® 
194 Oyster Culture in England. 
never still, like the water in the Fusaro parc. The “ collec- 
tors” of the spat are tiles laid on the oysters and the beds, 
the water in the Ile de Ré being also divided into a num- 
ber of beds, all most carefully formed, and separated each 
from the other by pathways. The depth of water both in 
the Fusaro and Ile de Re farcs is from two to three feet. 
The beds were prepared somewhat later than had been 
intended, so that it was the latter end of April before 50,000 
oysters were laid down on shingle on what we will continue 
to term the Lake Fusaro, and when the right time came 
the hurdles were placed in position over them. The sides 
of all these hurdles nearest the oysters are now covered 
with young oysterlings, the largest of which are fully as 
large as an old sixpence, the smallest the size of a pin- 
head, and the average of the greater number exceeding a 
silver fourpenny piece. These hurdles have since been re- 
moved from the Fusaro to the Ile de Ré beds, the former 
at present thus becoming the breeding and the latter the 
rearing and fattening pares. Since the removal of the 
hurdles the young oysterlings have increased wonderfully 
in size. The removed hurdleshave been replaced by “bavins” 
or sticks and brushwood, and the sarc is now full of new 
spat. There are two or three remarkable circumstances con- 
nected with the spatting of the oysters in this arc that are 
deserving of notice. It was an unvarying feature of all 
the hurdles that, crowded as they were with spat, where- 
ever a light-coloured part of the wood was exposed—as 
where the hazel twigs were split, or where the bark was 
peeled off in places—there was no spat, while, on the con- 
trary, the darker the exterior of the wattling of the hurdle, 
the thicker lay the spat there. The same with the stones 
and bricks among the shingle on the opposite end of the 
parc to where the old oysters were laiddown. All the spat 
found here was found, as a rule, on dark stones, or the dark 
parts only of the bricks. It was also remarkable that the 
spot in the arc where this last deposit of spat should only 
exist was away from that portion of the water where the 
oysters were deposited, and where the hurdles were placed 
for the reception of spat. This is explained, however, by 
the fact that, in nine instances out of ten, the wind blows 
from the seaward and over the pond—from the old oyster 
deposit end to the place where the spat was found on the 
stones and the bricks—the spat, in fact, having escaped the 
hurdles, risen to the surface, and then been blown over to 
the opposite shore. 
