OSTREA EDULIS, OR COMMON OYSTER. 153 



auspices of the Imperial Government and of the 

 Society of Acclimation, arc being rapidly reduced 

 to a system at once easy of application and of 

 almost certain success, and destined apparently to 

 render the raising of fish as common as that of 

 kine, sheep, wheat, and potatoes. Rivers, lakes, 

 and ponds, exhausted by the improvident greed of 

 fishermen and the destruction of the young fry, 

 are being restocked from the great raising estab- 

 lishments founded in various departments, while 

 the coasts of the Channel, the Atlantic, and the 

 Mediterranean, and are being converted into oyster 

 grounds, which threaten, if their tenants continue 

 to multiply as rapidly as they are now doing, to 

 ensure a surfeit of that dainty for the entire popu- 

 lation of France. The fishermen of the Isle of 

 Olcron have for many years past practised the ar- 

 tificial raising of the famous " green oysters," for 

 which the shallows on the east coast of that island 

 are renowned. They have covered a great extent 

 of the shore with pieces of rock, to which the 

 oyster spawn attaches itself in considerable quan- 

 tities ; these beds they call viviei's, and from them, 

 at low water, they gather the oysters, at a certain 

 stage of their development, and transport them to 



