Wales's Lean Spatfalls

At Colchester, Edward of Wales reviewed the First Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment, of which he is Colonel-in-Chief, last week. With buttons shined and a large sabre strapped to waist, he handed newly embroidered standards to two kneeling subalterns while the drums rolled. After these ceremonies he adjourned to the Town Hall to sup oysters at Colchester's annual Oyster Feast.

Owner of a fishery near Falmouth in Cornwall, Edward of Wales is a rival of Colchester. Loyally downing a dozen Colchester "natives," he spoke:

"Comparisons are odious, especially after I have partaken of your local product, but one thing you on the River Colne and I on Helford River have in common is that we both have been doing badly in recent years.

"We both have had to meet keen foreign competition from Holland and France, and face abnormal mortality among our oysters owing to disease, the origin and cause of which remain obscure. It has been my experience that the slipper limpet is the worst enemy preying on my oysters and I understand that 4,000 tons of these pests have been removed from the River Colne in the past five years.

"In short the oyster industry in Britain is doing far from well, and I only hope the efforts you are making . . . will soon restore their prosperity and, given a good spatfall, put you once again in the happy position of having a million or so oysters to offer to the public."

Whispering reporters discovered that a "spatfall" is a crop of oysters larvae; that the slipper limpet, a small marine gastropod mollusk with only one valve, dearly loves to feed on the tender young of British oysters.

At one remark of H. R. H. last week, knowing U. S. oystermen smiled. Said he:

"British oysters, although costly, are generally fresher and better flavored than their foreign competitors."

Because the cold waters make phlegmatic British oysters disinclined to spawn, thousands of yearling U. S. oysters are imported to British waters annually, planted in British beds. U. S. oysters will not procreate in British waters. Like eunuchs they fatten but remain sterile.

Lean Cornish spatfalls will have no appreciable effect on Edward of Wales's income. Beside the Cornish oyster beds, H. R. H. receives the entire income from the Duchy of Cornwall, a thoughtful provision made by Edward III in 1337. Nowadays the gross income is about $1,250,000 a year. After deducting expenses, salaries, donations, H. R. H. has about $25,000 a month left.

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