378 THE OCEAN WORLD. 
of various ages, attached to a piece of wood: A being oysters of 
twelve to fifteen months, B five or six months, c three to four months, 
D one to two months, and E oysters twenty days after birth. 
The species of oysters usually eaten are the common oyster 
(Ostrea edulis, Linn.) of our own coasts and the opposite shore, and 
the horsefoot oyster (O. Aippopus, Linn.) On the Mediterranean 
coast are the rose-coloured oyster (O. rosacea, Favanue), and the 
milky oyster (O. Jacteola, Moquin-Tandon), besides the small and 
little-known crested oyster (O. cristata, Born), and the folded oyster 
(O. plicata, Chemnitz). On the Corsican coast is the oyster called 
foliate (O. amellosa, Brocchi). 
There are two principal varieties of the common oyster dredged 
on the French coast, which differ in size and delicacy of flavour. 
These are the Cancale and Ostend oyster. When the first has been 
fed for some time in the oyster: park, and has assumed its greenish 
hue, it is designated the Marenna oyster, from ‘‘ the park” so named 
in the Bay of Seudre. Of this green colour we shall speak else- 
where. 
Who believed Uncle Jack when he told us in our youth of oysters 
growing on trees, and oysters so large that they required to be 
carved like a round of beef—of oysters on the Coromandel coast as 
large as soup-plates? Nevertheless Uncle Jack’s stories were true: 
there are oysters which require carving, and oysters have been 
plucked off trees. In some parts of America they grow very large. 
Virginia possesses nearly 2,000,000 acres of oyster-beds. The sea- 
board of Georgia is famed for its immense supplies ; the whole coast 
of Long Island, extending to 115 miles, is occupied with them, and 
all over the States evidence is to be seen of the estimate in which the 
favoured bivalve is held by the American people. 
Natural oyster-beds are found in bays, estuaries, and other 
sheltered sinuosities of the coast, with shelving and not too rocky 
bottoms, such places being, according to the natural law of produc- 
tion, favourable for the increase of the colony. Such banks abound 
in every sea. In France the oyster-beds of Rochelle, of Rochefort, 
the Isles of Ré and Oleron, the Bay of St. Brieuc, of Cancale, and 
Granville, are famous for the quality of their produce. 
On thé Danish coast there are from forty to fifty oyster-banks, 
situated on the west coast of Schleswig ; the best bed lying between 
the small isles of Sylt, Amron, Fohr, Pelworm, and Nordstrand. At 
attached to the block by means of glue for exhibition. Oysters always attach 
themselves by the back of the rounded shell near to the hinge, as stated at Pp. 373: 
