564 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



to the young specimens which have not attained the regu- 

 lation size, and the spat adhering to the collectors, it is 

 impossible to estimate their numbers. 



MARENNES. 



The oysters from Marennes enjoy an universal reputa- 

 tion. They owe their popularity to the peculiar taste 

 contracted in the green claires. There is no part of the 

 coast where the greening of the oyster is attained so easily 

 and so rapidly. The question of ascertaining to what causes 

 we must attribute the change which takes place in the 

 colour of the mollusc, from the month of September until 

 the time of gestation, has been discussed with various 

 results. Some have thought that it was due to the essen- 

 tially argillaceous soil of Marennes, to the brackish waters 

 of the Seudre, to oxide of iron ; others assert that it is 

 owing to the kind of vegetation which lines the claires at 

 the approach of winter, and which disappears in the spring ; 

 according to these the oyster owes its colouring to the 

 absorption of the chlorophylle with which the waters of the 

 claires are saturated. A fact of common observation is that 

 the oyster assumes its green colour when the daire grows 

 green, and loses its colour when the daire is deprived of its 

 vegetation. 



Although Marennes is very close to Oleron, the 

 attempts at reproduction which have been made there have 

 been without result. The captivity of the oyster does not 

 lessen its generative powers, as certain rearers assert. In 

 the spring the oyster, whether in daire or pare, emits its 

 spat ; but it is to be supposed that the spat does not in the 

 waters of Marennes, deeply charged as they are with earthy 

 matter and perhaps too tranquil, meet with the conditions 

 necessary to its existence. The grounds worked compre- 



