113 



Melobesise, sponges, and any other rough surface suitable 

 for the attachment of the hyssus. That the pearl-oyster 

 prefers a rough to a smooth surface as an anchorage is shown 

 not only by its usual habitat, but also by the observation 

 that young oysters have beea found clinging to the coir 

 rope moorings of a bamboo, but not to the bamboo itself or 

 the chain moorings. The number of young oysters on a 

 small nodule brought up by the divers was counted, and 

 found to bo 180, scattered among which were 20 specimens 

 of the little Suran. 



The prevailing stony corals on the west Ch^val Par, 

 brought up by the divers with dense clusters of young 

 oysters adhering to them, belonged to the genera Pontes, 

 Astrcea, and C//phastrcen, growing from a base of conglom- 

 erated sand-rock, which is known by the divers as " flat rock." 

 These corals, when broken up, proved a rich hunting ground 

 for small crustaceans, tubicolous worms, and lithodomous 

 mollusca. Very abundant on the bank were the bright-red 

 JuitceJla juncca and the corklike Stiherogorgia subetosa, on 

 the axes and branches of which clusters of oysters were 

 collected. 



At the time of his last inspection of the west Cheval Par 

 in 1888, Captain Donnan found a large portion of it stocked 

 with oysters one year old, which had, in the interval between 

 the inspections, died from natural causes or been killed off, 

 and replaced by another brood. Tlie life of the pearl-oyster 

 must be a struggle ,not only during the time at which it 

 leads a wandering existence on the surface,^ and is at the 

 mercy of pelagic organisms, but even after it has settled down 

 on the bottom, where it is liable to be eaten up by fishes, 

 Holothurians, molluscs, &c., or washed away from its moor- 

 ings by currents ; and comparatively few out of a large fall of 

 *' spat " on a bank can reach maturity even under the most 

 favourable conditions. " Much," Captain Steuart writes, 

 " appears to depend on the depth of water over the ground, 

 and the nature and quality of the soil upon which brood- 

 oysters settle, whether any portion of them eventually reaches 

 the age of maturity. If the deposit be of small extent, or 

 be thinly scattered, the young oysters are often devoured by 

 fishes, before the shells are hard enough to protect them. 

 But, when the deposits settle in dense heaps upon places 



' Young pearl-oysters have been found attached to floating timber and 

 buoys, and to the bottoms of boats. 



