42S 



kno\vli:dgk 



November, 1912. 



to carry on the cultivation of motlicr-of-pcarl o\stcrs. 

 and the forced production of pearls, according to a 

 "secret process" wliicli lie claimed to [lossess. Mr. 

 Kent treated some oysters for pearl i)roduction in 

 December, 1907, and tl)e more extensive work 

 ap|iears to have cominenced in I'Y-liruary, 1908. 

 S()at collectors were 

 laid down, and 

 quantities of spat 

 were collected, 

 which were, in ;ill 

 probability, only 

 the valueless " bas- 

 tard ■■ shell. Be- 

 tween May and J uiy 

 of the same year 

 alx)ut two thousand 

 oysters were laid 

 down, apparently 

 as breeding stock. 

 with a view to 

 collecting the spat 

 produced b\' them, 

 on the grounds. 

 This has often been 

 done, and has been 

 taken up by sci- 

 entific men, who 

 ought to know that 

 it is a forlorn hope. 

 Layingdow n breed- 

 ing stock has much 

 to be said in its 

 favour in certain 

 cases where the 

 edible oyster is con- 

 cerned, especially if 

 the beds are in 

 land-locked waters, 

 where there is little 

 chance of the spat 

 being swept away 

 by the tide; but 

 it is too much to 

 expect that any 



appreciable percentage of the larvae of the mother- 

 of-pearl oyster, which lives a pelagic life lasting for 

 some days, if not weeks, and which occurs in places 

 where the tidal currents are frequently five knots or 

 more, would return to settle alongside their parents. 

 Of course, the establishment of State breeding re- 

 serves,, which Mr. Kent advocated in a Report to 

 the (Queensland Government in 1905, is quite a 

 different matter, and merits attention. 



Breeding tanks were also installed, presumably 

 with a view to rearing larvae through the [iclagic 

 stage. I have already said that this is a project that 

 has never been successfully realized, and proposals 

 of this kind should now cease to be taken seriously, 

 until at least experimental results have been 

 demonstrated. 



It appears that the production of so-called " pearls'" 



'urlesv 

 I'laii of Tichi 



was the chief object of this Compan\-. The process 

 for producing these was kept a secret, and I believe 

 the documents relating thereto are still in the 

 possession of the successors of the Company. There 

 is, however, good reason for believing that the 

 process was analogous to the Japanese and Linnean 



processes. 

 .. . The "pearls" 



figured in the 

 appendix to the Re- 

 port of the Queens- 

 land Pearl Shelling 

 Commission! 1908), 

 and those figured 

 by Saville-Kent in 

 "The Great Barrier 

 Reef," and " The 

 Naturalist in Aus- 

 tralia " certainly 

 were. Mr. Saville- 

 Kent once showed 

 me some of these 

 so-called " pearls." 

 I have alreadygiven 

 my opinion on the 

 value of such blis- 

 ters in the beginning 

 of this paper. Their 

 production on a 

 commercial scale in 

 Queensland would, 

 I think, at the best 

 be onlv practicable 

 as an unimjiortant 

 adjunct to the culti- 

 \ation industry. 



The weak points 

 in this enterprise 

 seem to have been 

 the supposition 

 that the "bas- 

 tard " shell was 

 the young of the 

 mother-of-pearl 

 oyster : the too- 

 sanguine assumption that the latter could be bred 

 in tanks ; and the confusion between " blisters " and 

 " pearls." The lease was much too short, and the 

 law did not provide satisfactory redress against tres- 

 passers. The lease was abandoned in 1909, owing 

 to Mr. Kent's death. Mr. Kent had also some con- 

 cessions in the waters between Borneo and the 

 Malay Peninsula : but I am not aware that they 

 were developed. 



(6) Mr. T. H. H.wnes' Exphkiments in 

 XoKi'ii West .\rsTKAi.iA. 

 In 1902, Mr. T. H. Haynes, an experienced jK-arl- 

 shcller in Western Australia and the East Indies, 

 obtained a concession covering the Montebeilo 

 Islands, a well-known locality for .1/. maxima. At 

 tirst he carried on the work as a private concern, but 



Figure 458. •/ T. //. //,;. 



I'ond, showing the course of the current. 



