OYSTER* 559 
oysters, and of the regulations enforced by the ad- 
miralty court respecting the fishery, viz. 
“ In the month of May the oysters cast their 
spawn, (which the dredgers call their spats,) it is 
like to a drop of a candle, and about the bigness of 
a halfpenny. The spat cleaves to stones, old oyster- 
shells, pieces of wood, and such like things, at the 
bottom of the sea, which they call cultch. It is pro- 
bably conjectured, that the spat in twenty-four 
hours begins to have a shell. 
“ In the month of May, the dredgers (by the law 
of the admiralty court) have liberty to catch all 
mantler of oysters of what size soever. When they 
have taken them, with a knife they gently raise the 
small brood from the cultch, and then they throw 
the cultch in again, to preserve the ground for the 
future, unless they be so newly spat that they can- 
not be safely severed from the cultch ; in that case 
they are permitted to take the stone, or shell, &c., 
that the spat is upon, one shell having many times 
twenty spats* 
“ After the month of May, it is a felony to carry 
away the cultch, and punishable to take any other 
oysters, unless it be those of size, (that is to say) 
about the bigness of a half-crown piece, or when, 
the two shells being shut, a fair shilling will rattle 
between them. 
t£ The places where the oysters are chiefly catched, 
are called the Pont-Burnham, Malden, and Colne 
waters : the latter taking its name from the river of 
