590 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



It will be seen that the average price per thousand has 

 greatly diminished of late years. This is due to the great 

 quantity of Portuguese oysters introduced now into the 

 basin of Arcachon. 



And here, Monsieur le Ministre, I must not pass over 

 in silence the sensation which has been caused in the ostri- 

 cultural world in consequence of the introduction into our 

 waters of Portuguese mollusca. 



Some distinguished oyster-culturists have, in fact, 

 advanced the opinion that the Portuguese oyster might 

 cross with the ostrea edulis, and by altering its purity 

 diminish the value of our indigenous oyster. They even 

 announced that they had observed unequivocal traces of this 

 hybridation upon oysters coming from Arcachon. 



Among the cultivators at Arcachon this announcement 

 caused an emotion all the more lively, as one of the 

 inspectors of fisheries in England had induced his country- 

 men to purchase no more oysters coming from Arcachon. 



Allow me to submit to you the result of my observa- 

 tions on this subject. 



The mollusc known under the name of the Portuguese 

 oyster does not belong to the same genus as our indigenous 

 oyster. While the latter is included in the mollusca 

 belonging to the genus ostrea, the former takes its place 

 among those constituting the genus grj'phcea, the species 

 gryphcea angulata, Lamarck. 



In other words the Portuguese oyster is not an oyster 

 in a zoological point of view. 



To afford some base for the allegation of hybridation 

 between the two mollusca it would be necessary, in the first 

 place, to prove that zoologists have been mistaken in creat- 

 ing these two genera, and that Lamarck was in error in 

 separating the gryphaa from the oysters properly so called. 



