OYSTERS. 381 



and while thus shut up, salt held in solution is deposited, and qualities 

 analogous to those of marine bottoms are produced, purged by 

 cleansing processes of all products offensive to the bivalves. 



When the basin has been filled with sea-water for the necessary 

 time, and the bottom is sufficiently impregnated, it is emptied and left 

 to dry ; and now, the soil being prepared, it only remains to furnish it 

 with oysters of a mellow and ripe age, in order to give them their 

 green hue. Towards the month of September, at low water, the whole 

 sea-side population of Marennes go to gather oysters on the pavement 

 left uncovered by the ebbing tide, or by using a dredger in the deeper 

 parts of the claires where the water still remains. A temporary 

 magazine for the reception of the oysters thus gathered is erected on 

 the banks, which the water revisits twice a day. The young are 

 reserved for cultivation on the parks or claires ; the fullest are sold 

 for consumption in the neighbourhood ; but the quantity of oysters 

 raised at Marennes is insufficient to supply the demand. About a third 

 of the provision intended for the claires comes from the coasts of 

 Brittany, of Normandy, and La Vendee. " These foreign oysters," 

 says M. Coste, "never attain the fine flavour of those bred in the 

 locality. It is necessary to keep them for a long time in the claires 

 before they are sufficiently ameliorated, and, even when they become 

 green, they retain traces of their primitive nature, remaining hard, in 

 spite of the new qualities imparted to them by cultivation ; a certain 

 bitterness remains, which is easily distinguished by the true amateur ; 

 it is the same with indigenous adult oysters. When they are taken at 

 this stage of their existence the colouring does not succeed with 

 them ; it is only, so to speak, the false brand used to give a specula- 

 tive value to the merchandise. It is not enough that the mollusc 

 should have a fine flavour ; it must have the peculiar taste. It is not 

 enough that it has the green hue ; it is necessary that these qualities 

 should pervade it from the earliest age, and that the culture of the 

 claires should continue to the end." It is thus necessary that the 

 oysters for the claires of Marennes should be selected when from 

 twelve to eighteen months old, that the shells should be well-formed, 

 and free from all foreign bodies adhering to the surface. Being thus 

 carefully picked out, the oysters are distributed over the bottom of the 

 claires with a shovel, and afterwards so arranged by the hand that 

 they may not touch each other when they increase in size ; that they 



