39^ THE OCEAN WOULD. 



proceeds from a green-coloured infusorial animalcule. Others have 

 hazarded the opinion that it is a disease of the liver in our unfortunate 

 bivalve which produces the colour. Bile secreted in excess by a 

 diseased liver would give a green hue to the parenchyma of the 

 respiratory organs of an animal rendered sick by the exceptional 

 treatment to which it has been subjected. Of these three opinions, 

 says M. Figuier, the first, as we have said, presents the greatest 

 appearance of probability. 



The system of oyster farms, which has worked admirably for the 

 companies themselves, has proved of doubtful utility, so far as the 

 oyster-eating public is concerned, as the following sketch of the 

 Whitstable oyster farms will show. The oyster farm at Whitstable is 

 co-operative in the best sense of the term, and has been in operation 

 for many years. The company possesses large oyster grounds, and 

 a fine fleet of boats kept for the purpose of dredging and planting the 

 beds ; it is established under the Joint-Stock Companies Act, but 

 there is no other way of entrance into it but by birth, as none of the 

 free dredgermen of the town can hold shares. When a man dies his 

 interest in the company dies with him, but his widow, if he leaves 

 one, obtains a pension. The affairs of the company are managed 

 by twelve directors, who are called " the jury." 



" The layings at Whitstable," to summarise Mr. Bertram, " occupy 

 about a mile and a half square ; and the oyster-beds have been so 

 prosperous as to have obtained the name of the ' happy fishing 

 grounds.' Whitstable lies in a sandy bay, formed by a small branch 

 of the Medway, which separates the Isle of Sheppey from the main- 

 land. Throughout this bay, from the town of Whitstable at its 

 eastern extremity to the old town of Faversham, which lies several 

 miles inland, the whole of the estuary is occupied by oyster farms, 

 on which the maritime population, to the extent of 3,000 people 

 and upwards, is occupied ; the sum paid for labour by the various 

 companies being set down at ;^i 60,000 per annum, besides the 

 employment given at Whitstable in building and repairing boats, 

 dredges, and other requisites for the oyster-fishing. The business of 

 the various companies is to feed oysters for the London and other 

 markets, to protect the spawn or floatsome, as the dredgers call it, 

 which is emitted on their own beds, and to furnish, by purchase or 

 otherwise, the new brood necessary to supply the beds which have 

 been taken up for consupiption." 



We have hinted above that in oyster, as in other fisheries, a 

 wasteful spirit of extravagance has hitherto i)revailed. It appears, 



