938 DIVISION Il. MOLLUSCOUS ANIMALS. —CLASS IV. ACEPHALES. 
The oyster spawns from June to September. Instead of immediately 
| | abandoning its eggs to their fate, as is the case with so many sea-animals, 
it keeps them for a time in the folds of its mantle, between the branchial 
| lamelle ; and it is only after having thus acquired a more perfect develop- 
ment that the microscopic larve, furnished with a swimming apparatus and 
eyes, emerge by thousands from the shell, and are then driven about by the 
floods and currents, until they find some solid body, to which they attach 
themselves for life. The oyster produces in one single summer a couple 
of millions of young, which, however, mostly perish during the first 
| wandering stage of their existence. 
Thus we see what rich rewards the industry of man might expect to earn 
by protecting and fixing the oyster-larve at an early date; and that this 
could easily be done in many places, is proved to us by the artificial oyster- 
breeding that has now been successfully carried on for many ages in the 
Lake of Fusaro. 
Between the Lucrine Lake, the ruins of Cuma, and the promontory of 
Misenum, lies a small salt-water lake, about a league in circumference, gen- 
erally from three to six feet deep, and reposing on a voleanic, black, and mud- 
dy bottom. This is the old Acheron of Virgil, the present Fusaro. Over its 
whole extent are spread, from space to space, great heaps of stones, that 
have been covered with oysters brought from Tarentum. Round each of 
these artificial mounds stakes are driven into the ground, tolerably near each 
other, and projecting from the water, so as to be pulled up easily. Other 
stakes stand in long rows several feet apart, and are united by ropes, from 
which bundles of brushwood hang down into the water. All these arrange- 
ments are intended to fix the oyster-dust, that annually escapes from the 
parental shells, and to afford: it a vast number of points, to which it may 
attach itself. After two or three years the microscopic larve have grown 
into edible oysters. Then, at the proper season, the stakes and brushwood 
bundles are taken out of the water, and after the ripe berries of the marine 
vineyard have been plucked, again immersed into the lake, until a new gen- 
eration brings a new harvest. Thus the indolent Neapolitans give us, in this 
| ease, an example which the men of the north would do well to imitate ; 
| for on many of our coasts numerous localities are to be found where a simi- 
lar exhibition of industry might convert worthless lagoons and creeks into 
rich oyster-fields. 
| | Peart Oyster AND Peart Fisntnc. —“ A shell nearly related to the 
| oyster produces the costly pearls of the East, that have ever been as highly 
esteemed as the diamond itself. The most renowned pearl fishery is carried 
on in the Bay of Condatchy, in the Island of Ceylon, on banks situated a 
few miles from the coast. Before the beginning of the fishery, the govern- 
