202 



THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



referable to the genus Pinnotheres, dies and becomes similarly embedded within a 



pearly matrix. 



The second exceedingly remarkable example of pearl formation referred to on a 



previous page, which 

 has been selected for 

 special illustration, is 

 the one portrayed in 

 Plate XXXIV. This 

 photograph is a life- 

 sized replica of a 

 Western Australian 

 Mother -of -Pearl shell, 

 with its attached pearly 

 excrescence, contained 

 in the author's collec- 



W. SaviHe-Kent, Photo. 



PEARL-OYSTER, WITH PEARL-EMBEDDED FISH, CONTAINED IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM COLLECTION. 

 TWO-THIRDS NATURAL SIZE. p. 201. 



tion. This most extra- 

 ordinary pearl is re- 

 markable not only for 

 its size, for it measures just two inches in its largest diameter, but for the fact that 

 it presents a most singular resemblance to a human head and torso. Some experts 



have associated with this pearl an essentially 

 infantile cast of countenance child-like and 

 bland, like that of the heathen Chinee 

 which to some minds has proved a direct 

 stimulus to a fuller faith in the late Charles 

 Kingsley's enunciated doctrine of the exist- 

 ence of Water Babies. A German acquaint- 

 ance, on the other hand, to whom it was 

 submitted, recognised in it a most distinct 

 likeness to his illustrious countryman, Prince 

 Bismarck, and suggested that the specimen 

 only required the addition of a gold-spiked 

 helmet to perfect the portrait. This example, 

 being for the present on public view, in com- 



PFAHL-OY8TER LAID OPEN, SHOWING AT A DOUBLE PEARL, . . 



AND AT B SMALL COMMENSAL CRAB. HALF NATURAL SIZE, p^ny with a considerable series of pearl and 



