[26] Fissurella reticulata.
[27] Pholas dactylus; the principal figure in Plate [VI.], represented as exposed in its burrow by the splitting off of a portion of the limestone rock.
[28] Zoologist, p. 7819.
[29] Nat. Hist. of Brighton, p. 185.
[30] Zoologist, p. 6541.
[31] Saxicava rugosa; represented by the smaller figure in Plate [VI.]
[32] Actinia mesembryanthemum, represented in Plate [VII.], at the lower right-hand corner.
[33] Anthea cereus, var. smaragdina, represented at the left hand of Plate [IX.]
[34] M. Coste has lately communicated a paper to the Academy of Sciences on the progress of his artificial oyster-beds on the western coast of France. Several thousands of the inhabitants of the island of Ré have been for the last four years engaged in cleansing their muddy coast of the sediments which prevented oysters from congregating there; and as the work advances the seed wafted over from Nieulle and other oyster localities settles in the new beds, and, added to that transplanted, peoples the coast, so that 72,000,000 of oysters, from one to four years old, and nearly all marketable, is the lowest average per annum registered by the local administration, representing, at the rate of from 25 to 30 francs per thousand, which is the current price in the locality, a sum of about two millions of francs, the produce of an extremely limited surface. That the waves or currents carry the seed of oysters is a well-known fact, since the walls of sluices newly erected are often covered with them. In the island of Ré, the existence of the oyster-beds, however, no longer depends upon this contingency, they being now in a state of permanent self-reproduction. The distinction of oyster-beds into those of collection and those of reproduction is quite unnecessary, since the property of reproduction belongs to them all. In some localities it is sufficient to prepare the emerging banks for collection to see them soon covered with seed; but in other places nothing would be obtained without transplanting proper subjects, an operation which by no means impairs their reproductive qualities. The concession of emerging banks is anxiously applied for by the inhabitants of the coast; the more so as improvements in the working of this branch of trade are of daily occurrence. Thus, Dr. Kemmerer, of Ré, covers a number of tiles with a coating of a kind of mastic, brittle enough to enable him to detach the small oysters from it. When this coating is well covered with seed he gets it off all in one piece, which he carries to the place where the seed is to grow. The same tile he coats a second time, and so on as long as the seed will deposit upon it. In short, wherever the violence of the currents and the instability of the bottom do not present irresistible obstacles the cultivation of the oysters has become a lucrative business.
[35] Alcyonium digitatum, for which see Plate [VII.] It is the white object near the middle of the picture, partly concealed by the intervening leaf of green Ulva.