CEYLON PEARL-FISHERY. 



them up firmly wedged in the slit. He tosses the shells 

 ashore, and continues his labours until he has collected a 

 large heap. Then he proceeds to open them, either with 

 a knife or a sharpened shell ; finding, it is calculated, a 

 pearl in every fortieth shell, and one pearl in a dozen 

 being of a kind to bring a profit. The musse' i taken from 

 a rocky or shingly bed are more productive v f pearls than 

 those derived from the sand. 



Excellent river-pearls, known as " Bohemian," are pro- 

 cured from the rivers Moldau and Wottowa. A fresh- 

 water pearl-fishery is also carried on in Bavaria ; and, on 

 a small scale, in some of the Welsh rivers and in the 

 north of Ireland. 



The avicula is not the only mollusc which yields pearls. 

 The Bay of Tamblegam, near Trincomale, is the seat of a 

 fishery, where the shell producing the pearl is the thin 

 transparent oyster, Placuna placenta, whose clear white 

 shells are used in China and elsewhere as a substitute 

 for window-glass. Its diminutive pearls are exported to 

 the Indian coast to be calcined for lime, which the wealthy 

 natives affect to chew with their betel. The quantity of 

 shells taken yearly exceeds six millions. 



The Ceylon fisheries occasionally fail through over- 

 fishing, or the migration of the aviculse in search of food 

 to some other quarter ; * and it has been proposed to adopt 



* Stewart's "Pearl-Fisheries of Ceylon," p. 27. After an interval of ten 

 years the fishery was revived in 1873. The Ceylon Observer, writing of it, says : 



-"This last pearl-fishery is the first that has taken place for ten years, the 

 oysters having during that period mysteriously disappeared ; and though for 

 three years an English savant was employed at a salary of 1000 a year, he 

 proved unable to account for their conspicuous absence. Perhaps out of 

 compliment to him they have returned to their old spot; at any rate, the 

 take this year (1873) has reached the important number of one million of 

 oysters, producing to the Government the respectable sum of 10,000. The 



