BULLETIN OF TIIIO UNITED STATKS FISH COMMISSION. 183 



During- the second half of May Mr. Liouello Grego bad the happy 

 idea of phmting 400 young oysters caught in the harbor of Baselegho, 

 and distributed them in three boxes of pine wood, fdled with branches 

 and stones. I believe that this combination injured the growtb and 

 develoi)meut of the oysters. At any rate no useful data resulted from 

 this experiment. The oysters selected for planting were of the follow- 

 ing two sizes : 22, IG, and 34, 30,* the first five to six months old, and the 

 second about one year old. Those which I saw on July 30, i. e., after two 

 or two and a half months, had the following dimensions: Size N^o. 1 : 33, 

 21; 32, 25; 30, 23; 33, 17. Size No. II : 50, 47 ; 48, 44; 53, 50; and 43, 58. 

 TLey all belonged to the kind Ostrea edulis L., var. 'veneiiana Issel. They 

 wore, to ex])ress it in a technical term, " well made," normally devel- 

 oped, and almost entirely free from the small animals and plants w^hich 

 in many places are almost invariably found on oysters. 



All, or nearly all, had near the apex of the lower valve the body 

 to which they had become fixed when young ( FewMS (jalUna, Mtirex 

 brandaris, Ceritliium^ Troi-lms, and Cardium). The lower valve of the 

 shell is quite convex, while the upper is flat. In some of them a cer- 

 tain anomaly was noticed, namely, an excessive growth of the margin 

 of the lower shell, which prevents the two halves of the shell from 

 closing i)erfectly, a portion of the enamel which lines the inside of the 

 shell being exposed. 



From this place I went to the port of Baseleghe, and visited the 

 waters known in the neighborhood by the name of Carrozza. I found 

 them to be about 2 to 3 meters deep, and maintaining this depth for 

 several miles out at sea. Here, as in all the places of this neighbor- 

 hood, oysters develop naturally, and give rise to some fisheries of no 

 great importance, carried on by the inhabitants of Caorle. The Car- 

 rozza is exposed to winds, and to accumulations of sand, &c., and as 

 far as I can see, there seems to be no means to remedy this evil, and 

 make this locality fit for raising oysters; I doubt, in fact, whether these 

 oysters will ever fetch the same price as the lagoon oysters. 



The best oysters which I saw in any of the places which I visited 

 are those from the Canal Canadare (in old times called Canal Dare), 

 which receives its water from the port of Falconera, and runs between 

 Val Nova (the property of Messrs. Grego) and Val Yecchia (the prop- 

 erty of the township of Caorle). In this canal-the oysters not merely 

 live isolated, -fixing themselves to some sliell, but Lave a tendency to 

 form beds, one lying on the top of the other. Their shell is generally 

 curved a little to the right; it is darker than that of the Carrozza oys- 

 ter; the upper valve is not quite so ilat, and the lower one is sometimes 

 concave; in various respects, among the rest the brittleness of the 

 shell, it resembles the Taranto oyster. I gathered five having the 

 following dimensions : 82, 78 ; 90, 77 ; SQ, 82; 90, 83; 54, 33. I found 

 them all fat and of excellent flavor. 



•Millimeters. The first indicates the length and the second the breadth. 



