38 



CEYLON PEARL OYSTER REPORT. 



Proposed culture 

 areas recommended for 

 the Cheval Paar and 

 Periya Paar Kerrai. 



Details of the Condition of Each Bank. 



Ou the South and South-east sections of the Cheval Paar (see fig. 13) is a large 

 and continuous bed of excellently grown oysters from 2 to 3^ years old. The area 

 covered with oysters Mr. Hornell computes at 6,705,000 square yards, but as the 



bed extends in one direction beyond the limit surveyed we 

 may safely calculate upon a fishable area in this one locality 

 alone of fully 7,000,000 square yards. But even taking the 

 former figure and reckoning the population at an average of 

 from 16 to 26 per dive, it is estimated that this bed has a 

 total of 63,820,000 oysters. Mr. Hornell reports that "these 

 oysters are extremely well grown for their age and while they 

 contain but a small proportion of cyst-pearls and therefore 

 yield, at present, but few pearls of high individual value, they 

 give a remarkably heavy weight of muscle-pearls, so much so 

 that the valuation of the sample pearls ranges from Rs. 10.76 

 per 1000 oysters in the case of the South-east to as much as 

 Rs. 24.65 per 1000 in the case of those from the South section 

 a fact accounted for by the ready sale which comparatively 

 low-class pearls meet with locally and in India." 

 Scarcely any young oysters are mixed with the mature individuals in this bed a 

 fact of some importance when considering the rotation of fishing operations. This 

 point will be considered later on. 



On the eastern part of the South-central and over the South-west quarter of the 

 Mid-east Cheval another extensive bed of oysters occurs, continuous along the 

 southern margin with the South Cheval bed. In area it contains about 2,300,000 

 square yards, bearing oysters averaging 15 to a dive, from which we estimate the 

 number of oysters present to be fully 13,750,000. The bulk of this ground was 

 fished, but imperfectly, in 1903, and, as a consequence, there are occasional patches of 

 oysters nearly 5|- years old, intermingled here and there with the younger generation, 

 2f to 3-g- years old, which forms the greater part of the bed (fig. 14). The presence 

 of a proportion of older oysters might be thought to make the quality and value of 

 the pearls from this locality higher than that of those from the South Cheval, but 

 actually the valuation is only Bs. 13.21 per 1000 as against Rs. 24.65 per 1000 in the 

 case of the latter bed. The difference seems due to a less vigorous growth upon the 

 Mid-east Cheval, a character correlated with inferior power of nacre-secretion and 

 consequent inferiority in the yield of pearls. 



Over the whole of this bed of oysters, and extending west and north upon those 

 portions of both sections (South-central and Mid-east) which are bare of mature 

 oysters, myriads of the very young oysters before mentioned (now a few months old) 

 occupy every available point of hard ground. Where older oysters are present the 



