14 



industries of France and Holland owe their existence, yet 

 France forgot him and he died in poverty and neglect. 



Michelet henceforward devoted himself to the work 

 of perfecting the details of local oyster culture ; by his 

 process of liming the tiles used as collectors, when the 

 brood oysters are large enough to be removed from 

 the surfaces to which they adhere, instead of the little 

 shells being injured in great numbers as in previous 

 methods, the expert use of a chisel-shaped knife causes 

 the little oysters to peel off with the flakes of crumbling 

 mortar. By the little patch of lime which adheres in the 

 hinge region these oysters are ever after readily distin- 

 guishable from those from natural beds. 



Michelet completed his good work by devising 

 "ambulances," which eventually developed into misses, 

 ostreophiles, shallow boxes having frames filled in with 

 wire-netting to serve as top and bottom respectively. 

 In these "hospitals" as we may term them the brood 

 oysters were left for some months before being laid 

 out in claircs or shallow rearing ponds and in separate 

 hospitals were put all individuals that suffered injury 

 during removal from the tiles, a process known in 

 France as detroguage. 



Thanks to these improvements, oyster culture under- 

 went rapid development and expansion ; all abandoned 

 concessions were reoccupied and many new ones were 

 taken up ; the results of artificial spat collection by 

 means of limed tiles in 1865 and 1866 proved this 

 method a practical success and, in spite of a temporary 

 check from 1867 to 187 1 due to several exceptionally 

 frosty winters and the distraction of war, the industry has 

 steadily progressed till to-day practically the whole of 

 the brood oysters reared and sold every year at Arcachon 

 are the produce of the millions of adult oysters being 

 reared and fattened in private parks. Throughout their 

 whole life the 300,000,000 oysters annually produced at 

 this centre live under control ; they are tended with 

 continuous care ; they are shielded from enemies, the 

 young or sickly go into creches and convalescent homes, 



