132 DESTRUCTIVE INCREASE IN NUMBERS. 



ly due to the attacks of this five -fingered foe. At Portland, however,' 

 where many southern oysters are laid down every year, I heard little com- 

 plaint. This immunity is probably due to 'the fact that no young oysters 

 are planted here, or grow naturally ; and also to the fact that the beds 

 are made upon muddy flats, in shallower water than star-fishes enjoy. 

 The same is true of the whole of Massachusetts Bay, except Wellfleet, 

 where the planters count sea-stars among the enemies, but secondary to 

 the three or four species of mollusks that prey upon the planted beds. 



South of Cape Cod, however, where oysters spawn and grow naturally, 

 and beds of cultivated oysters are raised from eggs and infancy, star-fishes 

 are plentiful. All of the shores of Buzzard's Bay are infested with them, 

 and from there to the western extremity of Long Island Sound they do 

 enormous damage annually to the oyster interests — a damage probably 

 not over-estimated at $250,000 a year. The south shore of Long Island 

 and the bay of New York are less afflicted. Their attacks are not uniform 

 and continuous, it appears, but vary with years, the time of the year, and 

 other circumstances. A steady increase, however, has been observed in 

 their numbers wherever oyster cultivation has been carried on for any 

 considerable length of time. The planters at Providence, New Haven, 

 and Norwalk, whose memories go back for twenty-five years or more, re- 

 late that in their early days this plague was not regarded as of any conse- 

 quence, and that the star-fishes are steadily increasing. Such a report is 

 no more than we should expect, in view of the enormous increase of the 

 food afforded them by oyster-culture. 



There have occurred times in the past, nevertheless, as now happens 

 at intervals of a few years, when an excessive crowd of star-fishes invaded 

 the beds. Such a disastrous visitation was witnessed in the Providence 

 River, Rhode Island, about 1858. The star-fishes came in "sudden droves 

 which burned up everything." The planting -grounds were mainly on 

 Great Bed, about three miles below the city of Providence, and of all 

 this extensive tract only two acres escaped, owing their safety to the fact 

 that just before that they had been partially buried under a layer of 

 sunken sea-weed and drifted matter. Another of the planters had his 

 heaviest bed between Field's Point and Starvegoat Island (which probably 

 were not long ago connected), where the low tide left them so nearly bare 

 that his men could pick up the star-fishes, while his rivals had no means 

 of combating them in the deeper water. In the general scarcity that en- 

 sued he made large profits from this rescued bed, and got a start to which 

 he owes a large part of his present eminence in the New England trade. 



So complete was the destruction caused by this visit, that the State 



