OYSTERS 141 



is carried on at the present day in the Lake Fusaro. 

 My friend, Mr. Glinther, of Magdalen College, Oxford, 

 has published pictures of Roman tiles from this neigh- 

 bourhood showing the oysters adhering in rows to the 

 wooden frames. These tiles were apparently sold to 

 holiday visitors in the time of the Roman emperors as a 

 memento of a happy day spent at the Lucrine lake, just 

 as a sugar basin or a mug is now sold at our seaside 

 resorts with the inscription, " A present from Margate," 

 or Southport, or Blackpool, and the picture of a shrimp 

 above it. 



The care of the breeding oyster and the plans 

 adopted by the owners of oyster-beds for catching the 

 " spat," or young oysters, when they fall to the bottom, 

 by placing movable tiles or frames for them to fix them- 

 selves to, form an important part of the craft of the 

 oyster-man. It is a difficult business, and is variously 

 carried out in England, France, Holland, and America. 

 The young oysters, when they have fixed themselves, are 

 carried on the movable tiles or frames from one region 

 to another for the purpose of encouraging their growth 

 and avoiding a variety of dangers to their life and health 

 (sometimes from the Bay of Biscay to the mouth of the 

 Thames !). They are often but not always finally 

 fed up in sea-ponds or inlets, which are peculiar in con- 

 taining an enormous number of those very minute 

 microscopic plants, with beautifully shaped siliceous 

 shells, which are known as diatoms. These are so 

 abundant in such ponds as to form a sort of powder or 

 cloud near the bottom, and the oysters draw them, day 

 and night, by their gill-currents into their mouths, digest 

 them, and grow fine and fat. The district of Marennes, 

 on the west coast of France, is celebrated for having sea- 

 ponds or tanks in which a wonderful diatom of a bright 

 blue colour abounds ; so abundant are they that the 



