I<)22j MADRAS PEARL FISHERIES I65 



The Tolayiram Par is a suitable bank and there I should advise 

 the laying of any oysters lifted from other localities, as it is in 

 many ways the best for this purpose. It has, however, the great 

 defect of possessing an insufficient quantity of loose stony frag- 

 ments spread over the major part of the surface. To fit it to 

 receive and protect the oysters transplanted thereto and to give 

 satisfactory fishery results, I recommend whenever transplantation 

 is in operation that several hundred tons of broken coral obtain- 

 able from the reefs fringing the coast in many places, be spread 

 over the bottom where the transplanted young oysters are laid. 

 The cost would be comparatively small, as coral collection is a 

 local industry at Tuticorin and as the laden ballams and dhoneys 

 would proceed direct from the Hare Island reef to the bank, where 

 their cargoes would be scattered over culture areas marked out by 

 means of flag-bearing buoys. 



(c) Cleaning of the Banks. — In this, as in the matter of cultching, 

 we may with the greatest advantage profit by the experience of 

 European oyster-culturists, who find it absolutely necessary to 

 check the growth upon the banks of all organisms other than 

 oysters. Not only must those that are active enemies of the oyster 

 (starfishes, whelks and the like), be destroyed, but also those 

 animals that curtail the area that oysters may occupy, and which 

 also consume food that would otherwise fall to the oysters. Sea- 

 weeds too are ruthlessly rooted out. As a consequence much of the 

 oystermen's time is taken up in cleaning the beds by means of 

 the dredge. If the beds are in preparation to receive spat, all 

 harmful matter is taken ashore — starfishes, whelks, mussels, and 

 the thousand and one animals that may be termed the passive 

 enemies of the oysters — where it finds a ready sale as manure. 

 Seaweeds share the same fate, while all solid material that is 

 overgrown with any form of life is regarded as " foul," and laid 

 out on the beach to be cleansed and bleached by the combined 

 influences of sunshine and rain. 



Unfortunately many of the Tuticorin banks, the Tolayiram Par 

 being a notable exception, are more or less " foul. " Sponges, 

 corals, alcyonarians, echinoderms and ascidians abound on nearly 

 all the inshore pars, as for example, the Uti, Uduruvi, Kilati, and 

 Kudamuttu Pars and such oysters as live there are stunted and 

 poor, suffering by competition with the host of creatures living 

 upon the same diet of microscopical organisms. 



