206 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



to the bases of the isolated larger trees, and form a thick carpet on the farther side 

 of the water in the illustration quoted. 



Although it was thus proved that the large Mother-of-Pearl shell would live 

 and even multiply amid such apparently uncongenial surroundings as a mangrove 

 swamp, it is not suggested that such locations should be selected in preference to 

 their natural reefs for cultivation purposes. When, however, it happens, as at Broome, 

 that there are no contiguous suitable reef areas, mangrove ground, having a firm shell 

 and gravel bottom, is capable of being turned to substantial practical account. 

 Such areas can be utilised not only as convenient or necessary store ponds for the 

 temporary accumulation of supplies of shell to be subsequently transported to more 

 remote cultivation beds, but also for the conduct of operations and experiments 

 bearing upon the growth and even possible artificial production of pearls. The 

 question, at all events, of the feasibility of cultivating the large species of Mother-of- 

 Pearl under the most varying conditions within its indigenous tropical area of 

 distribution was now fully solved, and the steps next initiated were with the view 

 of ascertaining to what, if any, extent such cultivation might be practical outside these 

 limits. An oyster whose shells have a market value of from 100 to 200 per ton, 

 and a matured individual pair of which may weigh as much as ten, twelve, or even 

 fourteen pounds, is, from a commercial standpoint, far too valuable an asset among 

 Nature's products to be abandoned to ruthless decimation, if not ultimate extinction, 

 at the hands of reckless and irresponsible fishermen. 



There is no reason, indeed, why the bulk of the easily accessible, and consequently 

 denuded, shallow water coral reefs, from which the shell was originally gathered, should 

 not be again restocked and leased by the Australian Governments to enterprising and 

 responsible companies or individuals on lines nearly corresponding with those that are 

 at present applied to Oyster banks in Queensland, where, at the author's suggestion, 

 a start has been already made. Western Australia, and the Northern Territories of 

 South Australia, alike possess facilities for the establishment of this highly profitable 

 industry. 



The site selected by the writer for the first extra-tropical experimental 

 cultivation of Meleagrina margaritifera was in Shark's Bay, Western Australia. 

 This Bay, lying roughly between the parallels of 25 and 26 J south 

 latitude, is noteworthy for the production of a smaller and much less valuable 

 species of Pearl-shell, which receives full attention later on. In the neighbourhood 

 of Dirk Hartog Island, towards the southern extremity of this Bay, there are 



