368 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
exceedingly prosperous and was, by the influence of rival merchants, deprived of 
its franchise. Portuguese companies have since had control of the natural ground 
and from lack of financial support have, for the past few years, been unable to promote 
the industry. The crisis in the financial condition of the Portuguese government has 
been in great measure responsible for this decadence, since money is readily invested 
at higher rates and with more speedy profits than in oyster-culture. 
Portuguese cultural methods have always been primitive. Cheapness of product 
has as yet forbidden the introduction of artificial methods of collecting the young. 
The spat occurs naturally and in great quantities throughout the shallow water, 
attaching regularly to gravel, stones, shells, and even to seaweeds, in a way quite 
unlike that of the more delicate French oyster. The spat growing rapidly is, after 
several months, collected, together with its abundant “cultch,” roughly sorted over, 
and sold in baskets as seed for distribution in the tracts of foreshore held in stated 
rental by fishermen. Culture, therefore, like our own, takes place in waters where the 
oysters are not seen and in general little attended to. The mean depth of water in 
culture is about 2 fathoms. The rise and fall of the tide (which becomes as great as 
17 feet at lunar tides, averaging about 8 feet) is taken advantage of in the process of 
collecting the oysters, which is done altogether by hand, as far as the writer could 
ascertain. In the majority of instances the oysters after being raked are cleaned and 
taken to the market at Lisbon, where wholesale dealers arrange shipments for export. 
Locally, as in the United States, oysters are sold either in the shell or removed from 
it by bulk in fluid measure. The former are sold throughout Lisbon by itinerant 
venders, most picturesque and characteristic street types, tall, bronzed, bare- legged 
fishermen, whose cap with tas'seled end hangs down at the side of the head, should- 
ering a stout pole with dependent salver-like baskets. The shell-less oysters are sold 
more cheaply, the price averaging about 2 cents per dozen. Oysters are not highly 
esteemed in Portugal and their use is said to be confined mainly to the lower classes. 
Like the American and unlike the French oysters they are not infrequently given 
over to cooking. 
The living conditions of the Portuguese oysters have in part been already given. 
The water is slightly fresher* than the normal in the French localities, though by no 
means as fresh as that of American oyster-bearing waters. The favorable character 
of the bottom and the general absence of oyster enemies have allowed the culturist 
to scatter the oysters broadcast, without the expense of the wire-gauze cases, which 
have proven so necessary a part of the French industry. Some of the Portuguese 
conditions are curiously similar to those of the “raccoon” oysters of the southern 
Atlantic coast of the United States. The marginal oysters are not infrequently 
exposed to the air and sun heat, and the clustered condition is a usual one. This, 
as in South Carolina, has been largely the result of the muddy and unstable character 
of the marginal foreshore. The gravel and sand do not appear to be sufficiently 
consistent to fix the oysters firmly, and accordingly these appear to cluster in clumps 
of as many as thirty or more individuals. This cluster is apt to gain stability, its 
weight driving the undermost oyster as a wedge into the softer mud and firmly fixing 
it; shiftings of bottom and accumulations of gravel are both serviceable in banking 
around the implanted cluster and rendering its uprootment still more difficult. The 
individual oysters are, in addition, suited to tlieir surroundings, often becoming, on 
U. S. F. C. Bull., 1890, p. 366. 
