286 Italy. 



principal centres of oyster-culture in Italy ; the species reproduced is Ostrea edulis, several 

 varieties of which are known. Prof. Targioni Tozzetti calls the Taranto oyster 0. lamellosa. 

 The young oysters are collected in the autumn on bundles of branches which had been 

 purposely immersed during the preceding spring in suitable localities in the Mar Grande 

 at Taranto, weighed down with stones ; these young, called cria, are inserted into loosely 

 twisted ropes (pergolari) made of Spartium, which hang from the larger ropes supported on 

 piles which form the sciaja, such being the name of the quadrangular spaces in the Mare 

 piccolo specially allotted for this oyster culture. The oysters thus transplanted are fit for 

 eating after eighteen months or two years, during which the sciaje are carefully kept clean. 

 These oysters becoming adult spawn, but the young larvae thus produced do not thrive, and 

 the sciaje must be kept up by new cria, procured, as I have described, in the Mar Grande. 

 The mean yearly produce of the sciaje of Taranto is valued at six millions of oysters, priced 

 from five to six francs the hundred. The Taranto oysters are beyond doubt amongst the 

 finest I have seen and tasted anywhere. A small oyster culture exists also in the Faro 

 Lagoon, near Messina. At Taranto again, and also in some of the Venetian valli, the edible 

 mussel (Mytilus edulis) and, especially at Taranto, the more esteemed Modiola barbata, are 

 largely cultivated. In the Mare piccolo of Taranto the same system is used as that practised 

 for oysters. The reserved spaces are, however, called quadri, enclosed as the sciaje by piles 

 driven vertically down ; the bigger ropes are called libani, and the dependent smaller ones 

 with free extremities again pergolari; the latter usually number nearly 6000 in each quadro. 

 The young mussels, also called cria, are carefully collected and inserted into the purposely 

 uncoiled pergolari, where they fix themselves with their byssus. In about eighteen months, 

 during which they are carefully kept clean, the pergolari being regularly aired to kill 

 parasites, they attain maturity. An average quadro may thus produce about 150,000 kilo- 

 grammes of mussels of the approximate value of 17,000 lire (francs), including expenses 

 The entire produce at Taranto has been calculated at 16,000 quintali per annum. In 

 November, 1881, the writer was at Taranto, and visited the oyster and mussel culture 

 establishments on the Mare piccolo, but found their owners in great distress ; unusually violent 

 storms a few days before had committed great havoc amongst the sciaje and quadri, which 

 those poor people were busy cleansing and repairing. Quite recently my friend Professor A. 

 Issel, of Genoa, has published by Government order a valuable treatise on oyster and mussel 

 culture (Istruzioni per lOstricoltura e la Mitilicoltura, GENOVA, 1882). 



VII. CONCLUSIONS. The rapid and synthetical account now concluded has, we trust, 

 succeeded in giving a fair though very general idea of Italian fisheries. Here and there are 

 given a few statistical data, but it must be borne in mind that such data can only be 

 approximative. I should have wished before concluding my task to have given more 

 statistical data, such being considered now-a-days the best manner of expressing the conditions 

 of industrial undertakings and many other matters, but few will contradict tho assertion 

 that of all sources of produce, fisheries are beyond doubt those to which it is most difficult 

 to apply that test, for obvious reasons. During the first session of the Fisheries Committee, 

 I had to report on this very subject, viz., " How to obtain annual statistics of the produce 

 of Fisheries ; " then, as now, my conclusions were that the problem is a most difficult one, and 

 can never be thoroughly solved. I may, however, add some general returns, the result of the 

 inquiry for collect]''. g materials for the law on fishery between 1869 and 1871, giving them 

 for what they are worth. From the report on fisheries then presented to Parliament I quote 

 the following data : The number of men engaged in sea-fisheries on December 31st, 1869, 

 with the exclusion of the then Papal States, was 60,000, employing 18,000 boats and giving 

 a mean annual produce valued at 40 millions lire. It does not appear that any statistics were 

 then collected for the important lagoon and estuary fisheries, and the results relating to fresh 

 water fisheries are far from complete ; they gave the numbers of fishermen at 3000, and the 

 value of produce at between 3 and 4 millions of lire. For the sea-fisheries tb.3 best source 

 of information were the maritime inscriptions, and they may easily give erroneous results for 

 the special object in view. In 1878 the official returns give the following data: Fishery 

 products exported, 39,887 kilogrammes, value 3,259,670 lire; fishery products imported, 

 44,060,300 kilogrammes, value 21,479,740 lire. These data cannot be much altered now, and 

 show an immense difference in favour of import:?, a proof that our consumption is not balanced 



