1248 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



In the first place, the Committee do not seem to have 

 noticed that the French regulations involve, not merely a 

 breeding season close time, such as they recommend, but 

 that they restrict the fishing during the open season to a 

 few days, or stop it altogether, at the discretion of the 

 administration. The difference of the two systems is that 

 the French regulations are adequate for the purpose of 

 preventing over-dredging, while the English regulations 

 are not ; and that is a somewhat essential difference. 



But there is another point of still greater importance, 

 which is, that a careful study of the French statistics, and 

 of the very excellent reports on the various French oyster 

 fisheries, made to the Committee by Mr. Hall, leaves it 

 very doubtful whether the French system of protection, 

 stringent as it is, has had any appreciable effect on the 

 fisheries. 



Let us take the case of the famous oyster fishery of 

 Cancale. Mr. Hall says, in a noteworthy passage of his 

 Report, which, one would think, the majority of the Com- 

 mittee can hardly have considered with due care : 



"The oyster beds of Cancale and Granville extend 

 over that part of the bay of Mont St. Michel which lies 

 beyond extreme low-water mark, and as far out as the lies 

 Chaussey ; they also stretch for six or eight miles along 

 the coast north of Granville. They are remarkable as 

 presenting instances of beds existing under identical 

 natural conditions, subjected to identical regulations, and 

 offering results of a very varied kind. They are also inter- 

 esting as being beds ivhich, notivithstanding the enforcement of 

 preservative regulations for a considerable number of years, have 

 become, on the zvhole, unproductive. 



"There appears to have been no time since 1853, 

 when the observance of the close season, a limitation of 



