viii INTRODUCTION TO FIRST EDITION. 



as it is excellent, will grow more scarce, and a branch 

 of industry will be cut off, which employs a large 

 amount of labor and of capital and so contributes to 

 the welfare of the State, the region, and the country. 

 The interior as well as the seaboard, the farmer as well 

 as the oysterman, will be injured unless some remedy 

 is found. 



The author of this volume is well known in all^ 

 scientific circles as an accurate, clear-sighted and trust- 

 worthy observer. His papers are received and quoted 

 by the best authorities in every place where the study 

 of natural history is carried on. Not only can he see 

 with his trained eye and powerful glasses, more than 

 most people, but he can state distinctly and without 

 any deviation from the exact truth, what he sees, and 

 what he thinks of what he sees. His life has been 

 devoted to the careful observation of the forms and 

 changes of form in living beings. 



To the study of the oyster he has devoted a large 

 part of his time for more than ten years past, having 

 been encouraged to do so by the Johns Hopkins 

 University, in which he is an honored professor, and 

 by the legislature of the State of Maryland, which he 

 served as an oyster commissioner in 1883-4. He can 

 hold his own not only among naturalists, but also 

 among practical men. He has dredged in every part 



