Enemies of the Oyster.

The oyster has many marine enemies. The sea-urchin, for instance, feeds on it. The five-finger is a deadly foe. It clutches the oyster in its long fingers, and holds on some times for days, till the mollusc opens, when the five-finger ­instantly injects what is supposed to be a stupefying liquid, followed by the creature's stomach, which shoots into the open shells and devours the oyster. The five-finger, or common star-fish, must be distinguished from the multi-rayed star-fish or sun star-fish, which is very different on close inspection and much larger, and has twelve rays, usually. The Museum at Whitstable contains a perfect star-fish with eleven rays. I have heard that the sun star-fish devours the five-finger species, though that is little consolation for the oyster.

When the oyster is ill or weak, and unable to keep his shells closed, the crab secures a meal without trouble, and is even believed to sometimes craftily insert a stone to prop open the shells of the healthy oyster while he rakes out its body. The dog-whelk possesses a file-like weapon with which it bores a hole in the oyster shell, and inserts an instrument, through which it sucks out the juiciest part of its prey. A long-continued hard frost is almost sure to destroy a great many oysters, to avoid which, some years ago, an Essex oyster grower placed a large number of oysters in the Herne Bay swimming bath, in the hope of saving their lives, though the result was not very satisfactory.

Oyster beehives.

Mr. E. F. Wheeler, of Herne Bay, has patented an ingenious arrangement made of earthenware, of the size and appearance of an old-fashioned beehive pierced with holes and filled with common oyster and scallop shells, into which spat enters freely and remains till collected. Curiously enough, chitters, the fishermen's name for young barnacles, which grow freely even on oysters themselves, do not find their way inside these patent beehives, settling on the outside only. In other parts of the world bundles of faggots, anchored about a foot off the ground, have been found successful in attracting the spat, and in France tiles coated with whitening, lime, or cement, for the easy removal of the spat, are found to be advantageous in this respect.

Wired Fascines in Norway.

Two miles from Bergen, in Norway, there is an enclosed artificial oyster-breeding lake, where another method of cultivation is employed. Stout wires are stretched across the lake below water-level, and from these wires thinner wires are suspended to which birch faggots or fascines are attached about one foot from the ground. As these birch faggots do not last very long, the owner proposes to use juniper branches in future. He abandoned the use of tiles some years ago. Sometimes a raft on barrels is moored out in the lake, on which men can stand to haul up the faggots which are fastened to it. The area of this lake is about ten thousand square yards, and the sea water in it is kept up to the desired level by sluice gates. The requisite addition of fresh water comes off the land and in the form of rain, the lack of this supply lately having prevented the oysters fattening. In a good year this lake supplies about a million oysters for market.

The northerly situation of Norway accounts for the spat there not being produced till the end of August and beginning of September. The oyster is the same species as that cultivated at Whitstable, ostrea edulis. The beds are closed from April to October, and the depth of water over them is about twenty-five feet, with a temperature of 16^c at the bottom and 24^c to 25^c at a level of six feet from the top. There is another bed, near Bergen, which is only supplied with sea water at high tide in rough weather, by washing over the rocks which intervene.

Wherever oyster cultivation is carried on, the great point seems to be that whatever material is used for the spat to settle on, it must be quite clean and free from slime or any impurity, to insure close and steady adhesion. Even glass does not present too smooth or slippery a surface. Indeed the oyster seems to be quite indifferent to what material it thrives on so long as it is clean, and some of the illustrations show to what strange things oysters have been found adhering. There was a reference in The Daily Telegraph, 27th December, 1901, to the old battleships of the Turkish Navy, and it was stated that the dock hands where the vessels are lying, occasionally enjoy a good meal of mussels and oysters taken from the bottoms of those vessels.

Fattening Oysters.

In order to afford fattening for the best oysters, the soil on which they lie must be of a particular character, and the water that covers them must be neither too fresh nor too salt, but a due admixture of the two. The Whitstable fisheries have the requisite advantages of both soil and water, and the great superiority of " Royal Whitstable natives" over almost all other oysters is mainly owing to these advantages. The “native " is the most hardy, as well as the best of all oysters, in the opinion of competent judges. It has a hard, symmetrical, pearly shell, whereas many other oysters are said to have a rim of chalk round the inside. The "Royals" are small and specially selected from the "Natives," and hence their high excellence and price.