The Rutupine oyster of Roman times still remains, as the “Whitstable native” of our own day, the prime favourite, and the cultivation of him here employs some three thousand people. We shall see the fishing-grounds to better advantage on having left Whitstable behind and ascending the cliffs of Tankerton. They are not lofty cliffs, but they do assuredly command a fine view, out over this shallow sea at the entrance of the Swale. There, where at low water you perceive the long “Street Stones” stretching out to sea, many of the eighty-five or more of the Whitstable oyster-fleet will, at the beginning of August, when the season begins, generally be seen going to their work of dredging up the young oysters, so far away as Margate, presently to return with the spoils of their dredge-nets, for laying down in these Whitstable grounds. Others are engaged in dredging for the mature oysters, ready for the market. It takes seven years for the Whitstable natives to reach maturity, and they do so only to perfection in this patch of shallow water, some two miles square. There are many theories to account for the especial virtues that reside in these exceptionally favoured waters; but the generally received explanation of the undoubted fact is that the shallowness of the water permits it to be readily warmed by the sun, and that the streams descending from the land keep the sea-bottom free from mud. The Colchester native, from the shores of Essex, has a great reputation, but he is often dredged up and taken to finally mature in Whitstable waters. [Illustration: WHITSTABLE: THE OLD LIGHTHOUSE AND THE OYSTER FLEET.] The natural history of the oyster is interesting. There is, for one thing, no “race-suicide” about what would-be eloquent journalists were once used to term the “succulent bivalve,” for it has been estimated that each oyster produces 276,000 little ones. It will thus be readily supposed that it takes all the efforts of the busy dredgers to prevent over-population. But the oyster has many enemies, from his birth upwards. Beginning as “spat,” or spawn, in June or July, the young swim about for a while, a prey for everything else that swims. They then settle down to grow shells, at the rate of one inch in diameter every year, for three years, after which the growth is slower. Meanwhile, sand, mud, and weeds, but especially crabs and starfish, slay the oysters in hundreds of thousands; and frosts often cause great havoc, that in the winter of 1890–91 being responsible for £15,000 damage. But the starfish is the oyster’s worst enemy. He spreads two or three of his arms over the upper shell of the oyster and places the others firmly on the ground, his position being such that his central orifice, or mouth, is at the edge of the shell at the point farthest from the hinge. Then he applies a steady pull. In course of time the oyster gets tired, his big muscle gradually relaxes, and the shell reluctantly opens. The rest is silence.