934 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



obtained the control of the fisheries, the annual produce 

 was ^~ i +4,000, and in the following year, 1798, it rose to 

 ,194,000. But these favourable conditions after that 

 period at once fell off, until the beginning of the present 

 century, when the fishing prospects again improved, the 

 ground being let to private speculators under certain wise 

 restrictions as to the extent of ground to be fished. (/) 

 During the ten years 1863-73, the pearl fisheries of Ceylon 

 again greatly declined, but they revived in 1 874, and a good 

 return was again obtained from these fisheries in 1877. 

 James Steuart, Esq., of Colpetty, in his Notes on Ceylon, 

 gives much interesting information regarding the Ceylon 

 pearl fisheries. This gentleman remarks that in 1851 it 



(/) I regret that the able and well-informed writer of the above 

 highly interesting contribution to Messrs. Blackie & Son's "Popular 

 Encyclopaedia," whose valuable aid I gratefully acknowledge, did not 

 chronicle the said restrictions, because I feel assured that they were not 

 only " wise," but even as wisely applicable at home, at the present 

 time, to the more prolific cultivation and produce of our edible oyster as 

 they were then, in that far distant land, to the Pearl Oyster. At least,' 

 I judge so from the one I now quote from a very useful book of general 

 information, and which, though probably one of the actual " wise 

 restrictions " referred to, cannot be too emphatically impressed upon 

 the minds of all our oyster-fishing cultivators as a WARNING not to be 

 slighted. Here it is : " The bank where the pearl fish abound lies 

 about twenty miles out at sea, opposite the Bay of Condatchy. The 



government does not allow the whole bank to be fished in any one 



*- 



season, but it is divided into four portions, one of which suffices for a 

 year ; thus, as the fishers make progress through the whole, each por- 

 tion has time to recover the devastations made upon it. The number 

 of beds is about fourteen, of which the principal bed, or bank, is ten 

 miles in length and two in breadth ; and the best fishing is in six or 

 eight fathoms of water. The produce is variable : in some years to the 

 value of two hundred thousand pounds sterling, and in others, less than 

 ^30,000." 



