m enis TEETER: nae 
= 
1894.] Editorials. 939 
however, the perversity of an artificial taste enters. Many people must 
have them white. Such persons prefer a comparatively fresh water 
oyster, as the Maurice River Coves of the Delaware and those of the 
upper Chesapeake. Also, if they are not fat they must be made so. 
To accomplish these two most undesirable ends, the oysters are supplied 
with fresh water so gradually as not to kill them immediately. They 
lose the russet tint of health if they have it, and become swelled up 
by endosmosis. Their flavor is destroyed and is replaced by one that 
strongly reminds one of that of the leueomaines produced in the stomach 
by indigestion. "The oysters are thoroughly sickened, and in this state 
are sold and eaten in large numbers by multitudes who do not know 
the flavor of that most excellent molluse, a healthy salt water Ostrea 
virginica. 
—Tuis year was very wet during the spring in the Eastern States, 
and this period was followéd by one of the severest draughts known in 
our history, which is now, fortunately, broken. The heat of the sum- 
mer was nearly or quite equal to that of 1876. Whether these peculiar 
conditions be the cause or not, the scarcity in the same region of batra- 
chians, reptiles and birds during the past season has been exceptional. 
