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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLIY 



Having to leave for Montreal by the twentieth, it ap- 

 peared that the best thing left for me to do was to plan 

 an experiment for the winter. I had three strong wire 

 baskets made— two feet square by three inches deep and 

 lids to fasten over— in which I placed perhaps three to 

 four hundred small, selected, living oysters having one 

 or more minute dark spat upon each shell, surrounded 

 with circular lead-pencil marks for convenience in rec- 

 ognition. These baskets were connected by a long rope 

 and put down in a deep channel between Hog and Bird 

 Islands, presumably out of the way of fishermen, ice- 

 shoves, etc. I expected the small dark spat, which varied 

 from 1 to 4 mm. in height, to grow to about the size of 

 one's thumb-nail during the winter and spring, as this 

 was the size of the smallest white spat I recollected hav- 

 ing seen upon first arriving at Malpeque the previous 

 spring. The first thing I did the succeeding spring was 

 to go and grapple for these baskets, but despite every 

 effort they could not be found. The marks of the rope 

 and baskets could be observed on the bottom, and the 

 suspicion was near that some curious fisherman, in set- 

 ting lobster traps in the early spring, had found them 

 and taken possession for the rope— an illustration of the 

 immediate short-sighted petty-selfishness and improvi- 

 dent disregard of impending wholesale benefits of many 

 fishermen. 



The next thing that suggested itself was to look for 

 spat of the previous autumn on the shells where I col- 

 lected those for the preceding experiment, and I was 

 surprised to find dark spat still there, that had appar- 

 ently not grown a bit or changed in color during the 

 winter. There were fewer of them— many having died 

 and lost the upper valve or even both valves were gone, 

 leaving sometimes a patch or rim to indicate where a 

 spat had been attached. The largest dark spat collected 

 the previous autumn measured 6 mm., and the largest 

 found the next spring was 8 mm. in height. They re- 

 tained their dark metallic luster with radiating ridges 



