(eet) OYSTERS IN BAY OF ARCACHON. 941 
oyster falls back into the claire, leaving it for the waves to carry off its 
ravisher at the next high tide. 
To complete the enumeration of the advantages of our system, we 
will remark that there is still another one, not less important, to which 
we would call the attention of our readers; it is, that theft is rendered 
very difficult, if not impossible; oyster thieves can no longer dredge 
the claires; in order to rob them, they must cut or saw the metallic 
wires, which operation would require much time, would make a noise, 
and give the alarm to the guard, thus enabling him to defend the 
property entrusted to his care; a robbery of this kind would, moreover, 
come under the head of burglary. We will mention, as another advan- 
tage, the protection which the seaweed, stopped by this net-work, gives 
to the oyster by shielding it from the violence of the sun during the 
extreme heat of summer; for the heat of the sun may cause the loss of 
a great number of oysters, both large and small. We therefore persist in 
saying, and our own experience has sufficiently demonstrated the fact, 
that the zine bands and the metallic net-work for claires are destined to 
become two efficient adjuncts of all the various kinds of apparatus 
which have thus far been used in oysterculture in our basin of Arca- 
chon. 
