own shadow on the unruffled surface, they see
the young spat floating above the seaweed
like white spangles, and then descending to its
resting-place. Next a thin white line of whelk
advances, and the young oyster is slain. They
gather these whelks at low spring tides, and
M. Comte, chief of the ostreacultural department
records that one man has been known to
gather fourteen thousand whelks in two hours.

But man and his cupidity are the great
destroyers. Dredgers on public beds crane up
multitudes, regardless of the future. "After
me, the deluge," is practically the motto of every
oyster dredger. Oysters are dear in Paris;
they are dear in London. We must make
hay while the sun shines. Oysters may fall in
price next year; who knows? Then where shall
we be? So they dredge and dredge until scarce
an oyster is left to breed. On the great Blackwater
Bank, which is public property, and open
to the fishing vessels of the whole empire, the
dredgers worked all through the month of May
this year. The once rich beds in the Solent
are cleared out. Carlingford is no longer famous
for its small but luscious oysters. Man has
fished until there is no more fish to be obtained.
Gastronomists feelingly appeal to science, and
ask is salmon always to cost two shillings a
pound and oysters eighteen-pence the dozen?

A poor French stonemason, named Boeuf,
working on the rocks of the ?le de Ré, set up,
to while away the time, the first artificial bed
for rearing oysters. He closed in roughly
a little breadth of foreshore, and managed his
silent broods well, because he imitated Nature
as he had seen her working among the rocks
and slob. Boeuf enjoyed many a savoury treat,
and then made money. Others, too, found it
profitable to close in narrow strips of beach,
throw down a few broken tiles and sticks, plant
a hundred or two oysters, and let them fatten
while men worked or slept. Then M. Comte
set about rearing the creatures scientifically.
Some attempts failed, others were successful; but
amongst the French oyster nurseries that one
which is now most celebrated is the oyster garden
of Lahillon, close to the ?le des Oiseaux.

On the first of June, I860, there was not an
oyster to be found at Lahillon, the voracious
"Piercer" having killed them all. Not even a
spat could be discovered. The bottom was
covered with mud eighteen inches deep, and
over that lay a mass of matted weeds. M.
Comte and his assistants set vigorously to
work dredging out all the mud and weeds until
they reached the sandy level of the basin. A
large plateau of brown sand, of cockle, clam,
and oyster-shells was exposed. But M. Comte
would not trust his baby oysters without
cradles, to the mercy of the sea. He put down
glazed, vitrified, and porous tiles, in the shape
of an arc of a circle. Seven thousand five
hundred of these tiles were carefully built up in
two hundred and seventy piles, so arranged that
the tide water flowed through them freely. The
bottom was laid out as neatly and regularly as
a garden. One hundred acres were divided into
two compartments by a long gravelled walk,
eight feet wide, running from end to end.
Narrower paths branch off from this at right
angles to the right and left. These paths are
only two feet wide, and the beds between
them six feet, so that the arms of the "weeders"
can gather the "piercers." The beds are
regularly dressed and cleaned, and the rock and tile-
work kept in the neatest order. At first, four
hundred thousand full-grown oysters, taken
from the coasts of England, Ireland, and France,
were carefully laid down. Then four hundred
thousand deep-sea oysters, admirable for
pickling, were dredged from the waters of the ?le
de Ré and packed amongst the tiles. The four
men in the boat saw clouds of spawn rising and
falling in thin spirals from these all through
the mouths of June, July, August, September,
and even October. The cost of making this
vast oyster-bed was one thousand one hundred
and forty pounds; and in the year succeeding its
construction the oysters raised from it produced
eight thousand pounds: a respectable profit.

This success of the French naturally
encouraged the preparation of oyster-grounds on
the English coasts. That of Hayling is
peculiarly interesting. Hayling Island lies at the
mouth of a large area of sea water, which
runs in from the Solent by two narrow
channels on either side of the island. The
bottom at Hayling is formed of chalk and
flint. There are ten thousand square acres available
for oyster culture, and these will no doubt
be rendered productive in time. Hayling was
known as an oyster fishery as early as the reign
of Henry the Second, when the fishery was valued
at eight shillings and eightpence, annually paid
to the royal treasury. The oysters from the
natural beds were so famous for their flavour,
that they were soon dredged out.

In 1865, forty acres were prepared for the
reception of spawn, and "to sow" with
spat about two acres. An old salt factory,
known as "the Salterns," was included, and, in
the reservoir which formerly supplied the works
with sea water, the company determined to
make their first oyster nursery. In June, 1866,
only one acre in a pond of four acres' extent
was thoroughly shingled and cultched. Eighty
large hurdles, such as are used for folding
sheep, were fixed, and the oysters were laid
down for breeding. The shingle is laid in
patches or in strips, so that the natural mud
surface may yield the nourishment supposed by
many to be necessary for the nurture of the
brood. The hurdles are fixed by stakes at
some distance from the bottom over the oysters,
but parallel with the bottom. It is found that
the spat as it rises from the parent oyster
attaches itself to the under part of the hurdles,
while the sediment of the water and various
minute forms of confevae settle upon the
upper surfaces. In June last year the oysters
showed symptoms of "sickness," and on the
15th of July following the whole of the under
surfaces of the hurdles were covered as thickly
as could be with spat.

And now some curious eccentricities of
the young brood were noticed. Wherever the