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induced to take it up, while many lost enormously. Little is even yet known of the conditions favourable to rapid multiplication, but it is certain that the sheets of water selected for the purpose must be sheltered from storms, although they must also be freely open to natural currents, and the water must be neither too cold nor too hot. Some curious and most instructive instances of oysters appearing in vast numbers in waters not before favourable to them have been recorded, one in the Limfjord in Northern Kattegat is very remarkable, though readily accounted for by the fierce storm which broke through the dam separating the Limfjord from the North Sea.

The almost unaccountable falling off in the supply of late years has puzzled many observers. Competent authorities attach great importance to bad spatting seasons, and Mr. Nicholls, foreman of the Whitstable Oyster Company, in his evidence before the Fisheries' Commisioners in 1865, drew pointed attention to the small amount of spat in some years, stating that a good year only occurred once in six.

Much less is known of the conditions favouring reproduction than might at this time of day be expected. The enemies of the oyster are at least three, besides its greatest foe of all-man, and these are not over-dredging, but the depredations of starfish, whelk tingles and dog whelks, and too great heat or cold; for the young oyster, as well as its maturer kinsman, is very sensitive to any great rise; to both of which in shallow basins, in high latitudes, and in variable climates it is peculiarly subject. Hot spells and hard frosts have both been known to kill off immense numbers, and to reduce the yield for a long time. The abundance of their foes is shown by one instance :14,000 dog whelks have been picked up in a single month in 100 acres of oyster park in the Bay of Arcachon.

Huxley, whose authority is above question, denies that over-dredging accounts for the diminished supply; he admits the increased demand, partly due to the larger area over which oysters can be distributed by the better methods and greater facilities of modern times; he also attaches much importance to bad spatting seasons, but he points out that it is not the object of oyster dredgers to denude the natural beds, and he questions if they could possibly remove a sufficient number to leave too few for effectual reproduction, but, however that be, it is obviously not to their interest to go on dredging till all are cleared off, and in practice dredging ceases to be commercially profitable long before the stock is dangerously exhausted. Nevertheless, practical men contend that overdredging does in large measure account for the falling off; and their opinion is entitled to great respect.

A close time for oysters, often advocated as a sufficient remedy, has no analogy with that for salmon and game; it should never be forgotten that the latter are also protected by licences and duties, and that preserving by means of keepers is more or less extensively practised. Perhaps one of the best plans would be the removal of small oysters to protected waters. The depredations of reckless oyster dredgers are not easy to check, and would demand a vast and costly machinery, somewhat resembling that now required for the successful protection

of game; unfortunately, game preservation is not exactly profitable, and oyster preservation, if it is to mean anything, must be remunerative. How can that be accomplished?

The oyster is not a hermaphrodite in the ordinary acceptation of the term: it, however, alternates its sex, the same individual being for a time male, at another female; and in the course of the same season it may change four times. This is one of the most remarkable characteristics of this curious creature; much, however, remains to be made out concerning even this matter.

What we really need to make oysters abundant and cheap is more light on the conditions favourable to them, and some knowledge as to the best means of growing them artificially. Could we learn how to obtain and preserve the spat, and bring it to maturity in sheltered sheets of water, we might grow oysters in countless millions. Surely it cannot be beyond the reach of science thus to put them within our control as it were, so that we should be able to grow them in almost any number we desired, and at moderate cost: the latter is the most important consideration.

Why should not energetic and 'systematic efforts be made to turn to good account some of the vast sheets of water in the South of England? If the American scalps only cover 100 square miles, as we have read, and yet produce hundreds of millions a year, we could find many square miles of available foreshore, which would answer admirably the same purpose, and pay a high return. Dorset might send to market thousands of bushels every year; but before this could be carried out the oyster must be made private property, or our daring but lawless brood of southern fishermen would soon make sad havoc. We have ourselves known old Cornish women, who remembered and talked with coldblooded exultation of the not very distant days when shipwrecked mariners were cut down with hatchets as they attempted to climb up the rocks of that ironbound and inhospitable coast; and only give the Cornish and Devon fisherfolk the opportunity of robbing other people's parcs, which might cost £6,000 a piece to stock, and no scruples of conscience would deter them, though the fear of the law might be more effectual.

FLORULA OF

THE DOWARD

HILLS

MOSSES.

By the Rev. AUGUSTIN LEY, M.A.

IN the year 1881 Mr. Burton M. Watkins published in the Transactions of this Club, a list of the phanerogamic plants found upon the Doward Hills. It was suggested, in the Preface to his paper, that the different groups of Cryptogamic plants, or some of them, inhabiting these hills, might at a future time be similarly catalogued. The following paper is simply an attempt to carry out this suggestion, so far as the True Mosses are concerned. We are thus, by the very scope of our paper, relieved from the necessity of any fresh. description of the area, a part of whose vegetation we are attempting to deal with. It has been already accurately delineated and described in Mr. Watkins' paper and to the limits there adopted we propose strictly to adhere.* Suffice it here to say that the Doward Hills consist of a tract, between one and two square miles in extent, of woody, rocky, and broken ground, much diversified both in geological strata and in aspect of surface, lying immediately to the south-west of the village of Whitchurch; bounded to the north by the line of the Ross and Monmouth turnpike road, and to the east, south and south-west by the tortuous course of the river Wye. We would refer those who wish for a fuller and more accurate description to Mr. Watkins' paper, to which the present stands in the relation of an Appendix. Rich as this small tract of land is in its phanerogamic vegetation, it is certainly equally rich in the . small group of cryptogams with which we are now dealing. It is possible that other orders of the lower plants would prove in like manner to be remarkably developed on these hills, if sought with equal diligence.

In dealing with the Flowering orders and the Ferns, Mr. Watkins was, from obvious reasons, precluded from recording habitats; since the result of such records in so small an area as that now in view, would certainly have been to promote the pillage and possibly cause the destruction of the treasures, which it is one of the objects of the Woolhope Club to preserve. But the same considerations do not apply, or only with very limited force, to the group of plants here dealt with. These are the subjects, as yet, of such scant attention from the general public, and even among naturalists have so few students; they are, moreover, in themselves often so inconspicuous, and need such minute search, that there is at present no cause to fear their extermination through the inconsiderate love of an over-eager or over-numerous public. We have, therefore, in the following list, given in most cases such details of locality as may, we hope, assist lovers of nature to find the objects of their love: trusting thereby also to stir up the affections of a wider group of lovers for the things we ourselves love

We wish, however, to say that the acreage of the Dowards was slightly over-estimated in Mr. Watkins' paper; 2,126 acres being more likely to represent the true area of the hills than 2,500, as there stated.

well. At the same time, the more restricted number of the objects of the present paper, as compared with those of the earlier, allows us to do this without overloading the pages of the Club Transactions, or trying unduly (we hope) our readers' patience.

The little group of True Mosses has not been studied so widely nor for so long a term of years, in the county, as the Flowering Plants; yet whereas a reference to Mr. Watkins' paper will show that somewhat over half of the Flowering Plants and Ferns then detected in the county had been found upon the Dowards, the proportion of the Mosses (reckoning on the same principles) is rather more than of those found in the county. It must be remembered, moreover, that while the Flowering Plants contain many species whose citizenship is uncertain, and which have to be classified as Colonists or Aliens, the whole of the Moss Flora is undoubtedly Native; such an occurrence as the introduction of an exotic species by human agency being, among Mosses, well-nigh unknown in botanical record. This adds considerably to our appreciation of the richness of these hills in cryptogamic vegetation. A still more remarkable result comes out when a comparison is made with the totals of British Mosses: 191 out of 568or somewhat over one-third of the total Moss Vegetation of the British Isles being present on the Dowards. This third includes several rare species, and one not hitherto detected elsewhere in Britain. The present writer in the course of a winter day's ramble in the year 1884 saw upon the Greater Doward alone 120 species, or somewhat more than of the total number of species known to inhabit Britain.

We cannot conclude without a tribute of affectionate remembrance and acknowledgment to the fellow-worker who has made the Florula of these hills to so ample a degree his own; the memory of pleasant rambles in whose company lingers like a sweet perfume wherever we go upon them. Mr. B. M. Watkins was the doer of all the earlier cryptogamic work done on these hills; may he long be spared to enjoy with us its later fruit.

The sequence and nomenclature of species in the following list is taken from the Flora of Herefordshire. I am responsible for the records, unless otherwise stated. Most, if not all, of the more difficult species have been seen by Mr. H. Boswell, whose unwearied help and kindness it is desired here to acknowledge. The inserted after the name of a contributor indicates that a dried specimen of the plant from this station has been seen. Two!! indicate that a specimen has been seen in the fresh state. Three !!! indicate that the plant has been seen growing.

Pleuridium nitidum, Hedw. Frequent on the river-bank from the Upper Ferry to the Gas-works, Wyaston Leys.-P. subulatum, L. On the ground in the Lord's Wood.

Systegium crispum, Hedw. A single tuft, by a wood-path, Lord's Wood, near the Great Quarry, 1877. Not again found.

Gymnostomum calcareum, Nees. Shady calcareous and tufaceous rocks, at several stations on the east side of the hill. Fruit not found. The

locality given for Gyroweissia tenuis Schrad., on "tufaceous rock, Great Doward," in the Herefordshire Flora, p. 369, must be altered to the present species. G. tenuis is, so far as known, confined to sandstone in Herefordshire.

Weissia microstoma, Hedw. On the limestone, rare. Ditch-side at the bog, B. M. Watkins !!! In the Great Quarry.-W. viridula, Brid. Abundant on banks, both in exposed and wooded situations. -Var. densifolia Wils. On exposed limestone at Arthur's Cave.-W. mucronata, Bruch. Wooded bank; once only found. In the Lord's Wood, above the keeper's lodge.

Dicranoweissia cirrhata, Hedw. glomerate in the Lord's Wood; once only found. thatch.

Surprisingly rare. On com.

Not seen on decaying posts or

Cynodontium Bruntoni, B. & S. Fine and plentiful on the conglomerate near the Old School. Abundant on the corresponding formation of Huntsham and Coppet Hills.

Dichodontium pellucidum, L. On the river-bank at several stations, but poor and barren.

Dicranella Schreberi, Hedw. Once only found. Lane-bank on the N. E. flank of the hill; barren.-D. varia, Hedw. On loose earth at the Mine Cave. Probably elsewhere.-D. rufescens, Turn. will probably be found.]-D. heteromalla, Hedw. Frequent on the sandstone and conglomerate, where there is some shade.

Dicranum fuscescens, Turn. At one station on the exposed conglomerate near the Old School; very fine, but barren.-D. scoparium, Hedw. On tree-boles; and on the sandstone and conglomerate rocks; rarer on the limestone. D. majus, Turn. In the Lord's Wood, sandstone tract; also on lane-sides: the fruit not seen. Not on limestone?

Campylopus flexuosus, Brid. Sandstone tract in the Lord's Wood; in fruit.—Var. paradoxus. On the side of a wood-path in the sandstone tract, Lord's Wood.-C. fragilis, B. & S. On sandstone in the Lord's Wood; also on conglomerate rocks on the north face of the hill. Barren.-C. torfaceus, B. & S. On the ground in the sandstone tract, Lord's Wood; abundant, and fruiting freely. All the Campylopi are absent from the limestone.

Leucobryum glaucum, L. Conglomerate rocks near the Old School, and in the sandstone tract, Lord's Wood; fine, but barren.

Ceratodon purpureus, L. On old charcoal floors in the woods, and on conglomerate rocks; elsewhere rare.

Seligeria Doniana, Sm. Shady rocks, very rare. On shady limerocks at the Mine Cave, 1890, in minute quantity. First record for the county.S. pusilla, Hedw. Shady limestone, very rare. On the east face of Little Doward. First record for the county.-[S. recurvata, Hedw. may occur on the conglomerate.]

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