226 FISH CULTURE. 



any, of such salt-water nurseries and ponds in England, 

 although such ponds abound around our coasts, and 

 there is scarcely a harbour or a river's mouth where 



1 ' M. Coste has just communicated a paper to the Academy of 

 Sciences on the progress of his artificial oyster-beds on the western 

 coast of France. Several thousands of the inhabitants of the island 

 of Re have been for the last four years engaged in cleansing their 

 muddy coast of the sediments which prevented oysters from congre- 

 gating there ; and as the work advances, the seed wafted over from 

 Nieulle and other oyster localities settles in the new beds, and, 

 added to that transplanted, peoples the coast, so that 72,000,000 of 

 oysters, from one to four years old, and nearly all marketable, is 

 the lowest average per annum registered by the local administration 

 — representing, at the rate of from twenty -five to thirty francs per 

 thousand, which is the current price in the locality, a sivm of about 

 two millions of francs, the produce of an extremely limited surface. 

 That the waves or currents carry the seed of oysters is a well-known 

 fact, since the walls of sluices newly erected are often covered with 

 them. In the island of Re the existence of the oyster-beds, how- 

 ever, no longer depends upon this contingency, they being now in 

 a state of permanent self-reproduction. The distinction of oyster- 

 beds into those of collection and those of reproduction is quite 

 unnecessary, since the property of reproduction belongs to them 

 all. In some localities it is sufficient to prepare the emerging 

 banks for collection to see them soon covered with seed ; but in 

 other places nothing would be obtained without transplanting 

 proper subjects, an operation which by no means impairs their 

 reproductive qualities. The concession of emerging banks is 

 anxiously applied for by the inhabitants of the coast, the more so 

 as improvements in the working of this branch of trade are of daily 

 occurrence. Thus Dr. Kemmerer, of Re, covers a number of tiles 

 with a coating of a kind of mastick, brittle enough to enable him to 

 detach the small oysters from it. When this coating is well covered 

 with seed, he gets it off all in one piece, which he carries to the 



