202 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 
referable to the genus Pinnotheres, dies and becomes similarly embedded within a 
pearly matrix. 
The second exceedingly remarkable example of pearl formation referred to on a 
previous page, which 
has been selected for 
special illustration, is 
the one portrayed in 
Plate XXXIV. This 
photograph is a_life- 
sized replica of a 
Western Australian 
Mother-of-Pearl shell, 
with its attached pearly 
excrescence, contained 
in the author’s collec- 
tion. This most extra- 
W. Saville-Kent, Photo. 
PEARL-OYSTER, WITH PEARL-EMBEDDED FISH, CONTAINED IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM COLLECTION. 
markable not only for TWO-THIRDS NATURAL SIZE. p. 201. 
its size, for it measures just two inches in its largest diameter, but for the fact that 
ordinary pearl is re- 
it presents a most singular resemblance to a human head and torso. Some experts 
have associated with this pearl an essentially 
infantile cast of countenance—child-like and 
bland, like that of the heathen Chinee— 
which to some minds has proved a direct 
stimulus to a fuller faith in the late Charles 
Kingsley’s enunciated doctrine of the exist- 
ence of Water Babies. A German acquaint- 
ance, on the other hand, to whom it was 
submitted, recognised in it a most distinct 
likeness to his illustrious countryman, Prince 
Bismarck, and suggested that the specimen 
only required the addition of a gold-spiked 
helmet to perfect the portrait. This example, 
being for the present on public view, in com- 
pany with a considerable series of pearl and 
PEARL-OYSTER LAID OPEN, SHOWING AT A DOUBLE PEARL, 
AND AT B SMALL COMMENSAL CRAB. HALF NATURAL SIZE. 
