_Ostrea lurida_, the toothsome little native oyster which years ago was so abundant at Yaquina Bay, affording support to many families, has decreased in numbers to such an alarming extent that unless some radical measures are soon taken to prevent, the native oyster industry of this locality will be a thing of the past. This decrease in the size and numbers appears to be due to several causes. In the first place, there has been a very persistent tonging on a somewhat limited area. This might have been counterbalanced by proper precautions to insure a future supply, but, with characteristic lack of foresight, such precautions have been neglected, and the beds have been culled year after year, until the comparatively few oysters now marketed from Yaquina Bay are of very questionable size. Each oysterman has two acres of flats for private use. Three natural beds in the bay afford sources of supply for these private beds. The larger oysters tonged on the natural beds are marketed, and the smaller specimens spread on the private ground referred to. Beyond strewing clean shells on these private beds, no provision is made to collect the swimming embryos during the spawning season, and multitudes must be carried away and lost. The writer has urged upon the oystermen the need of collectors of brush or tile, by the use of which the oysters which they have acquired may be largely increased in numbers, and will endeavor to demonstrate, by the use of tile collectors, that hundreds of young spat may be saved and raised to marketable age. Our native oyster structurally and physiologically resembles the European oyster (_Ostrea edulis_), and, like it, could be propagated in artificial oyster ponds. The practicability of such work on the West American coast depends, of course, on the market price of the resulting product as compared with the outlay required for labor. MALAY FOLKLORE. BY R. CLYDE FORD. The Malay is an Oriental, and, of course, possesses a goodly number of superstitions and old wives' fables, but he does not hug them to his soul like some of the other peoples of the East--the Chinaman, for instance, who lives only by favor of gods, ghosts, goblins, and devils. The Malay lives in spite of spirits, good or bad, and tries to be a model Mohammedan at the same time. With bold assurance and positiveness, he puts his trust in Allah; but, after all, this does not keep him from cherishing, on the sly, a knowledge of a few uncanny, hair-raising beliefs any more than to be a devout churchman with us removes one from the occult influences of stolen dishcloths, overturned saltcellars, and the phases of the moon.