OYSTERS. 247 



application of local fishermen or authorities, and after 

 inquiry. 



As to the general policy of regulating oyster fisheries 

 by close times and otherwise there is much difference of 

 opinion. The evening before the opening of this Exhi- 

 bition (May n), Mr. Huxley delivered a discourse on this 

 question at the Royal Institution, in which he called 

 attention to the fluctuations in the supply of oysters from 

 the principal French beds. These have long been under a 

 system of restrictions far more severe than anything that 

 has been or could be proposed in England ; but the in- 

 crease or falling off in the number of oysters taken (and in 

 many years the variations have been very great and 

 sudden), appears to have no intelligible relation whatever 

 to the rules imposed by the State. In fact, there have 

 been violent fluctuations both ways while the rules and 

 their administration were unchanged. Mr. Huxley's con- 

 clusion is that the abundance or scarcity of oysters depends 

 on causes which cannot be sensibly affected by any restric- 

 tive legislation. All such legislation is in itself objection- 

 able, inasmuch as it creates new offences and tends to 

 make the administration of justice odious, and the burden 

 of proof is always on those who advocate it to show that 

 its utility is so great and manifest as to outweigh the in- 

 convenience. If Mr. Huxley's inferences from the French 

 statistics are right (and I do not myself see the answer to 

 them), the improvement of the oyster fisheries is to be 

 sought, not in multiplying penal laws, which at best are 

 troublesome to enforce and uncertain in their working, but 

 in the judicious encouragement of oyster cultivation. 



