THE PEARL OYSTER. 925 



opening of this chapter, the Meleagrina is not, strictly and 

 zoologically speaking, an oyster. The shell is rounded in 

 form, and usually coloured greenish on the external sur- 

 face. The animal moors itself by a beard or " byssus," like 

 the common mussel. The chief fisheries are those of 

 Ceylon, (i) which, together with the fisheries in the Per- 

 sian Gulf, were known to the ancients. The chief seat of 

 the Cingalese fishery exists in the Gulf of Menaar, a bay 

 on the north-east aspect of Ceylon. It begins in February 

 or March, and extends over a period of about a month, (j) 



(i) Here the greatest of all pearl fisheries has been carried on for 

 many centuries. They seem always to have been considered the pro- 

 perty of the King or Kings of Ceylon ; but, since the occupation of the 

 island by the British, the privilege of fishing on them has been sold 

 sometimes by auction, the sales being only made for one season. 



According to the Queen newspaper for December gth, 1889, " the 

 last Pearl fishery season in Ceylon could not have been more successful 

 than it was. The season only lasts 22 days, and during that period 

 1 1 ,000,000 were brought to the surface by 50 divers, who are paid by 

 one-fourth of the number caught. This season the whole produce was 

 sold at the rate of 24$ per 1000 shells. The Government received 

 ^20,000 as their share, and the divers ^6,400. The largest pearls are 

 worth in Ceylon from ^40 to ^"60, and in Europe they fetch three times 

 the price, or more." 



It is said that the number of Pearl Oysters collected last year (1889) 

 at these fisheries merely covered the cost of bringing them from the sea 

 bottom. One reason for the falling off in the returns was the outbreak 

 of Cholera, which attacked the workers in the spring. Another is 

 found in the circumstance that, later in the year, a shark carried off one 

 of the divers ; his fellow-workmen, fearing the same ghastly fate, 

 refused to enter the water. 



(/) Writers vary in their accounts : the author of " The Adven- 

 tures of an Oyster" says: The pearl fishery always begins in the 

 month of April, because the sea has then a beautiful tranquillity, and it 

 is generally continued to the middle or end of May." 



