THE CEYLON PEARL-OYSTER. 263 
for 1908*). In fact, he contends on p. 30 of Part V. of his Report, 
and in his address to the Linnean Society on 24th May, 1906, 
that 
“to reverse the popular saying, if we attend to the prosperity 
of the bed as a whole, the individual oysters may be left to 
take care of themselves, both in regard to health and pearl- 
production.” 
In January 1904 Mr. Hornell was appointed Marine Biologist 
to the Government, to which post were subsequently added the 
administrative duties of Inspector of Pearl-Banks. While holding 
these Government appointments Mr. Hornell continued to colla- 
borate with Prof. Herdman, though it is clear that the executive 
and administrative duties attached to his post interfered not a 
little with the more strictly scientific observations. Thus, in his 
Report on the Inspection of the Ceylon Pearl-Banks, November 
1905, Mr. Hornell says (23), p. 6 :— 
“The working out of this material must of necessity await 
the long deferred time when a pause shall occur in the 
field work in which I have been engaged for the past 
eighteen months, and which permits me no leisure for the 
correlation and marshalling of biological data.” 
And, again, in Reports from the Ceylon Marine Biological 
Laboratory, No. 1, p. 23, 1905, he says :— 
“The Marine Biologist should be given opportunity to 
further investigate the life of the spherical Cestode so abun- 
dant in the Pearl-Oyster, and which is the inducing agency 
in the formation of ‘cyst-pearls’ (‘fine pearls’). The 
problem is far from solution, and will entail much unpleasant 
and trying labour before a satisfactory conclusion can be 
hoped for.” 
The observations of Prof. Herdman and Mr. Hornell on the 
spot were corrected and correlated by laboratory work in Liverpool, 
carried out by Prof. Herdman and his staff at the University, on 
the material sent home for investigation. Prof. Herdman has 
courteously allowed me to examine the slides made during these 
investigations, showing sections of Pearls in situ in the tissues, 
and of the Cestode larvee which he asociates with pearl-formation. 
In March 1906 the Ceylon Company of Pearl Fishers, Ltd., was 
formed and the pearl-fisheries were leased to the Company by the 
Government, at a yearly rental of Rs. 310,000, the lease carrying 
the obligation to spend, in addition to the above rent, a sum of 
from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 150,000 yearly ‘on the experimental or 
* Financial Times, Dec. 19,1908. Sir West Ridgeway, Chairman of the Company, 
on this occasion said that 
“with regard to biological research, Prof. Herdman was of opinion that in 
the present condition of the Company’s pearl-banks accurate navigation, 
careful and exhaustive inspection of the ground, and wise administration are 
more important than the purely scientific side of the business.” : 
[5] 
