HISTORY OF THE OYSTER. 



and the adjoining coast, or Richborough and Re- 

 culver, oysters are got in great plenty, and are the 

 most delicious that can be taken ; but as the beds do 

 not afford native oysters sufficient for the demand, 

 large quantities of small ones, called ' brood/ are 

 annually collected from different parts of the sur- 

 rounding sea, even from the Land's End in Cornwall, 

 from Scotland, and from France, in order to increase, 

 and be ameliorated of their saltness by the constant 

 flow of fresh water from two great rivers, the Thames 

 and the Medway. It must therefore be admitted 

 that, although oysters are found round all the coast, 

 yet those of the bay of the Roman Rutupise, or 

 Richborough, may justly claim the preference of all 

 others." 



From Bishop Sprat's account of oysters given in 

 the ' History of the Royal Society/ republished in 

 Latin by Dr. Lister in his ' Hist. An. Angl./ copied 

 from Dale's ' History of Harwich ' by Pennant in his 

 ' British Zoology/ and since by Prof. Forbes, I shall 

 only quote, to show that, probably from the beds 

 having been over -fished since the bishop's time, the 

 oysters now spawn much later than they did formerly. 

 This subject will be referred to again in the course, of 

 the work more fully. The bishop states, " that in the 

 mounth of May oysters cast their spawn (which the 

 dredgers call spat) : it is like to a drop of a candle, 

 and about the bigness of a halfpenny. . . . 'Tis probably 



