The chief centre in England for the distribution of oysters is Billingsgate, and the countless thousands of bushels of this molluscous dainty which find their way through “Oyster Street” to this Fish Exchange mark the everlasting demand. Oysters are sold by the bushel, and every measure is made to pay a toll of fourpence, and another sum of a like amount for carriage to the shore. All oysters sold at Billingsgate are liable to this eightpenny tax. The London oysters—and I regret to say it, for there is nothing finer than a genuine oyster—are sophisticated in the cellars of the buyers, by being stuffed with oatmeal till the flavour is all but lost in the fat. The flavour of oysters—like the flavour of all other animals—depends on their feeding. The fine _goût_ of the highly-relished Prestonpans oysters is said to be derived from the fact of their feeding on the refuse liquor which flows from the saltpans of that neighbourhood. I have eaten of fine oysters taken from a bank that was visited by a rather questionable stream of water; they were very large, fat, and of exquisite flavour, the shell being more than usually well filled with “meat.” What the London oysters gain in fat by artificial feeding they assuredly lose in flavour. The harbour of Kinsale (a receptacle for much filth) used to be remarkable for the size and flavour of its oysters. The beds occupied the whole harbour, and the oysters there were at one time very plentiful, and far exceeded the Cork oysters in fame (and they have long been famous); but they were so overfished as to be long since used up, much to the loss of the Irish people, who are particularly fond of oysters, and delight in their “Pooldoodies” and “Red-banks” as much as the English and Scotch do in their “Natives” and “Pandores.”