130 TEANSACTIONS LIVEEPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



under cultivation, and an industry established which sup- 

 ports several prosperous villages. 



It seemed to me, moreover, that the fishing populations 

 knew more about the products of their coasts and made 

 more use of them, took a more lively interest in the welfare 

 and habits of the animals — not only those which are the 

 direct objects of the fisheries, but also others which have 

 an indirect influence through being the natural food or 

 enemies of the former — and devoted themselves with a 

 more constant industry, and even a loving care, to the 

 cultivation of their shores than is generally found to be the 

 case amongst corresponding classes in this country. The 

 neat little enclosures along the beach, carefully tended at 

 low tides, remind one constantly of market gardening, 

 and enforce the truth of the idea long familiar to the 

 biologist and now beginning to be generally recognised 

 that the fisherman should be the farmer not the mere 

 hunter of his fish and that aqui-culture must be carried 

 on as industriously and scientifically as agriculture. 



Another noteworthy point in regard to French fish- 

 culture is the great extent to which the women seem to 

 help and work along with the men. At Arcachon and 

 several other places there seem to be as many women as 

 men employed in the pares, and they struck me as taking 

 an intelligent interest and pride in their work. 



In addition to these personal qualities in the fisher folk 

 the success of the shellfish industries in France is, I think, 

 largely due to the encouragement and wise assistance of 

 Government, especially in the regulation of general oyster 

 dredging and the reservation of certain grounds for 

 supplying seed. 



I do not see that the French shores are in any important 

 respects better fitted for shellfish cultivation than ours are; 

 the variety in geological formation is on the whole much 



