58 THE GREAT BARRIER REEE. 



for manipulation by the natives, who slit them open with a sharp knife and remove the viscera. 

 They are then spread out in the sun for a short interval, previously to being carried to 

 the smoke-house, some of the larger specimens, "Teat-fish," more particularly, being pegged 

 open with short wooden skewers. This is the particular stage of the process represented in 

 Plate XXXVI. Among the other accessories visible in this illustration, attention may be directed 

 to the native bamboo pipe lying, end on, midway between the two figures on the right-hand 

 side, first filled with tobacco smoke by one of the aboriginal belles, and then circulated, after the 

 manner of a "loving cup," among the assembled company. Farther towards the foreground, 

 in the same straight line, is a utensil of universal use in Torres Strait. This is the so-called 

 "Bailer-" or Melon-shell, Cyiiibiinn atlilopiciiiu, commonly carried in the native canoes for 

 bailing out sea-water, and put to almost as many uses as an Indian gourd. 



PLATE XXXVII. 



QUEENSLAND PEARLS. 



Some idea of the fine size and quality of the pearls produced in the Queensland Barrier 

 district, and more especially from the Torres Strait fisheries grounds, may be gained by a 

 reference to the accompanying plate, portraying the same collection of pearls in two separate 

 positions. All of these individual pearls, thirty-nine in number, were not obtained, as might 

 be imagined, from the single shell on which they rest in the upper figure. They represent 

 the tediously accumulated produce of innumerable mother-of-pearl shells. Not one shell in 

 several thousand produces as fine a gem as any of the three or four of the most perfect specimens 

 included in the top row of the artificially arranged pearl triangle. The two largest and most 

 symmetrical pearls, occupying the first and second positions in this row, weigh some thirty or forty 

 grains apiece, and are worth together, at first sale price, about five hundred pounds. This very 

 interesting little collection was kindly placed at the author's disposal, for this illustration, by 

 Mr. James Clark, owner of one of the finest North Australian pearl-shelling fleets. It re- 

 presents a small parcel forwarded to him as the supplementary or (so-lo-say) unearned incre- 

 ment of a single month's pearl-shelling on one of the most productive Queensland fishing 

 grounds. As explained elsewhere, it is the mother-of-pearl shell that is primarily fished for in 

 Torres Strait, the pearls, when the boat-owner is not also his own diver, being mostly 

 appropriated by the hired diver and the boat's crews. 



PLATE XXXVIII. 



MOTHER-OF-PEflRL SHELLS MY) flRTIFlCIILLY-PRODUCED PEARL 



The lower figure in this plate represents a mother-of-pearl shell, Mclcagriiia Margaritifcra, 

 m that earlier condition of its growth when the e.xternal surface of the shell is ornamented with 



