OSTIIEA EDULIS, Oil COMMON OYSTER. 159 



the necessity of protecting the parks against the 

 depredations of wild animals from the woods that 

 cover the interior of the island. Having cleared 

 away the mud, they paved the entire surface of 

 the bottom with stones and pieces of rocks, as has 

 teen done on the sites of the oyster parks at 

 Lolm and at La Hochelle. These serve both to 

 divide the waters when the tide is ebbing, creating 

 innumerable currents which draw away any muddy 

 sediment, and to furnish an enormous extent of 

 surface for the oysters, with which they are lite- 

 rally clothed, the inspectors having recently 

 counted GOO full-grown oysters to the square 

 metre ; and as 630,000 square metres are now 

 under cultivation, it follows that the oysters oil 

 this tract of desert mud, utterly wasted and 

 worthless a couple of years ago, already boasts a 

 crop of 378,000,000 of oysters, worth from six to 

 eight millions of francs.*" The material prosperity 

 of the creators of this oyster field appears to have 

 exercised a notably beneficial influence on their 

 intelligence and morals. They have organised 

 themselves into communities, hold a general 

 assembly in which all details of the ctiter- 



* 320,000 English money. 



