Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 120, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 May 1916 — Rings on the Oyster. [ARTICLE]

Rings on the Oyster.

A popular theory about rings on an oyster shell being an indication of its age is not supported by the careful investigation of Miss Ann L. Massy, who tested specimens from the oyster station at Ardfry, at the head of Galway bay.’ It has been supposed by many that each ring, or group, on the oyster’s deep valve stood for a year’s growth, but Miss Massy says that this deduction is not reliable. After a patient scrutiny of over six hundred samples of various ages, from eighteen months to six years, she says: “An oyster of eighteen months or two summers appears to possess at least two rings, but may have as many as five. “One of three summers has at least two rings and'may have six. A four-year-old oyster may hate only three rings or may possess seven or eight.”