212 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 
the large tropical species. With this last-named type the pearls are almost invariably 
obtained during the initial process of cutting open the valves and detaching the 
fish. Not unfrequently, when opened fresh, the firmer muscular part of the fish is 
saved, strung up in the rigging to dry, and, in this form, supplies a very palatable 
material for soups, curries, or stews. Its flavour as an article of food may be said to 
coincide more nearly with that of the Scallop than the ordinary oyster. In the case 
of the smaller Shark’s Bay species, the greater portion of at least the larger pearls 
are secured during the like operation. The flesh of each individual fish is, however, 
not minutely examined, but consigned wholesale to the tubs previously mentioned. In 
these tubs the accumulated mass, locally known as “ pogee,” is allowed to stand and 
putrify, maybe for a year or more, occasional stirrings being given to it, until at 
length it assumes a purely liquid condition. Arrived at this state, the liquor is poured 
off, and a greater or less number of pearls, which apparently suffer in no way from 
their prolonged putrescent surroundings, are picked out from among the sediment. 
The accumulation of pogee tubs in and around Fresh Water Camp, invests that 
settlement, as might be imagined, with an odour of un-sanctity which is most 
peculiarly and distinctly its own, and which for penetrating pungency might give 
‘points to the celebrated two-and-seventy Stinks of Cologne. The pogee tub is, 
moreover, a power in the land for the adjustment of social differences. If the wind 
be in the right direction, an aggrieved party can inflict the most condign punish- 
ment on an offending next-door neighbour. He must at the same time give due 
heed to the fact that the weather-cock is proverbially shifty, and that the original 
“stirrer up of wrath” runs the risk of having his own measure meted unto him 
again. 
In addition to Meleagrina imbricata, which is the typical Shark’s Bay commercial 
Pearl-shell, it occasionally happens that solitary examples of the similar-sized but 
more cup-shaped M. fucata are taken in the dredge. This species is identical with 
the so-called “lingah” shell of the trade lists, which is obtained abundantly in 
the Indian seas and in the Persian Gulf. It has been observed by the writer to 
occur sparingly in Torres Straits and at many other stations on the Australian 
Coast. Lingah shell, though of inferior quality, is the most formidable foreign com- 
petitor with’ the Shark’s Bay species in the European market. The small black- 
edged Pearl-shell, Meleagrina Cumingii—as distinguished from the larger Polynesian 
black-edged variety—is also occasionally collected from the reefs near the South 
Passage in Shark’s Bay, but in insufficient quantities to be of commercial value. 
