It is no exaggeration to say, that about fifteen years ago there was scarcely an oyster of native growth in France; the beds—and I cite the case of France as a warning to people at home, I mean as regards our Scottish oyster-beds—had become so exhausted from overdredging as to be unproductive, so far as their money value was concerned, and to be totally unable to recover themselves so far as their power of reproductiveness was at stake. And the people were consequently in despair at the loss of this favourite adjunct of their banquets, and had to resort to other countries for such small supplies as they could obtain. As an illustration of the overdredging that had prevailed, it may be stated that oyster-farms which formerly employed 1400 men, with 200 boats, and yielded an annual revenue of 400,000 francs, had become so reduced as to require only 100 men and 20 boats. Places where at one time there had been as many as fifteen oyster-banks, and great prosperity among the fisher class, had become, at the period I allude to, almost oysterless. St. Brieuc, Rochelle, Marennes, Rochefort, etc., had all suffered so much that those interested in the fisheries were no longer able to stock the beds, thus proving that, notwithstanding the great fecundity of these sea animals, it is quite possible to overfish them, and thoroughly exhaust their reproductive power. It was under these circumstances that M. Coste instituted that plan of oyster-culture which has been so much noticed of late in the scientific journals, and which appears to have been inspired by the plan of the mussel-farms in the Bay of Aiguillon, and the oyster-parcs of Lake Fusaro, so far at least as the principle of cultivation is concerned. At the instigation of the French Government, he made a voyage of exploration round the coasts of France and Italy, in order to inquire into the condition of the sea-fisheries, which were, it was thought, in a declining condition. It was his “mission,” and he fulfilled it very well, to see how these marine fisheries could be artificially aided, as the fresh-water fisheries had been aided through the rediscovery by Joseph Remy of the long-forgotten plan of pisciculture, as already detailed in a preceding portion of this work.