It is a curious fact that the rearing of mussels should have been introduced into France as far back as the year 1235, by an Irishman of the name of Walton. This man, who had been shipwrecked in the Bay de l'Aiguillon, and gained a precarious living by catching sea-birds, observed that the mussels, which had attached themselves to the poles on which he spread his nets over the shallow waters, were far superior to those that naturally grow in the mud, and immediately made use of his discovery by founding the first "_bouchot_," or mussel-park, consisting of stakes and rudely interwoven branches. His example soon found imitators, and, strange to say, the method of construction adopted by Walton, six centuries ago, has been maintained unaltered to the present day. It may give some idea of the immense resources that might be obtained from so many utterly neglected lagunes when we hear that the fishermen of l'Aiguillon, although they sell three hundredweight of mussels for the very low sum of five francs, or four shillings, annually export or send them into the interior to the amount of a million or twelve hundred thousand francs. The praise which Pliny bestowed on the oyster, calling it the palm or glory of the table, is still re-echoed by thousands of enthusiastic admirers. We know that this king of the molluscs congregates in enormous banks, often extending for miles and miles, particularly on rocky ground, though it is also found on a sandy or even on a muddy bottom. Along the shallow alluvial shores of many tropical lands, great quantities of oysters are often found attached to the lower branches of the mangroves, where they are so situated as to be covered when the flood sets in, and to remain suspended in the air when it retires, swinging about as the wind agitates their movable support. The oyster inhabits all the European seas from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Westenfiord in Norway, where it finds its northern boundary, lat. 68° N., but the British waters may be considered as its headquarters, for nowhere is it found in greater abundance and of a richer flavour. After the ancient Romans had once tasted the oysters of Kent--the renowned _Rutupians_--they preferred them by far to those of the Lucrine lake, of Brindisi, and of Abydos, and Macrobius tells us that the Roman epicures in the fourth century never failed to have them at table. The "Pandores" of Edinburgh, and the "Carlingfords" of Dublin, are likewise celebrated for their delicious flavour; and if we turn to the Continent, we find the Bay of Biscay, and the coasts of Brittany and Normandy, of Holland and of Schleswig-Holstein, renowned for the excellence of their oysters.