378 



THE OCEAN WOKLD. 



oysters develop themselves under the favourable conditions of repose, 

 temperature, and light. When the fishing season arrives, the piles 

 and fagots which surround the beds are removed, and the oysters are 

 gathered suitable for market. The oysters thus selected for sale are 

 packed loosely in osier baskets and sunk, while waiting for purchasers, 

 into a reserve or park. This park is established on the shores of the 

 lake. It is constructed of piles which support a gangway provided 

 with hooks, from which the baskets filled with living oysters are 

 suspended, ready for sale. 



Some twenty years ago the oyster-beds of France had become 

 totally exhausted under the open system of dredging ; and circum- 



Fig. 174. Pillars with cords attached iu Lake Fu&uro. 



stances having brought the protective system pursued at Fusaro under 

 the notice of M. Coste, a learned academician, to whom France is 

 indebted for the restoration of the bivalve, M. Coste reported to the 

 Emperor in 1858 that at Kochelle, Marennes, Kochefort, at the Isles 

 of Ke and Oleron, where there had formerly been twenty- three oyster- 

 beds, there were now only five, and these in danger of being destroyed 

 by the increase of mussels ; that at the Bay of St. Brieuc, so naturally 

 suited for oyster culture, the beds were reduced to three ; that even on 

 the classic oyster grounds of Cancale and Granville, it was only by the 

 most careful administration that decay was prevented, while the in- 

 creasing numbers of consumers threatened altogether to destroy an 



