Spat on Odd Places; Meat to Shell. 189 



ever, is a most unusual case. Mr. Kemp, of Wbitstable, states* 

 he has seen oysters there with two rings of growth in a year, 

 thus throwing doubts on Buckland's idea of one ring of growth 

 taking place annually. 



Spat on odd Places. It is a matter of everyday experience 

 to the oystermen that the ** floating-spat " seems to prefer clean 

 surfaces whereon to fix itself. Some of these are certainly 

 quaint. In the Buckland Museum, South Kensington, there is 

 a collection of such, most of them having been obtained in Kent 

 and Essex waters. Among others we may notice on a parasol, 

 on and within a bottle, on a housemaid's flat-iron, on a ther- 

 mometer, on a clay pipe, and on the back of a live crab, &c. 



Meat to Shell. Probably the last of Buckland's observations 

 on oysters was a short contributionf on relation of meat to shell. 

 We extract a few of his figures relating to the Thames estuarine 

 production. 



The Royal Whitstables ) Meat to shell 



Colchesters (including Pyefleets ?) ... \ as 1 to 4. 



Roach Rivers and Herne Bays (sorts not 



stated) 



French and Portuguese laid at Bright- 



Meat to shell 

 as 1 to 5. 



lingsea ... 



Other oysters from various sources, home and abroad, he enum- 

 erates as ranging from 1 to 6, grading upwards to 1 to 20. 



In what precedes, with a few exceptions, we have confined 

 remarks to natives (Ostrea edulis). But Portuguese and Ameri- 

 can oysters (0. angulata and 0. virginica) now claim consider- 

 able attention on some of our oyster grounds. This brings up 

 subjects connected with oyster culture and artificial propaga- 

 tion, which we here refrain from entering into. For the oyster 

 industry methods in vogue at our different stations, and as 

 compared with continental ones, this has been critically sum- 



* Land and Water, Oct., 1880. 



t Land and Water, 16th Oct., 1880 he died two months after. 



