MOLLUSCS AS FOOD 



2 93 



and dredgers ', who, from father to son, have carried on the 

 business of an oyster fishery during, it is probable, a period of 



Fig. 1213. Wheeler's Beehive Collector. Much reduced. 



at least two thousand years. It was about A.D. 80 that Julius 

 Agricola first exported oysters from the neighbourhood of the 



Fig. 1214. Whitstable Oyster-Dredger at Work. Dredges on the rail. 



Reculvers to Rome, and for the ancestors of the Whitstable 

 free dredgers Rome was, during about three centuries, their 



VOL. IV. 114 



