+ 
! cultivated product. Let us not imitate their example.—J. A. R. 
t ë 
564 The American Naturalst. [June, 
people have been abusing the promise of the lavish fecundity of nature 
until to-day oysters are extinct in certain places, or rapidly becoming 
so over areas as large as the Chesapeake Bay. e speaks in no uncer- 
tain tones, and from abundance of verified observation and experience, 
in regard to what are the most important steps to be taken in practical 
culture and legislation which shall protect the cultivator and give him 
the reward of his labor. 
The illustrations are selected for the most part from more technical 
memoirs already published by the author and others, and illustrate the 
little volume and its subject admirably. The second plate illustrating 
the relations of the viscera is, however, open to the criticism that the 
‘liver ” is represented ina manner which does not obtain in the oyster — 
at any time in the course of its life. No ducts open upon what may | 
be regarded as the dorsal aspect of the stomach, as seems to be repre- ~ 
sented on this plate. The histological details representing the structur® 
of the gills might also have been more carefully and accurately repre- 
sented than is done in Plate 1. But these are matters of minor 
importance, and‘do not essentially detract from the value of this little 
volume as an epoch-making contribution to the whole subject of the 
oyster industry and oyster culture. It is to be hoped that the advice 
it contains will be heeded by the legislators and the interested public, 
else it may be safely predicted that the center of maximum production, 
ten or twenty years hence, will not be the Chesapeake and its tribu- 
taries, but Long Island Sound, New Jersey, and Delaware Bay will 
become the dominant sources of supply. If the productiveness of 
those regions should fail, we should soon be reduced to paying as dearly 
for our oysters as the English, German, and French do for theirs, and 
to whom the oyster has long since become a luxury that is not within 
the reach of the slender means of the poor. They have already suf- 
fered the penalty for the improvident exploitation and exhaustion of 
the natural supply, and now depend almost wHolly upon the artificially 
