248 THE GEEEN OYSTERS. > 



substances which grow in the beds where it is manipulated. 

 This statement, however, is scarcely an answer to the question 

 of "why," or rather "how," do the oysters become green? 

 Some people maintain that the oyster green is a disease of the 

 liver-complaint kind, whilst there are others who attribute the 

 green colour to a parasite that overgrows the mollusc. But 

 the mode of culture adopted is in itself a sufficient answer to 

 the question. The iadustry carried on at Marennes consists 

 chiefly of the fattening in claires, and the oysters operated upon 

 are at one period of their lives as white as those which are grown 

 at any other place ; indeed it is only after being steeped for a 

 year or two in the muddy ponds of the river Seudre that they 

 attain their much-prized green hue. The enclosed ponds for the 

 manufacture of these oysters — and, according to all epicurean 

 authority, the green oyster becomes " the oyster par excellence " — 

 require to be water-tight, for they are not submerged by the 

 sea, except during very high tides. Each claire is about one 

 hundred feet square. The walls for retaining the waters require 

 therefore to be very strong ; they are composed of low but broad 

 banks of earth, five or six feet thick at the base and about three 

 feet in height. These walls are also useful as forming a pro- 

 menade on which the watchers or workers can walk to and fro 

 and view the different ponds. The flood-gates for the admission 

 of the tide require also to be thoroughly watertight and to fit 

 with great precision, as the stock of oysters must always be 

 kept covered with water ; but a too frequent flow of the tide 

 over the ponds is not desirable, hence the walls, which serve the 

 double purpose of both keeping in and keeping out the water. 

 A trench or ditch is cut in the inside of each pond for the better 

 collection of the green slime left at each flow of the tide, and 

 many tidal inundations are necessary before the claire is 

 thoroughly prepared for the reception of its stock. When aU. 

 these matters of construction and slime-collecting have been 

 attended to, the oysters are then scattered over the ground, and 

 left to fatten. When placed in these greening claires they are 

 usually from twelve to sixteen months old, and they must remain 

 for a period of two years at least before they can be properly 

 greened, and if left a year longer they are all the better ; for 

 I maintain that an oyster should be at least aboiit four years 

 old before it is sent to table. In a privately-printed pamphlet 

 on the French oyster-fisheries, sent to me by Mr. Ashworth, it 

 is stated that oysters deposited in the claires for feeding possess 



