138 MADRAS FISHERIES BULLETIN [VOL. XVI, 



lost from time to time. Such mischances certainly did happen on 

 the Ceylon side under similar conditions. In the experiences given 

 by Captain Steuart in his " Account of the Pearl Fisheries " his 

 belief is several times stated that beds of oysters had repeatedly 

 been missed and that even in 1836 a bank was lost and two or 

 three beds of young oysters fished by mistake. He " attributed 

 this in great measure to the clumsy boats used for inspections and 

 the ignorance of the native headmen." Sir William Twynam 

 (" Report on the pearl fishery of 1888," page 13) in commenting 

 on this has no doubt that want of proper landmarks, incorrect (or 

 rather confused) compass bearings, incorrect charts and unsatis- 

 factory inspections had a great deal to do with such lost fisheries. 

 In Ceylon the classical instance is the failure of the official inspec- 

 tion in November 1903. At the end of the fishery in the preceding 

 April, plenty of oysters were present on the banks, but in 

 November, the Master Attendant of Colombo, the cx-officio Inspec- 

 tor, could not locate them and advised Government that no fishery 

 was possible in 1904. Doubts were cast on the accuracy of the 

 inspection and the writer was asked to direct a fresh inspection 

 on biological lines. Immediate success was obtained and a 

 splendid fishery followed in 1904, giving the Ceylon Government 

 a net profit of nearly ten lakhs of rupees, which otherwise would 

 have been lost. 



Until the present day, a sea-faring education has been 

 considered the fitting mental equipment for Officers in charge 

 of the Pearl Banks of Ceylon and India. Men who had passed 

 their youth and early manhood on the sea were appointed, 

 the impression being that nautical knowledge and elementary 

 marine surveying were the chief qualifications for these duties. 

 Captain Donnan has been, without doubt, the ablest of these nautical 

 Inspectors, but far as he carried the improvement of inspection 

 methods, lack of biological knowledge prevented him from so 

 economizing his time as to enable him to examine each season the 

 whole of the potential oyster-bearing ground in his charge. In this 

 way it was that often enough precious days and weeks were 

 devoted to the examination of ground which a biologist would have 

 decided at once to be unworthy of detailed circle inspection, while 

 other large areas, biologically more favourable to oyster growth, 

 had to be left wholly or partially unsurveyed for want of available 

 time. 



