560 
OYSTER. 
Colne, which passeth by Colne-Chester, gives the 
name to that town, and runs into a creek of the sea 
at a place called the Hythe, being the suburbs of 
the town. This brood and other oysters they carry 
to creeks of the sea, at Brickel-sea, Mersey, Langno, 
Fingrego, Wivenho, Tolesbury and Saltcoase, and 
there throw them into the channel, which they call 
their beds or layers, where they grow and fatten, 
and in two or three years the smallest brood will be 
oysters of the size aforesaid. 
“ Those oysters which they would have green 
they put into pits about three feet deep in the salt 
marshes, which are overflowed only at spring tides, 
to which they have sluices, and let in the salt-water 
until it is about a foot and a half deep. These pits, 
from some quality in the soil co-operating with the 
heat of the sun, will become green, and communi- 
cate their colour to the oysters that are put into 
them, in four or five days ; though they commonly 
let them continue there six weeks or two months, 
in which time they will be of a dark green. To 
prove that the sun operates in the greening, Toles- 
bury pits will green only in summer ; but that the 
earth hath the greater power, Brickel-sea pits green 
both winter and summer ; and for a further proof, 
a pit within a foot of a greening pit will not green ; 
and those that did green very well, will in time lose 
their quality. 
“The oysters, when the tide comes in, lie with 
their hollow shell downwards, and when it goes 
