132 The Food Fisheries of France. 
fail, yet around the Ile de Re the fall for these some years 
back has been very intermittent, as it has also been on the ~ 
English beds. In the sheltered basin of Arcachon the | 
plentiful spatting may be accounted for on the principle 
that the spat has nowhere else to go—it must fall within 
the basin. In an open expanse of sea it is different; the — 
spat may be carried away to great distances by tidal in- 
fluence, or a sharp breeze upon the water may waft the 
oyster seed away for many a long mile. Every bed has its 
own time for spatting ; thus, one division of the Re beds 
may be spatting on a fine warm day, when the sea is like 
glass, so that the spat cannot fail to fall ; while, on another 
portion of the island, the spat may fall on a windy day, be 
thus left to the tender mercy of a fiercely receding tide, 
and so be lost, or fall, mayhap, on inaccessible rocks, a long 
way from the shore. On the Isle of Oleron, which supplies 
the green oyster breeders of Marennes with such large 
quantities, it is quite certain that in the course of the 
summer a friendly wave will waft large quantities of spat 
into the artificial parcs, when it is known that the oysters 
in these parcs have not spawned. Where does this foreign 
spat come from? The men say it comes off some of the 
natural beds of the adjoining sea—is driven in by the tide, 
and finds a welcome resting place on the artificial receivers 
of their parcs. It is altogether an erroneous idea to suppose 
that there are some seasons when the oyster does not spat, 
because of the cold weather, &c. Some of the parcs had 
spatted at Arcachon this year in very ungenial weather. 
The spatting of the oyster does not depend on the weather 
at all, but the destination of the spat doeg because if the 
tiny seedling oyster does not fall on propitious ground it is 
lost for ever. New oyster beds are often discovered in places 
where it is certain oysters did not exist in previous years— 
how came they then to be formed ? The spat must have 
been blown upon that ground by the ill wind that carried 
it away from the spot where it was expected to fall. Ifthe 
spat exuded by the large quantity of oysters known to be 
stocked in the arcs at Whitstable, in Kent, the home of 
the “native,” were always to fall on the cultch of Whit- 
stable, instead of on the adjoining flats and elsewhere, the 
company would soon become enormously wealthy. At 
present, one of the largest items of their annual expenditure 
is for brood to be fattened for the market. This brood 
they buy everywhere, in order to keep the London ovens 
taverns constantly stocked with natzves. 
