MARITIME PISCICULTURE-MUSSEL 

 CULTURE.* 



WE forget which of these poetical heathens, Horace or 

 Virgil, was so shockingly ignorant of the true nature of 

 things as to call the ocean " dissociabilis" All the 

 world now knows that the sea is the highway of na- 

 tions; and, more than that, poetry nowadays tells us 

 much of the treasures of the deep, where 



" Life, in rare and beautiful forms, 

 Is sporting amid the bowers of stone, 

 Safe from his rage, when the god of the storms 

 Has made the tops of the waves his own." 



Better still, a taste for natural history is now widely 

 diffused, and the modern invention of domestic aquaria 

 has made us acquainted with many of the most beauti- 

 ful of marine productions, animate and inanimate. The 

 ladies, in particular, enjoy the opening up of this, by 

 most of them, heretofore unread page of the mighty 

 volume which reveals the Creator's glorious attributes. 

 We know of one household in which a most lively in- 

 terest is felt in the singular process by which provision 



* Voyage d'Exploration sur le Littoral de la France et de 1'ltalie. 

 Rapport & M. le Ministre de 1'Agriculture, du Commerce, et des 

 Travaux Publics, sur les Industries de Comacchio, du Lac Fusaro, 

 de Marennes, et de 1'Anse de 1'Aiguillon. Par M. Coste, Membre 

 de 1'Institut, Professeur au College de France. Paris: Impri- 

 merie Imperiale. 



