OYSTER-BEDS OF LOUISIANA. 61 



and destructive here than in the waters farther removed from Missis- 

 sippi and Chandeleur sounds. 



In the extreme southern part of the bay there is a very scattering 

 growth and in the mouth of Jack Williams Bayou there occurs a bar of 

 raccoon oysters, partially exposed at low water. Raccoon oysters also 

 occur along the shores between tide marks throughout the length of 

 the bayou and in the small, muddy ditches opening into it, and in the 

 channel are scattered clusters of oysters which are fairly fat and 

 superior in flavor to those which are found on the beds of Grand Pass. 



From the southwest part of Grand Pass a tortuous, narrow, and in 

 some places deep, bayou leads south to a series of shoal lagoons, the 

 entire chain constituting Grecque Bayou. The lagoons have an aver- 

 age depth of about a foot, with a few holes 2 to 3 feet deep in places, 

 and extensive mud-flats around the margins. The bottom is usually 

 very soft. The density varies from 1.0107 in the ponds near the 

 entrance to 1.0119 in those at the end of the chain, the flow of water 

 through the long, narrow communication with Grand Pass being 

 apparently insufficient to compensate for the increased evaporation on 

 the shallow mud-flats. Over the greater part of these lagoons there 

 is a very scattering growth of large and rather good oysters on the 

 mud, and there is also a scattering fringe of raccoon oysters on the 

 edge of the marsh. The oysters in Bayou Grecque are taken by small 

 boats and carried to the schooners in Grand Pass. 



Shrimp Bay and Southeast Jack Williams Bay. — Shrimp Bay lies 

 southeast of Grand Pass, with which it has direct communication by 

 means of the upper part of Jack Williams Bayou. Its depth varies 

 from 1 foot in the northern aud eastern parts to about 1 feet at the 

 southern end, where it opens into Southeast Jack Williams Bay, together 

 with which it has an area of 1.7 square miles. Its density on February 

 3 was 1.0090. This bay contains five oyster-reefs, exposed at low water, 

 with a scattered growth of oysters surrounding each. Near the reefs 

 the bottom is hard from the accumulation of ground-up shells and sand, 

 but elsewhere it is soft, and in the northern half of the bay with a hard 

 substratum of dead shells about a foot beneath the surface. This por- 

 tion of the bay appears to have been at one time an extensive oyster- 

 bed, which has been largely destroyed by an accumulation of mud 

 thrown down, some of the oystermen claim, by the great storm of 1893, 

 and the reefs, which have been already mentioned, aud several patches 

 of oysters along the northeast shore, are now all that remain. There 

 are also oysters in the bight on the eastern side of the bay, scattered 

 more or less sparsely over the mud-flats and near the small islands 

 forming an exposed bar. 



Upon the reefs the oysters are small and of the clustered raccoon 

 type, but in the slightly deeper waters surrounding them there are 

 some single oysters of good shape, but not very fat. In Southeast 

 Jack Williams Bay, which consists of a larger western and a smaller 

 eastern arm, there are very few oysters, although the presence of shells 



