Not so the beds of Great Britain and America, which are as a general rule open to all corners,' except when some close-time regulation is in force.
Huxley has illustrated the futility of "close-time" in his remark that the prohibition of taking oysters from an oyster-bed during four months of the year is not the slightest security against its being stripped clean during the other eight months.
The old close-time laws were abolished in England in 1866, and returned to in 1876, but no results can be traced to the action of parliament in either case.