PROPAGATION OF OYSTERS.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 228, 27 December 1859, Page 4

PROPAGATION OF OYSTERS.

Long as the world has been acquainted with the flavor of oysters, the savants have not as yet discovered the secret of their amours. There is a scientific crown still awaiting the mail who shall tell us the story of the love of the oyster. In spring time and summer, when, as the people say, tlieve is not an ft in the month, the oysters spawn their gelutinous splashes, which the fishermen call 'spat/ The spawn looks like drops of tallow or whitish soup. The spat adhears to loose oyster shells and stones. When examined under a magnifying-glass, there are seen in the spat innumerable little eggs, like ill-made pills, of a brilliant whiteness. As they change, they become compressed, and approach more and more towards the shape of the oyster. Little hairs appear as the egg-cluster breaks up, and the thousands of the brother and sister ostrea swim off to seek their fortunes. When the steady age comes—l ought rather to aay the steady hour— the settling down epoch, the hairs give place to layers of rough shell, and an oyster of experience establishes himself where lie can feed with least risk as serving for food. Microscopists estimate the eggs in a spat by hundreds of thousands. Lewenock counted several hundreds of thousands of eggs in the fecundating folds of the mantle of an oyster spawner. This marvellous fecundity is m-cessary to enable the species to survive the ravages which the spawn sustain from their numerous enemies. The spat is a titbit for fish, crustaceant, worms and shell-fish. The feeders, or tentacles of serpules, balances and polypes, are east forth continually and ply unceaseing'ly to devour young and innocent oysters. When their shells are sufficiently grown to protect them from the nets of these enemies, star-fishes and crabs watch continually for occasions to practise sur-^ pvihals, and whip the soft and succulent bodies of the ostrea from their valves. Many a five-fin-gered star-fish loses a finger in the attempt when the oyster is wide awake and closes his valves upon it with a sudden and powerful snap.