74 
EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 
able for tbeir saline flavour when first brought over^ but 
it goes off* after they have been bedded for some time at 
Southampton.* 
It is said, that formerly there were fine oyster-beds 
between Portsmouth, Hayling, and the Isle of Wight, but 
they have been ruined by excessive and indiscriminate 
dredging.f I hear that there is still a considerable 
trade in oysters carried on at Hayling, and also at 
Brading. A bed of oysters was discovered off* Eastbourne 
about three years since, the fish of a very superior and 
delicate flavour. The price was Is. per hundred, but it 
has risen to 25.,J and another large bed, which was valued 
at £5000, was found about three miles off* the mouth of 
Dartmouth harbour, not very long ago. 
The late Duke of Northumberland most successfully 
introduced oyster cultivation on the Northumbrian coast. 
They were imported and established there, and the year 
before last the fisheries were allowed to commence, when 
they were found to have succeeded admirably. 
Messrs. Forbes and Hanley state that since the intro- 
duction of steamboats and railroads, considerable quan- 
tities of sea-oysters are brought from Falmouth and 
Helford, in Cornwall, also from Scotland and Ireland ; 
the Irish oysters coming mostly from Carlingford, Ma- 
lahide, Lissadell, Burran, Arklow, and Wexford. The 
Carlingford oysters are well known, and they are dredged 
by boats, each manned by from three to five men, who 
take about fifty dozen per day. Each boat deposits its 
oysters within a ring of small stones, till sold to dealers, 
the place being marked by a buoy.* A yearly fee of 5s. 
IS paid by each boat to the Marquis of Anglesey. The 
* Illustrated London News. f ‘ Field/ Note by Editor. 
X ‘ Field/ February 27, 1864. 
