212 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



the large tropical species. With this last-named type the pearls are almost invariably 

 obtained during the initial process of cutting open the valves and detaching the 

 fish. Not unfrequently, when opened fresh, the firmer muscular part of the fish is 

 saved, strung up in the rigging to dry, and, in this form, supplies a very palatable 

 material for soups, curries, or stews. Its flavour as an article of food may be said to 

 coincide more nearly with that of the Scallop than the ordinary oyster. In the case 

 of the smaller Shark's Bay species, the greater portion of at least the larger pearls 

 are secured during the like operation. The flesh of each individual fish is, however, 

 not minutely examined, but consigned wholesale to the tubs previously mentioned. In 

 these tubs the accumulated mass, locally known as " pogee," is allowed to stand and 

 putrify, maybe for a year or more, occasional stirrings being given to it, until at 

 length it assumes a purely liquid condition. Arrived at this state, the liquor is poured 

 off, and a greater or less number of pearls, which apparently suffer in no way from 

 their prolonged putrescent surroundings, are picked out from among the sediment. 

 The accumulation of pogee tubs in and around Fresh Water Camp, invests that 

 settlement, as might be imagined, with an odour of un-sanctity which is most 

 peculiarly and distinctly its own, and which for penetrating pungency might give 

 points to the celebrated two-and-seventy Stinks of Cologne. The pogee tub is, 

 moreover, a power in the land for the adjustment of social differences. If the wind 

 be in the right direction, an aggrieved party can inflict the most condign punish- 

 ment on an offending next-door neighbour. He must at the same time give due 

 heed to the fact that the weather-cock is proverbially shifty, and that the original 

 "stirrer up of wrath" runs the risk of having his own measure meted unto him 

 again. 



In addition to Meleagrina imbricata, which is the typical Shark's Bay commercial 

 Pearl-shell, it occasionally happens that solitary examples of the similar-sized but 

 more cup-shaped M. fucata are taken in the dredge. This species is identical with 

 the so-called " lingah " shell of the trade lists, which is obtained abundantly in 

 the Indian seas and in the Persian Gulf. It has been observed by the writer to 

 occur sparingly in Torres Straits and at many other stations on the Australian 

 Coast. Lingah shell, though of inferior quality, is the most formidable foreign com- 

 petitor with the Shark's Bay species in the European market. The small black- 

 edged Pearl-shell, Meleagrina Cumingii^ distinguished from the larger Polynesian 

 black-edged variety is also occasionally collected from the reefs near the South 

 Passage in Shark's Bay, but in insufficient quantities to be of commercial value. 



