56 THE OYSTER. 



The next great step in this direction is due to Lieut. 

 Winslow. While I was carrying on my experiments 

 at Crisfield, in 1879, this officer was engaged in ex- 

 amining the oyster-beds of Tangier Sound, and he 

 made frequent visits to the laboratory and learned my 

 methods. The next year, while stationed at Cadiz, 

 Spain, on naval duty, he repeated the experiments 

 with Portuguese oysters, and showed that these, like 

 the American oysters, have the sexes separate, and 

 that the eggs are fertilized in the water; that the 

 young are independent of parental protection, and 

 that they can be artificially reared like the oysters of 

 our waters. His results were given in a paper which 

 was read before the Maryland Academy of Sciences, 

 in November, 1881, and this paper was afterwards 

 printed in the American Naturalist. 



The next great step was the discovery of a simple 

 and practical method of rearing the young oysters 

 which are hatched artificially, and this step, which 

 completes the solution of the problem, and puts it 

 within our power to remove forever all danger of the 

 extermination of the oyster, is the contribution of a 

 French naturalist, M. Bouchon-Brandeley. This 

 author, like Winslow, experimented with the Portu- 

 guese oysters, and while he does not seem to have 

 been acquainted with Winslow's paper, he arrived at 

 the same conclusion, and showed that the sexes are 

 separate, that the eggs are fertilized in the water, and 

 that the young may be hatched artificially ; but he 

 also went one step further, and succeeded in rearing 

 in this way a very great number of seed-oysters fit for 

 planting. 



