In our own country the Whitstable Company has been most successful. “The layings at Whitstable,” Mr. Bertram tells us, “occupy about a mile and a half square, and the oyster‐beds have been so prosperous as to have obtained the name of the ‘happy fishing grounds.’ Whitstable lies in a sandy bay formed by a small branch of the Medway, which separates the Isle of Sheppey from the mainland. Throughout this bay, from the town of Whitstable at its eastern extremity to the old town of Faversham, which lies several miles inland, the whole of the estuary is occupied by oyster‐ farms, on which the maritime population, to the extent of 3,000 people and upwards, is occupied, the sum paid for labour by the various companies being set down at £160,000 per annum, besides the employment given at Whitstable in building and repairing boats, dredges, and other requisites for the oyster‐fishing. The business of the various companies is to feed oysters for the London and other markets, to protect the spawn or flotsam, as the dredgers call it, which is emitted on their own beds, and to furnish, by purchase or otherwise, the new brood necessary to supply the beds which have been taken up for consumption.” The little Bay of Pont, on the Essex coast, a piece of water sixteen miles long by three wide, now gives employment to 150 or more boats, the crews of which are exclusively employed in obtaining brood oysters from eighteen months to two years old to supply the oyster farmers. The Thames, or “native” system, is as follows:—Every year there is a regular examination of the beds, which are so carefully dredged that almost every individual oyster is examined. The younger ones are placed where they can thrive best, the same being true of all grades. Dead and sickly oysters are removed, and star‐fish and all kinds of enemies killed. [Illustration: THE SCALLOP (_Pecten_).]