LOCATION OF OYSTER BEDS. 731 



related to the genus Gothurnia; all of the forms built tubes for themselves. I also noticed several 

 forms of bell animalcules, the swarmers of which would become available as food for the Oysters 

 lying in the vicinity. 



" The diatoms did not seem to me to be more abundant in the headwaters than in the open creek. 

 There was one moss animal of remarkable character, which I found in the headwaters only. This 

 creature was very abundant, and no doubt its embryos, like those of the infusoria referred to, were 

 available as food. 



"Of free-swimming infusorians, I noticed a number of genera; one especially attracted my 

 iitteutiou from its snake like appearance and singularly rapid contortions ; it had a tuft of vibrating 

 hairs or cilia at the head end in close relation with the mouth. Another more abundant type was 

 the curious genus JEuplotes, with a thick shell inclosing the soft protoplasm of the body; the latter 

 was of an oval form, flat beneath and rounded on the back, so that the resemblance when the 

 large foot-like cilia were in motion, carrying the animal about, was strikingly like a very minute 

 tortoise, the resemblance being heightened when the animal was viewed from the side. 



"Kod-like algae of minute size, the larvae of Crustacea, especially the vast numbers of extremely 

 small larval Copepoda, must enter as a perceptible factor into the food supply of the Oyster. 



" There is no doubt but that the comparatively quiescent condition of the headwaters of these 

 inlets and creeks, available as oyster-planting grounds, are more favorable to the propagation of 

 minute life than the open bay or creeks, where the temperature is lower and less constant. Prac- 

 tically, this is found to be true, for oystermen seem to be generally agreed that Oysters ' fatten' 

 more rapidly, that is, feed more liberally in the headwaters — blind extremities of the creeks — than 

 elsewhere. This notion of the oystermen is in agreement with my own observations during the past 

 year. Oystermen also assert that Oysters 'fatten' more rapidly in shallow waters than in deep 

 ones, a point upon which I made but few observations ; but such as I did make tended to confirm 

 such an opinion. In illustration I may contrast the condition of the Oysters in the pond leased by 

 the commission at Saint Jerome's and those dredged off Point Lookout, in twenty or thirty feet of 

 water, on the 3d day of October, 1880. The Oysters in the pond, by the middle or end of September, 

 were in good condition as to flesh, and marketable, while those from deeper water off Point Lookout, 

 and but little later in the season, were still extremely poor, thin, and watery, and utterly unfit for 

 market. These differences in condition, it seems to me, are to be attributed in a great measure to 

 differences of temperature and the abundance of food, but mainly to the latter." 



These observations give us some hints regarding the advantages arising from the cultiva- 

 tion of Oysters in more or less stagnant water, in which, as in the French parks or claires, an 

 abundance of microscopic life would be generated in consequence of a nearly uniform temperature, 

 higher in the early autumn months at least than the waters of the open sea, where cold currents 

 also would tend to make it still less uniform and thus interfere with the generation of the minute 

 food of the Oyster. In other words, it would appear that the effect of the French method is to 

 furnish the best conditions for the rapid and constant propagation of an immense amount of 

 microscopic food well adapted to nourish the Oyster. That unlike Oysters exposed to a rapid flow 

 of water on a bottom barren of life they grow and quickly come into a salable condition. 



Situations best adapted poe oyster cuLTtrEB. — In this country narrow coves and 

 inlets with comparatively shallow water appear to furnish the best conditions for the nutrition 

 and growth of Oysters; and according to my own experience these are the places where we act- 

 ually find minute animal and vegetable life in the greatest abundance, and, as might have 

 been expected, the Oysters planted in such situations appear to be in good condition early in 

 the autumn, long before those which are found in deeper and more active water, where their 



