886 LAWS OF MARYLAND. [CH. 463

person to be employed on suck boat, and such license shall have
effect from the first day of September, in the year which it
may have been obtained, to the fifteenth day of April, inclusive,
next succeeding; provided that any laws either local or public,
now in effect or which may become in effect curtailing the open
season provided above, such local or public general laws shall
prevail, except in Talbot County and, in the waters of the
Choptank River used in common by the residents of Talbot
and Dorchester Counties. Such license shall not authorize
the taking or catching of oysters in any creek, cove, river,
inlet, bay or sound within the limits of any county other
than that wherein the license shall have been granted; and that
the boundaries of the counties on navigable waters shall be
strictly construed so as not to permit the residents of either
county to take or catch oysters beyond the middle of the divid-
ing channel; provided, that nothing in this section shall be so
construed as to prevent the citizens of Queen Anne's and Kent
Counties from using the waters of Chester River in common,
or the citizens of Dorchester and Wicomico Counties from using
the waters of Nanticoke River in common, or the citizens of
Queen Anne's and Talbot Counties from using the waters of
the Wye River and the mouth thereof in common, or the citi-
zens of Dorchester and Talbot Counties and bona fide residents
of the Fourth Election District of Caroline County who shall
have resided in said district not less than one year next
preceding from using the waters of the Choptank River in
common; provided, however, that the County Commissioners
shall be authorized to give special permission to any woman
who has no visible means of support to take and catch oysters
without license. Provided, that the open season for the taking
or catching of oysters in the Tred Avon River and the tribu-
taries in Talbot County shall be from the first day of September
to the fifteenth day of April, each year, both dates inclusive.

18. It shall be unlawful for any person or persons to take or
catch oysters or have oysters in his or their possession between
the fifteenth day of April and the first day of September in
each and every year; provided, that oysters caught before the
fifteenth day of April may be disposed of at any time before the
twentieth day of April; nor shall it be construed to prevent
any person from taking oysters at any time from his private
beds within the State for private use or transplanting or cul-
tivating but not for sale.

57. It shall be unlawful after April 8, 1904, for any person
or persons to take or catch oysters in any manner whatever in
any of the waters of the Patuxent River and its tributaries of
St. Mary's, Charles and Calvert counties or in the tributaries