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I'ntil the present day, a sea-faring education has been considered the fitting 

 mental equipment for Officers in charge of the Pearl Banks of Ceylon and India. Men 

 who had passed their youth and early manhood on the sea were appointed, the impres- 

 sion being that nautical knowledge and elementary marine surveying were the chief 

 qualifications for these duties. Captain Donnan has been without doubt the ablest of 

 these nautical Inspectors, but far as he carried the improvement of inspection methods, 

 lack of biological knowledge prevented him from so economizing his time as to enable 

 him to examine each season the whole of the potential oyster-bearing ground in his 

 charge. In this way it was that often enough precious days and weeks were devoted 

 to the examinaation of ground which a biologist would have decided at once to be 

 unworthy of detailed circle inspection, while other large areas, biologically more 

 favourable to oyster growth, had to be left wholly or partially unsurveyed for want 

 of available time. 



A concrete instance of the imperfection of present inspection methods on the 

 Tuticorin banks is afforded by the last fishery held, that of 1900. The bed to be 

 fished was the Teradi Pali Piditta Par off Trichendur ; fishing went on there for three 

 davs, but, on the fourth, some of the boats, owing to a strong head wind, were not able 

 to fetch the proper bank and anchored three miles away on the Tundu Par, where to 

 the surprise of everyone — officials included — they found quantities of oysters larger 

 and apparently older than those on the advertised bank*. The inspection records for 

 the preceding four years, if the examination had been efficiently carried out should 

 have indicated the presence of oysters each year at this locality. The actual record 

 is, however, as follows f : — 



\Hq\ •■• "Bare of oysters". 



"1S97 ... Not examined". 



" 1898 ... Oysters plentiful, 35 to a dive, 2 inches in size, healthy in appearance." 



"1899 ... Nothing of value." (sic !) 



The inefficiency of present inspection methods is palpable. The oysters fished in 

 1900 were estimated by Captain James as four years old (he. cit), so that by the 

 Inspector's own showing this particular bed was missed on two occasions out of the 

 three that it was examined. Oysters do not and cannot migrate, and if the oysters 

 seen in 1898 and fished in 1900, were missed in 1896 and 1899, we cannot do other- 

 wise than condemn the character of the methods employed in inspection. 



Who can say how many similar oversights there have been ? Careful scrutiny of 

 the inspection records show many suspicious entries. Take the Karai Karuwal Par, 

 one of the most productive banks in this region. The records for 1897-1902 run 

 thus : — 



" 1897 ... Large quantities of young oysters, healthy in appearance, If to f inch 



in size. 

 " 1898 ... Oysters plentiful, 35 to a dive, 2 inches in size, healthy in appearance. 

 " 1899 ... Hundred and seventeen oysters, 2| inches in size; among these eleven 



dead shells. 

 "1900 ... Not examined. 

 "190L ... Coral, weeds, pinna. No oysters. 

 "1902 ... Not examined." 



Can we doubt that a fishery was missed in 1900 ? 



The records of the Velangu Karuwal Par and the Trichendur Puntottam Par 

 are identical. 



On the Odakarai Par in 1899 there were " oysters, 20 to a dive, 2| inches in size 

 healthy. A very small quantity of dead shells were found. Divers report that the 

 undertow was very heavy and that they had much difficulty in keeping on* their feet. 

 Large quantity of weed on this bank, " but no examination was made in 1900, 1901 

 or 1902 ! 



Mr. Sullivan Thomas remarked the same discrepancies in the inspection records. J 

 He says : — 



• " Madras Board of Rerenue Proceedings," No. 208, dated October 1900, page 4. 



+ Copied -from the Inspection Registers in the office of the Superintendent of Pearl Fisheries, Tuticorin. 

 " Report on Pearl Fisheries and Chank Fisheries ", Madras, 1884, page 24, paragraphs 76 and 77. 



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