12 REPORT 1865. 



born lived, thrived, and ultimately adhered to whatever they could find to 

 adhere to. They found the fascines and tiles, and covered them as bees 

 cover the boughs of a tree at swarming-tirne ; and the idea was at once 

 started that these fascines and tiles were the means, as it were, of creating 

 the oysters which otherwise would not have been created. 



The first two or three years after these tiles, &c., were laid down happened 

 to be good years for the spat living ; but for the last few years the spat has 

 not lived, and the natural consequence has been that they have not been 

 found on the tiles in very large quantities. Oysters, in fact, are just as scarce 

 this year in France as they are in England. If the artificial system with 

 tiles had been such a great success, and had the tiles caught the sj)at when 

 culch would not catch the spat, it would of necessity follow that oysters in 

 France would have been very cheap, whereas in fact they are quite as dear as 

 in England, and there are so few of them to be had that French agents are 

 at this moment in this country buying all they can get hold of. 



There can, however, be no doubt whatever that as a rule the oysters spat 

 much more freely on the west coast of France than they do at the mouth of 

 the Thames and the adjoining coasts of Essex. The reason of this is, to my 

 mind, obvious. Oysters require heat, or rather warmth, in their younger 

 state. From the nature of the vegetation the general state of the climate can 

 be pretty well ascertained. Now at the headquarters of artificial breeding, 

 at the Isle of Re, the temperature is so great that vines grow luxuriantly. 

 In England the temperature is such that we can only grow corn, turnips, &c. 



The latitude of the Isle of Re, which is situated in the Bay of Biscay, is about 

 46°, whereas the mouth of the Thames is about 51|°; it is natural therefore 

 to suppose (as indeed the facts show) that in ordinary years there should be 

 a much larger fall of spat at the Isle of Re than on the east coast of England. 

 The state of things on the west coast of Ireland seems to confirm this con- 

 clusion ; for here, again, the oysters breed much more freely than they do in 

 England, the cause being the warm moist climate and the even temperature 

 of the air. 



In accordance with hydrographical facts, the oysters bred both in Ireland 

 and Re are taken elsewhere to fatten ; those from Ireland are brought round 

 by vessels or else in boxes by railway and laid down at the mouth of the 

 Thames, where in a year or so they increase greatly in the quantity of meat 

 contained in the shells. The shell, too, seems inclined to take on the cha- 

 racteristics of the oysters natural to the place, though direct observation will 

 not as yet enable me to be sure about the fact " whether the young of trans- 

 ported oysters will, if born in the locality where a purer breed of oysters 

 exist, assume the character of the natives of the place :" this is a subject of the 

 highest importance, about which no facts are yet known. In Re the lean 

 oysters are placed in what are called clares — that is to say, mud ponds ; in 

 these mud ponds they find food, and certainly become fatter than at the 

 place where they were first born. 



Chemical Analysis. 



The object of this investigation is, first, to ascertain whence the oyster 

 obtains the mineral material to secrete his house, and, secondly, what those 

 materials are ; for, commercially speaking, the proportion of the meat to the 

 shell is of the greatest importance to the merchant who has to pay high 

 prices for the transport of oysters long distances. If he buys oysters with a 

 thick shell, containing a large proportion of mineral, he cannot possibly ob- 

 tain as much profit as if there were more meat than shell at a given weight. 



