No. I (191 7) EDIBLE MOLLUSCS 2/ 



This species, altliough its shell is usually too thin to be of any 

 use in pearl button manufacture, sometimes produces pearls in 

 considerable quantity of fair value. Occasionally they are offered 

 in the Surada Bazar (Ganjam) ; these are obtained from a great 

 irrigation reservoir in the neighbourhood wherein these mussels 

 flourish, growing to a length of about three inches. The pearls 

 have a reddish tint and less lustre than those from the marine pearl 

 oyster. 



GASTROPODS. 



Compared with bivalves, gastropod molluscs are of restricted 

 and purely local importance. None seem to be used as food on the 

 Malabar littoral and one only upon the Coromandel coast. Only 

 on the Ramnad and Tinnevelly coasts are several species used to 

 any extent. Neither is the list a long one, limited as it is to the 

 common chank ( Ttirbinella pynim), the five-fingered chank fPterocera 

 latnhis), the olive (Oliva gihbosa), the turban shell (Turbo margari- 

 tacciis), as the ones in common use, with Strombiis, Conns and Mnrex 

 occasionally. The reason is that, with the exception of the 

 common chank and the olive, few gastropods are found in quantity 

 outside of Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar; on the Malabar 

 coast, except rarely and very locally, no species abounds in shallow 

 water, and the same may be said of the shores of Vizagapatam and 

 Ganjam. 



The Sacred Chank (Turbinella pyrum Linn.). 



Tamil — Sangii {3'iei(^), Tinnevelly and Ramnad districts ; Palsangu 

 (uirevs^EiQ,), Chingleput district. 



The common or sacred chank, fished in hundreds of thousands 

 for sale to the shell-bangle workers of Bengal, is the most abund- 

 ant large Gastropod in the Presidency. It brings in a large 

 annual revenue, now amounting to close upon half a lakh of rupees 

 (net) to the Madras Government, and promises to yield a largely 

 increased sum as the organization of the fishery progresses. 



As an article of food the flesh has come into local prominence 

 only since the great famine of 1877 when the families of Parawa 

 chank divers of Tuticorin first made systematic use of it. On the 

 run home from the fishing grounds, the divers extract the foot and 

 head region from the shell, using a strong iron skewer for the 



