste. Therefore, if one would obtain the full flavor of the oyster, it 
must be bitten to pieces and chewed, in order that all the constituents 
may be free to produce their greatest effects. The Schleswig-Holstein 
oyster-banks produce oysters of very different flavors. Those having 
the finest flavor exist upon beds which lie not very far from the deeper 
channels, through which the water passes in and out during the flood 
and ebb tides. (See the chart of these beds on page 4.) Thus, very 
superior oysters are found upon the beds at the northern and southern 
ends of the island of Sylt, and upon a single bank north of the island 
of Rém; but the very finest oysters are found upon the beds near Hor- 
num. The oysters of these beds are especially distinguishable by the 
large growth of their organs of generation. Their flavor is very delicate, 
and never bitter and watery, as is the case with the oysters of many other 
beds. This superiority in form and flavor must be the direct result of 
the action upon the oysters of these banks of the external conditions 
of life under which they exist. The oysters upon the beds near Hér- 
num lie deeper and nearer the open sea than those farther in upon the 
flats. The water, also, which flows over them during the course of the 
day and year is less subject to fluctuations in temperature than that 
which flows over the beds lying nearer the mainland, and there is here a 
somewhat greater percentage of salt than in the water over the beds of 
the shallower portions of the sea-flats. To these external physico-chemi- 
cal properties of the Hérnum banks are also united faunal peculiarities. 
Here are to be found the three-sided worms (Pomatoceros triqueter), and 
colonies of polyps which, from their form, are called “sea-hands” (Ale- 
yonium digitatum). Both of these forms are found abundantly upon the 
bottom of the open North Sea. They are not to be found upon any 
other beds of the sea-flats, and it is very evident that they cannot live 
