268 . FISH CULfUEE. 



require with their hands. This method of fishing,' 

 instituted by the ancients, is in practice to the present 

 day ; and the hint has not been lost upon the French, 

 who have imported the plan to Marennes, while a 

 system very similar to that at Commachio has been 

 instituted at the Basin d'Arachon.^ "We have few 



1 The following account of what is being done by the French at 

 the Tie de R^ was lately published in the columns of Galignani : — 



" M. Goste has just communicated '^ paper to the Academy of 

 Sciences on the progress of his artificial oyster-beds on the western 

 coast of France. Several thousands of the inhabitants of the island 

 of E^ have been for the last four years engaged in cleansing their 

 muddy Coast of the sediments which prevented oysters from con- 

 gregating there ; and as the work advances, the seed wafted over 

 from NieuUe and other oyster localities settles in the new beds, and, 

 added to that transplanted, peoples the coast, so that 72,000,000 of 

 oysters, from one to four years old, and nearly all marketable, is 

 the lowest average per annum registered by the local administration 

 — ^representing, at the rate of from twenty-five to thirty francs per 

 thousand, which is the current price in the locality, a sum of about 

 two millions of francs, the produce of an extremely limited sui-face. 

 That the waves or currents carry the seed of oysters is a well-known 

 fact, since the walls of sluices newly erected are often covered with 

 them. In the island of R6 the existence of the oyster-beds, how- 

 ever, no longer depends upon this contingency, they being now in 

 a state of permanent self-reproduction. The distinction of oyster-^ 

 beds into those of collection and those of reproduction is quite 

 unnecessary, since the property of reproduction belongs to them 

 all. In some localities it is sufiScient to prepare the emerging 

 banks for collection to see them soon covered with seed; but in 

 other places nothing would be obtained without transplanting 

 proper subjects, an operation which by no means impairs their 

 reproductive qualities. The concession of emerging banks ia 



