Our Ipswich oysters most likely came from the celebrated layings in the Colne, so there was no heresy in singing their praises. Many another place, and Whitstable above all others, is famous for its oysters, but only at Colchester are the layings the property of the Corporate body, only on the Colne is the development of our old friend the "succulent bivalve" officially watched from the time when it is no bigger than "a drop from a tallow candle" to that at which it conforms to the dimensions of the municipal model in silver. Only at Colchester is it eaten, or are they eaten, with a just combination of civic ceremony and appreciative abandon. Colchester oysters, indeed, have but one drawback. They are not, in these days of rapid transport, so cheap as some epicures of scanty purse might desire. For that matter good oysters are seldom to be found at a moderate price in the old world. Australia is the oyster-lover's paradise. There, in any little bay, rock-oysters may be broken off in blocks, opened, and eaten out of hand; and one orders them not by the dozen, but by the plate, which holds eighteen or twenty, at the modest price of one shilling. Oysters were a distinct consolation during these manoeuvres--be it hoped the military character of the starting point has not passed out of mind--to those officers who mourned the futility and the cost of the operations by land: they were a sheer joy to those who were indifferent on the military question. But there were manoeuvres all the same, and they involved many journeys by motor-car and by bicycle to all parts of the surrounding district. The first journey I took by bicycle, fairly early in the morning, to Clacton. A broiling sun poured down upon roads of yielding surface, soaked by a night's rain, and one gained a respect for the little hills which was completely lost in the Lanchester later. They are hills, though, without doubt, and a car of low power would feel them. The descent from the centre of Colchester is sharp, the ascent in returning necessarily the same, and the termination of Wivenhoe spells hill as plainly as Plymouth "Hoe" does, and for the same etymological reason. It is, in fact, a country of pretty little hills, abundantly wooded, until the flat land by the sea-coast is reached. It is to be feared that no halt was made on this or any other occasion to notice the Roman tiles built into the wall of the church at Wivenhoe. In the roadside scenery, however, an eye fresh from Berkshire observed one pleasing characteristic appearing to be singular. The hedgerow trees were, for the most part, elms, not very tall, for no tree grows to a stately height near the sea in our islands, but very much more beautiful than the loftier elms of Berkshire, save those planted for ornament, in Windsor Park for example. These low elms spread their welcome shade--true, it keeps the surface damp and renders road-preservation difficult--well over the way from either side. There was no doubt they