64 THE OYSTER. 



pipe allowing nothing to pass into the experimental 

 claire except clear water." 



This arrangement completed, the products of arti- 

 ficial fecundation, impregnated in various ways, were 

 poured into the experimental reservoir. This took 

 place in the second week in June." 



" On the 24th July the tiles were examined. This 

 time all had spat attached. In fact, each of the tiles 

 immersed had young oysters attached, to the number of 

 twenty or thirty, measuring about a centimeter (two- 

 fifths of an inch) in diameter. This spat was evidently 

 derived from the spawn put out during the end of 

 June or the commencement of July ; but their small 

 size had prevented us from seeing them when the in- 

 spection was made at that time. On the 24th July we 

 had specimens about a month old. This fact was all 

 the more remarkable, in that, up to that same time, the 

 collectors placed in the Gironde, in the very center of 

 the spawning beds, did not show a sign of spat." 



The problem which we had put before ourselves 

 had accordingly received, from a scientific and practi- 

 cal point of view, a solution in conformity with our 

 hopes. It was possible to obtain spat by means of 

 artificial fecundation, and to capture it in confirmed 

 waters. And we no longer had the slightest reason 

 to doubt the identity of that which had caught on our 

 tiles, nor to suppose that it came from the waters 

 without, since there was as yet none apparent in the 

 Gironde, and the tiles in the upper claire, which served 



