102 Peart FISHING. 
plaints were raised regarding the smell from the decaying fish. 
The effect upon the fishing was, however, most disastrous, and 
after such raids, it is years before the fishing attains to its usual 
state, 
Regarding the formation of pearls, and especially the 
nucleus or beginning of the pearl, I lave taken some interest, 
and examined a great many. I show you specimens of pearls cut 
to show the nucleus. Many writers at the present day speak of 
grains of sand as being the cause, but I must say in the hundreds 
I have examined I have never found such, or even a hard sub- 
stance. No doubt pearls may be formed artifically by inserting 
substances, but in a state of nature I have never found such a 
thing. Examined through a glass, the beginning is seen to be a 
small round body of the size of a small pin-head, evidently an egg 
which has remained after the others have been expelled—perhaps 
unfertile. Looked at with a power of 120 this centre ap- 
peared as a circular spot apart from the rest of the pearl, and 
with a variety of cells. The structure was different from the rest 
of the pearl, and certainly there was no grain of sand. I show 
you a section, and on holding it to the light you will see the 
circular part, which here is perfectly defined. A writer in one of 
Chambers’ articles upon Scotch and other pearls states that the 
colour of pearls is determined by the colour of the nucleus, but 
you will notice that the reverse obtains in those I shew you. The 
light coloured centre turns out a dark coloured pearl, and the dark 
coloured centre a light coloured one. A curious experiment was 
tried some years since upon the artificial production of a pearl 
with complete success. <A lady had a pearl mussel in an aquarium. 
She one day inserted a small piece of beeswax inside the shell, 
and the fish coated it over with pink nacre, forming in course of 
time a beautiful pink pearl. There is a curious account of how 
pearls are formed by an old writer that I would like to quote. 
The pity is that his poetical conception should not be true. 
Speaking of the Scotch pearl mussel he says—‘‘ These mussels, 
early in the morning when the sky is clear and temperate, open 
their mouths a little above the water, and most greedily swallow 
the dew of heaven, and after the measure and quantity of dew 
which they swallow, they conceive and breed the pearl. These 
mussels are so exceedingly quick of touch and hearing that, how- 
ever faint the noise or small the stone that may be thrown into 
