20 



off. No credit is allowed, and the buyers, as soon as they 

 have paid their money into the treasury, remove their oysters 

 to the washing kottus, or send them away up-country by 

 railway. 



Buyers of oysters on a very small scale open them at 

 once with a knife, and extract the pearls by searching about 

 in the flesh of the animal ; but, by this method, a number of 

 the very small pearls are missed, and it would be impossible 

 to carry it out when dealing with oysters in large numbers. 

 Boiling the oysters in water and subsequent extraction of 

 the pearls from the dried residue might be, with advantage, 

 resorted to as a more wholesome and less unsavoury process 

 than the one which is commonly resorted to of leaving the 

 oysters to putrify in the sun, a,nd subsequently extracting 

 the pearls from the residue after it has been submitted to 

 repeated washings to free it from the prevailing maggots, 

 pulpy animal matter, sand, &c. The process of putrefaction 

 is greatly aided by flies — big red-eyed blue-bottles. At the 

 Ceylon pearl fishery, which I was sent to inspect on the 

 termination of my work at Tuticorin, the merchants com- 

 plained at first of the scarcity of flies ; but, later on, there was 

 no cause for complaint, for they were present not only in the 

 kottus, but in other parts of the camp, in such enormous 

 numbers as to form a veritable plague, covering our clothes 

 with a thick black mass, and rendering the taking of food 

 and drink a difficult and unpleasant process until the even- 

 ing, when they went to rest after twelve hours of unceasing 

 activity. 



For months after the conclusion of a pearl fishery poor 

 natives may be seen hunting in the sand on the site of the 

 pearl camp for pearls, and it is reported that in 1797 a 

 common fellow, of the lowest class, thus got by accident the 

 most valuable pearl seen that season, and sold it for a large 

 sum. 



Towards the latter end of 1888 it was suggested that an 

 electric light apparatus should be acquired in connection 

 with the pearl fishery, by means of which one would be able 

 to examine the condition of the bank from the deck of a 

 ship, and which, it was thought, would help to solve the 

 enigmas that still hang about the migrations of the pearl 

 oyster. The notice of Government was drawn to the fact 



