488 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. ~ 
application of biological knowledge and theory to the improvement of this 
industry that has proved an unquestionable business success. 
Attempts have been made, and are being made, to cultivate Margaritifera 
margaritifera, var. mazatlanica, in Lower California, on lines somewhat analogous 
to those followed in European oyster culture. 
There have been several scientific missions to Tahiti and the Gambier 
Islands with a view to formulating plans for improving the mother-of-pearl 
fisheries, but these missions have so far not yielded commercial results, though 
considerable advance has been made in our knowledge of the species concerned— 
Margaritifera margaritifera, var. cumingit. 
The work of the several investigators who studied the Australian mother-of- 
pearl oyster, Margaritifera maxima, foremost among whom is the late Mr. 
Saville Kent, was then briefly reviewed, and the particular problems of the 
Australian mother-of-pearl fishery described. The problems in Australia centre 
mainly around the impossibility, up to the present, of obtaining the freshly 
attached spat in sufficient quantities for cultivation, and the difficulty of dis- 
tinguishing it when found from the young of two or three valueless species, the 
spat of which can be collected in vast quantities. Every investigator has been 
taken in by this false or ‘ bastard’ spat, including Saville Kent, by whom it 
was figured as the young of M@. maxima. An explanation is suggested of the 
causes of the failure of an attempt to cultivate mother-of-pearl oysters, and to 
produce pearls, on lines laid down by Mr. Saville Kent, in Queensland. Here 
it would appear that, besides being misled by the false spat into unfounded 
hopes of success in cultivation, some confusion of ideas existed as to the dis- 
tinction between pearls and blisters. In the author’s opinion this confusion 
probably led to the experiments in pearl production being carried on on com- 
paratively unfruitful lines, based on the theory, which the author is unable to 
support (unless perhaps in a very small number of instances), that pearls are 
comparable in their mode of origin to blisters produced by mechanical stimulation. 
The recent work of Mr. T. H. Haynes in North-west Australia was discussed. 
It was suggested that this enterprise suffered through lack of skilled scientific 
assistance. Here an elaborate attempt was made to breed mother-of-pearl oysters 
in a specially constructed pond, without the assistance of anyone who had that 
experience of embryology and of the free-swimming stages of larval invertebrates 
which only a modern biological training followed by highly specialised research 
could give. 
The paper then went on to give an account of the scientific work done on 
the Ceylon pearl fisheries during the past ten years, and to discuss the causes 
which have led to the failure of biological science to yield such results as were 
foreshadowed by experts, and expected by the Government and the promoters 
of the Ceylon Company of Pearl Fishers, now in liquidation. To this end 
the circumstances under which the work was inaugurated were recalled, and the 
work of Professor Herdman and his successors discussed, more particularly with 
regard to the author’s recent work on Ceylon Pearls (‘P.Z.S.,’ 1912, pp. 260-358), 
in which he disputes the Cestode theory of pearl production. Attention was 
drawn to the attitudes of the scientific and popular press, and of the ‘ business 
man,’ with regard to these Ceylon investigations. Thus ‘Nature’ (July 18, 
1907, pp. 271-2) definitely claims, as attributable to Professor Herdman’s 
scientific investigations, the success of the fisheries of 1903, 1904, 1905, and 1906, 
though the author believes this was never claimed (and indeed could not have 
been claimed) by Professor Herdman himself. On the other hand, the popular 
press, and the business man as represented by the directors and shareholders of 
the company, were perhaps hardly just in their sweeping assertions as to the 
failure of science or scientists. , 
Consideration of these points led the author to ask, as a question that 
might well exercise the attention of those interested in the organisation of 
biological science in England, whether England, or rather the Empire, possesses 
the most efficient machinery for dealing with matters of such a kind as new 
and difficult problems of economic biology, referred by Governments or others for 
expert advice. Whether, in fact, we do not require—especially in view of the 
minute specialisation which modern progress demands, and of the consequent 
impossibility of the ordinary man keeping pace with developments, except in a 
