134 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



" The European oyster, Ostrea edulis, is hermaphrodite, but in the American form, 

 virginana, the sexes are separate. While rearing the young of this form from the 

 eggs of Woods Holl, with Mr. Harrison of the Johns Hopkins University, we found a 

 specimen apparently containing both eggs and spermatozoa. On sectioning parts of 



the generative gland, I found it to be hermaphrodite, as was suspected late in 



June, near the end of the breeding season." 



Prince further states: 



"In my investigations upon the Pacific coast in the Dominion cruiser 'Quadra,' I 

 captured many small embryo oysters several miles from any known oyster areas." 



This is possible — they may have been carried by currents, instead 

 of wandering by their own swimming powers. But on the other hand 

 there is no proof that they were oyster larvae. At that time the larva 

 of the oyster had not been distinguished from those of the commonest 

 bivalves associated with the oyster, not to mention the scores of others. 

 There is no mention of place, date, how taken, or how recognized to be 

 oyster larvae. If the author had first learned to recognize those in the 

 water by comparison with those in the pallial cavity of the parent he would 

 have discovered that, like the English oyster, but unlike the eastern Amer- 

 ican species, the British Columbian oyster guards its young for a time, and 

 maybe this would have led him to observe also that it is hermaphrodite. 



Moore (1897) writes: 



"According to Professor Schiedt, a hermaphrodite oyster occurs on our north- 

 west coast, the specimens examined coming from the state of Washington, the exact 

 locality not being mentioned. Sexually therefore, this species resembles the common 

 oyster of Europe." 



