He reported also that no oysters were procurable in tlie Hab river at the 

 time of his visit, as during the preceding rainy season the river altered its course 

 and silted over with sand nearly all the oyster-covered rocks. Captain Shopland 

 expressed the opinion that the Sind oyster is fit for the table when 2 years old, 

 a conjecture based on the appearance of the shell and upon the measurements of 

 a few oysters kept under observation for two months. During this period they 

 exhibited very rapid increase, showing an improvement of from f to 1 inch in 

 length and of to f inch in breadth within this time. 



The details are worthy of record, namely : 



28. To gain reliable information as to the rate of growth he recommended 

 the deposit of a few boat-loads of tiles or stones to serve as spat collectors 

 during the ensuing April at the oyster beds at Nawa Nar and that the spat so 

 collected be examined from time to time during the ensuing 5 or 6 years. 



29. In accordance with these recommendations, an annual close season 

 from loth April to 1st October was ordered, the size limit suggested was 

 adopted, and Mr. Judd, the Head Preventive Customs Officer, was instructed to 

 deposit three boat-loads of cultch at Nawa Nar and to periodically examine and 

 report on the progress of any spat which might settle thereon. The Customs 

 Officers were charged with a general oversight of the beds at large, while the 

 supervision of the imports into Karachi was entrusted to the Port Officer. The 

 better to control the trade, all collectors of oysters had to take out licenses, 

 being charged a nominal fee. No special establishment was considered necessary 

 to enforce the regulations. 



30. The industry did show a slight improvement during the ensuing 

 three seasons, the average yield approximately 17,000 dozen per annum from the 

 whole Sind Coast. The yield fell greatly iu the 1900-01 season, the combined 

 yield from the Sind creeks and the Hab river scarcely exceeding a bare 

 9,000 dozen ; the next season with a total of 9,640 dozen was not appreciably 

 better, and had it not been for large imports from Kutch consumers would have 

 fared badly. Bad as these years were, worse was to follow. Karachi and the 

 coast line in the vicinity was visited in 1902 by a cyclone of great violence ; 

 immense damage was done to property and vast quantities of sand were displaced 

 along the seaward region of the creeks ; many of the best oyster beds were lost 

 by being thus covered several feet deep with sand. As a consequence a piltry 

 1,940 dozen were all that the beds yielded during the 1902-03 season. Apart 

 from the exceptional cause of shortage in 1902-03, the low yield of the preceding 

 years necessitated reconsideration of the protective measures in force which 

 were clearly insufficient to prevent exhaustion of the beds. Mr. B. H. AitUen 

 ("Eha") was Chief Collector of Customs at this time and we find him writing 

 in July 1903 : " I can come to no other conclusion than that the exhaustion of 

 the once renowned oyster beds of Karachi has been mainly due to their being 

 destroyed faster than they could recover, especially since the practice of packing 

 them in ice has made it possible to send them to up-country markets." He 

 ended by expressing the opinion that all the beds in Sind might with advantage 

 be left unworked for one year, at the end of which after fuller inspection they 

 should be divided into blocks, each to be worked once in three or four years. 

 He also pressed for further trial of experimental culture in order to ascertain 

 the rate of growth and other points of importance to n, proper control of the 

 fishery. It was noted that the spat-collecting experiments tried several times in 

 the Nawa Nar creek had failed owing to the prohibition against removing 

 oysters from this locality having remained a dead letter. From the context ifc 

 is evident that a certain amount of spat had attached to the tiles but no record 

 of its early history, neither the date of settlement on the collectors, nor the size 



