126 THE AUSTRALIAN OYSTER. 



young oysters. Warmtli and an unvarying temperature, a suitable admit- 

 tance of fresh and sea water, and the absence of sedimentary accumulations 

 are all necessary for the production and growth of diatoms ; and in our 

 waters diatoms, as I have pointed out, compose nine-tenths of the food of 

 the oyster. The probable cause of the failure of Professor Rice's experiments 

 to artificially propagate oysters was the accumulation of sediment on the 

 bottoms of the ponds in which his experiments were tried. So great was the 

 sediment that the greater part of the infusoria in the ponds in which the 

 young oysters lived must have been buried ; and what oyster ova escaped 

 suffocation by the sediment were deprived of the food necessary for their 

 existence. His chances of success would have been better had be followed 

 the Prench culturist's system of ditching or trenching. The sediments would 

 then have settled about the borders, and left the central portions of his ponds 

 clear for the experiment." 



Publications consulted in the preparation of this Pamphlet. 



Report Royal Commission of Inqiiiry into the fisheries of New South 



Wales, 1880. 

 Sundry Papers, by Alexander Oliver, Esquire, M.A. 



P^ish and Pisheries of New South "Wales. Reverend J. E. Tenison-Woods. 

 Mammaha — Recent and Extinct. A. AV. Scott, M.A. 

 Zoology. H. Alleyne Nicholson, M.D., P.G.S., &c., &c. 

 Dictionary of Dates. Heaton. 

 Early History of New Zealand. Brett. 

 Publications, Liunean Society. 

 Reports of Parliamentary Debates. 

 Hansard. 



Reports of Commissioners of Pisheries, New South "Wales. 

 Report, Royal Commission on Oyster Culture, 187G. 

 Report, Select Committee of the Legislative Assembly on the "Working of 



the Pisheries Act, 1883. 

 Report, Select Committee of the Legislative Assembly on the "Working of 



the Pisheries Act, 1889. 

 Report, Commissioner of Pisheries, Queensland, 1888. 



[Four Plates and Maps.] 



