GENERAL SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS. 129 



Moreover, the operation is a speedy one. A line of soundings and dredgings can be 

 run over a very considerable area in one day's work, and a much larger and more 

 continuous, and therefore more representative, sample obtained than would be possible 

 by diving. From such a steamer, on the occasion of a fishery, six dredges at least 

 could be worked simultaneously, and mechanical contrivances might be devised for 

 increasing the number still further. There need be no fear that dredging operations 

 will be destructive to any young oysters that may be mixed with the old, or will in 

 any way damage the ground as an oyster paar. Dredging is the usual practice on 

 oyster beds in Europe and America, and it is well known that a certain amount of 

 dredging improves the condition of a bed. 



Our results on the " Lady Havelock " showed that neither young nor old oysters 

 brought up by the dredge are injured, and it would be a simple matter on the 

 steamer to separate the young and return them to the water or transport them 

 to other ground ; while it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to get this done 

 in the divers' boats under present conditions. 



On several occasions, as shown in the " Narrative," we discovered, by dredging, 

 considerable numbers of pearl oysters on spots not recognised as known " paars." 

 I feel confident, from the nature of the ground and our knowledge of other conditions 

 (such as depths, currents, and the free-swimming stages of the young pearl oyster), 

 that new deposits of spat must make their appearance from time to time at new 

 localities, and may appear any time on some grounds outside the recognised paars 

 and all such new beds will probably remain unknown unless discovered by dredging 

 traverses across the whole oyster-bearing plateau of the Gulf of Manaar. At several 

 localities we examined the ground outside the known paars down to the 100-fathom 

 line, with the view of ascertaining whether there is any evidence in support of 

 statements which have sometimes been made to the effect that there were probably 

 unknown beds of pearl oysters further out and in deeper water, from which spat 

 was produced for the supply of the in-shore paars. No such evidence was obtained. 

 All fresh spat which has appeared in the past after grounds have been cleared by 

 fishing must, then, have come from other beds of adult oysters upon the plateau 

 within the 10-fathom line beds which have remained unknown and unfished. 

 Kutiramalai Paar, fished in 1905, is an instance of a great bed of oysters growing to 

 maturity outside the limits of the recognised paars. At the inspection which 

 followed the fishery in the present year, Mr. HORNELL found mature oysters in 

 quantity to the north-north-east of the Muttuvaratu on ground that is not recognised 

 as a paar and has never been inspected. 



In addition to beds of adult oysters which may in this way be found by dredging 

 traverses, it must be remembered that newly-established deposits of young oysters 

 upon unsuitable ground where they cannot mature will be certainly made known 

 from time to time, and this will give the material for re-planting paars recently 

 cleared by a fishery. Our experiments showed that young oysters are more easily 



