876 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [52], 
carried into the interior; this question has been controverted, and to its 
discussion I will in a future report call your excellency’s attention. 
While awaiting your decision, sir, | beg you to accept a renewed 
assurance of my respectful consideration. 
COSTE, 
Member of the Institute. 
In accordance with the conclusions arrived at in the above report, two 
establishments, to be used as models, are already in operation at the 
designated places in the bay of Arcachon. A second polive-boat, the 
brig Léger, commanded by Lieutenant Blandin, is charged with the 
surveillance of the bay, and co-operates with M. Filleau, commissary of 
maritime inscription of that region, in the cultivation of the two beds 
created by the government. One hundred and twelve grantees (conces- 
sionaires), associated with registered seamen, now follow this new indus- 
try over an extent of 400 hectares which the government has ceded to 
them. 
4.—APPLIANCES SUITABLE FOR THE RECEPTION OF OYSTER SPAT, 
Young oysters, after leaving the parent shell, move about in the 
waters, here and there, seemingly in search of the most favorable con- 
ditions for their adherence and their subsequent development, preferring 
solid bodies, with a slightly roughened surface, protected from the mud. 
It is for the purpose of creating similar conditions that the appliances, 
of which a compendious description is herewith given, were invented. 
These various appliances, when used in the pares, claires, viviers, 
étalages, natural beds, &c., which are left dry at each tide, or only 
during equinoctial tides, should not be put in place more than a week 
or two previous to the most active period of the spawning season, that 
is to say, during the first fifteen days of June, or towards the end of 
that month, if the hot season be early. 
THE PLATFORM COLLECTOR. 
The platform collector will cover only a limited space, if but one com- 
partment be used, but may be extended over a vast surface if its com- 
partments be multiplied. Its construction is such that the labor of one 
person is sufficient to manage its different operations. Wherever the 
oyster is cultivated it may always be used, if it be so arranged that at 
any time after the young oysters have attached themselves it may be 
taken apart and transported to such places as may be desirable. It 
has an additional advantage, in that it protects the embryos from the 
mud, which would smother them at their birth, and also shields them 
from most of the animals that feed upon them. 
