508 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



to us, and the next year the same or perhaps the opposite. By early summer (or later in more 

 northerly latitudes and cooler water), the eggs have ripened in the ovaries of such as are taking 

 the r61e of females for the time being, and gush out into the water in a milky cloud. At the same 

 time spermatozoa are emitted by the males. Both eggs and milt float near the surface of the water 

 and their future depends on an almost immediate and wholly accidental meeting, so that only a 

 very small percentage of the eggs are fertilized before their vitality is lost. Development proceeds 

 rapidly, and in a few hours embryos are hatched and swim about by means of circlets of filaments, 

 called cilia, surrounding them. Undergoing speedy growth and change of form, only a few hours 

 pass before they begin to sink to the bottom. 



During all this time both eggs and embryos are exposed to a great variety of perils. Sudden 

 changes of temperature and storms are liable to destroy them at a stroke, and they form the food 

 of a long list of marine animals. The moiety which survives to be hatched, and then to sink 

 toward a hoped-for resting place, must face a new danger, for their subsequent life depends upon 

 their avoiding on the one hand an oozy bottom, where they would be smothered, and, on the other, 

 the insecurity of shifting sands. It is necessary that the soft and still microscopic embryos find 

 some solid surface, uncoated with slime, where their filaments may take firm hold and make a 

 firm attachment. 



By the time this has been safely accomplished by the " lucky few " out of the crowd of swim- 

 ming embryos, their companions have exhausted their day of life, or met with some fatal mischance. 

 Every moment witnesses a thinning of the ranks, and shows the necessity of the great supplies of 

 eggs put forth by the mother. Even where the embryo has secured a foothold upon some sub- 

 merged pebble, or stranded log, or the surface of an old reef, he is still exposed to the danger of 

 being eaten by crabs and fishes and various other depredators. His danger constantly 

 decreases, however. The fewer perhaps now only a score or so individuals there are left out of 

 the million or two eggs emitted by the one parent, the more carefully nature guards and cares for 

 them. A few months later the surviving oysterlings have been clothed in an armor stout enough 

 to resist all but a small number of enemies, no more in proportion than it falls to the lot of all 

 animals to encounter in the " struggle for existence."* Various circumstances combine to make 

 the settlement and growth of oysters concentrate at certain favorable points. These congrega- 

 tions of oysters, crowding one another side by side, each generation capped and overborne by the 

 settlement of ensuing ones, form great stony masses in shallow inshore waters, called "grounds," 

 "bars," "reefs," or "rocks." Each of these names is appropriate, since the colonies are often 

 widespread, may oppose barriers to navigation, and are likely to become solid masses of rock 

 through excessive growth and the crushing, solidifying, and cementing action of the sea, which 

 grinds down their protuberances and fills their hollows with stony freight. 



2. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF AMERICAN OYSTERS. 



Having seen that, after his brief embryo stage of freedom, the oyster becomes a fixed and 

 motionless creature, growing in reef-like masses or "beds" along the sea margin, let us now 

 sketch the condition of these oyster-beds on the eastern coast of the Union as they appeared when 

 first discovered by Europeans. This will lead to some notice of the use made of them by the 

 native races of the continent, and form a basis for an inquiry as to the effect which the civilization 

 of the country has upon their quantity and distribution. Let us begin at the north. 



GULF OF SAINT LAWRENCE. The Gulf of Saint Lawrence occupies a huge bight, Gasp6 and 

 Anticosti Island on the north and east and Cape Breton on the west. Down in the bottom of the 



* A complete popular account, with illustrations, of this early life of the oyster may be found in the present 

 writer's book "Country Cousins," published by Harper & Brothers, New York. 



