A CURE UPON OYSTERS.
‘ilANY admirers of French literature can, no doubt, recall the beautiful piece of prose which is appended to the later editions of Lamartine's " Jocelyn." " In serious studies among his books at evening, when the sacristan has taken the keys of the church, when the Angelus has tolled from the village steeple, one may sometimes see the cure, his breviary in hand, now under the apple tree of his orchard, now in the high mountain paths, breath- ing the sweet and religious air of the country, occasionally stopping to read a verse of sacred poesy, occasionally gazing upon the sky or- the horizon of his valley, and then descending with slow steps in. the holy and delicious contemplation of nature and of its Author."' To some persons it may seem rather prosaic to descend from such meditations to the study of an oyster, especially among the pic- turesque dunes and pine forests of Arcachon. But M. 11 wile, the worthy curd of Arcachon, has seen the practical importance of the subject to his flock, and indeed to his country, and has handled it with accuracy, and even with eloquence, in a paper dedicated to M. Coste, and inserted among the Actes of the Twenty-eighth. Scientific Congress of France. A brief analysis of this paper presents the following noteworthy facts and figures :- The oyster, ostrea edulis, is an acephalous molluscous bivalve. It is completely hermaphrodite, and reproduces itself without external intercourse. There can, therefore, be no prospect of obtaining new races or ameliorated varieties by crossing. Artificial fecundation is also impossible. But, fortunately, it is also super- fluous. The oyster lays or spawns many hundreds of thousands at once. The reappearance of the elements of reproduction, while the oyster contains embryoes in a state of incubation in the branchia; makes it likely that it lays often in the year. Some authorities have considered that a single oyster may produce as many as two millions in a season. The oyster spawns from May to September.. This accounts for the well-known remark that oysters are uneat- able during those months in whose names no " r " is to be found- M. Mouls, however, consoles the epicure by assuring him that even, during those dreary months of more than Lenten deprivation, a scientific ostreophile can find congenial fare. Let him be pulled over to the " oyster parts." When the tide retreats, and the oyster unlooses the ligament of his hinge, let him touch the mol- lusc with a gentle finger. If a milky viscous fluid be ejected, the oyster is uneatable ; if otherwise, it is perfectly fit for food. The oyster, left to itself, does not eject or abandon its eggs, but plunges them into a mucous or albuminous substance. These ovule and embryoes form a whitish pap, sometimes called milk or spawn.. After about a month the parent shell-fish rejects these embryoes, furnished with a calcareous shell, and with a locomotive apparatus, which permits them to remove and fasten upon neighbouring. bodies. This apparatus is an organ of respiration, almost cer- tainly of light, and very possibly of hearing. By degrees there- appear lips to seize upon aliments, a stomach to digest them, viscera, and respiratory bronchia;. The heart beats, and life awakens. In a year an oyster, under favourable circumstances, may be considered adult.
M. Mouls researches are principally upon the Bassin d'Arcachon.. These oysters are famous for a greenish tint, produced artificially by pebbles covered with a light greenish deposit of marine moss- But there is one noteworthy point connected with them. They seemed upon the verge of extinction, when M. Coste was ordered by the Emperor Napoleon III. to study the bay. The result has, been remarkable. After a month's investigation M. Coste, in a report bearing date November 9, 1859, declared that, " on the 800 hectares (about 1,976 acres) of land emerging from the sea,. and susceptible of ostreiculture in the Bay of Arcachon, there could be created at pleasure a revenue of from twelve to fifteen millions of francs (from 480,0001. to 600,0001.) Nor is this an exaggeration. In 1858 the oysters of Arcachon produced 1,00G francs (40/.) ; in 1862 this branch of industry—for it is such— produced a revenue of a million of francs (40,0000 ; the exhausted stock of the original beds having been replenished by " subjects" brought from various parts of the French coast, and disposed in re- gular " parts ;" in a few years more it will have at least overtaken M. Coste's estimate. M. Mouls is justified in saying, " The future will
teach us what France and humanity owe to the genius of this cele- brated piscicultor. Without showing all the astonishing con- sequences which follow from these great principles, that by a marvellous application of the laws of life the shores of the sea are fields capable of stocking the markets of the world, and that the ocean is rich enough to fatten the whole earth, let us say that, by an application of these principles to ostreiculture, M. Coste has already created upon the coast of France an incalculable source of riches, and prepared a vast and salutary revolution, maritime, industrial, and commercial, which will enroll his name among the benefactors of humanity."
M. Mouls has quaintly placed upon the cover of his most inte- resting monograph a little vignette of the " Virgin and Child." It has suggested to us one thought. Does not the Cure of Arcachon teach a lesson to his equally orthodox brethren of Ireland? Would not a little of the time which they devote to crusades against liberal education be not less piously spent in a study of the works of God, which are laden with such blessings to the sons of men? Has not Ireland resources in her soil, and beneath her waters, which have never yet been developed, but which are sufficient to save her from the bullying mendicancy which she has too often exhibited ?
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