PRESENT CONDITION OF THE PEARL BANKS. 39 



young ones crowd thickly upon the valves, ranging from 20 and 30 up to actually 

 (and frequently) counted totals of 96 to 99 upon each individual. Where cultch and 

 unoccupied outcropping rock occur every inch is crowded, the little oysters seeming 

 to shoulder each other in their fight for vantage ground. Mr. HORNELL goes on to 

 state : " Towards the west, upon the sandy cultch-barren stretches of the South- 

 central Cheval, the struggle for existence among the young oysters is already intense; 

 clusters of individuals are grouped round nuclei of absurdly small and inadequate 

 dimensions, and often I have counted from 30 to 50 oysters in a bunch having for its 

 centre a fragment of stone or shell no larger than a pea in size. In other cases even 

 this may be wanting, the oysters adhering to one another." 



The danger to these unstable clusters is obvious ; a strong current or under-tow 

 will sweep them hither and thither, and while this may have a certain value in 

 possibly bringing about the stocking of bare stretches of the bank elsewhere, the 

 dangers that these young oysters run of being swept into unsuitable localities far 

 outweigh the advantage to be gained by wider dispersion. 



Fig. 14. Sketch-plan of the Cheval and Modragam pa<ars, showing the distribution of pearl oysters in 

 November, 1904. Scale: Half an inch to one nautical mile. The broken line surrounds the areas 

 covered with spit a few months old, the dotted areas are those with oysters about 3 years old, the 

 solid black indicates those beds of oysters over 5 years old. 



