54 WILD LIFE IN NORTH CANARA. 



must be what I have suggested) because 

 a side blow with the row of sharp, horny 

 teeth would inflict a fearful wound on 

 an assailant. 



I had often picked up on the beach 

 after a storm the shells of the pearl 

 oyster: beautiful mother-of-pearl, not 

 of the thick, massive kind found in 

 the Persian gulf, but identical I believe 

 with the pearl oysters of Ceylon. 



Wishing to examine the bed from 

 which these shells came, I one day took 

 Byroo and four or five skilful divers in 

 my sailing boat to the head of the bay, 

 to test the contents of the shells. We 

 collected about five hundred shells, which 

 were at once opened and searched ; but 

 beyond a number of tiny seed-pearls and 

 one irregularly shaped pearl, about as 



