2C8 



OSTPtEA. OYSTER. 



Class VI. 



unless they be so newly spat, that they cannot 

 be safely severed from the cultch ; in that 

 case they are permitted to take the stone or 

 shell, &c. that the spat is upon, one shell 

 having many times twenty spats. 



' After tlie month of ]\Iai/, it is felony to 

 carry away the cultch, and punishable to take 

 any other oysters, unless it be those of size, 

 (that is to say) about the bigness of an half- 

 crown piece, or ^hen the two shells being 

 shut, a fair shilling will rattle between them. 



' The places where these oysters are chiefly 

 catcht, are called the Pont-BurnJunn, Mai- 

 den, and Colnc waters ; the latter taking its 

 name from the river of Colne, which passeth 

 by Colnt-Chcster, gives the name to that 

 town, and runs into a creek of the sea, at a 

 place called the Hythe, being the suburbs of 

 the town. 



' This brood and other oysters they can-y to 

 creeks of the sea, at Brkkel-Sea, Mersey^ 

 Langno, Fiugrcgo, JFiveuho, Toksbury, and 

 Saltcoase, and there throw them into the 

 channel, which they call their beds or layers, 

 where they grow and fatten, and in two or 

 three years the smallest brood will be oysters 

 of the size aforesaid. 



' Those oysters which they would have green, 



