viii INTRODUCTION. 



boat over the beds. As soon as they are taken 

 from their native beds, they are stored in pits, 

 made for the purpose, furnished with sluices, 

 through which at the spring tides the water is 

 suffered to flow. This water being stagnant soon 

 becomes green in warm weather, and in a few days 

 afterwards the oysters acquire the same tinge, 

 which increases their value in the market. They 

 do not, however, attain their perfection, and become 

 fit for sale, till the end of six or eight weeks. They 

 are not considered proper for the table till they are 

 about a year and a half old, so that the brood of 

 one spring are not to be taken for sale till at least 

 the September twelve months afterwards. 



The more delicate and smallest kinds are called 

 natives, and are used for eating; the coarser kinds 

 are called the deep-sea oysters, and are dredged for, 

 and are used for cooking. There are several kinds 

 of oysters. Of the former, which we receive from 

 Milton, Colchester, and the vicinity of those places, 

 the Ostend, Anglo-Dutch, Arcachon, and the cele- 

 brated Rocher de Cancale and Burton Bindons 

 Red Bank are the best. 



A very singular circumstance, not generally 

 known, is that the finest oysters we have in Eng- 

 land and Ireland both come from a place with the 

 same name, viz. from Burnham, Essex, in England, 

 and from Burnham, co. Clare, in Ireland. Of the 

 deep-sea oysters those that are unfed are the best, 

 as their flavour is stronger and their flesh is firmer. 

 Real lovers of oysters maintain that no oyster is 

 worth eating till it is quite two years old. Their 

 age is known by their shell, just the same as the 

 age of a tree is known by its bark, or a fish by its 

 scale, and the smaller the oyster the finer its flavour 



