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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XVI. 



my duties would permit me to attend more frequently. Perhaps, on 

 occasions when you are having a learned and scientific discussion I 

 might feel like a fish out of water," or, to use a more appropriate simile, 

 an oyster on 2 its bed. (Laughter.) But when this Society is assembled 

 to discuss an unusually utilitarian question, how to conserve, how to 

 protect, and how to advance one of our great industries, I feel more at 

 home. Nevertheless, I must confess that it was with conflicting 

 emotions that I learnt that the Paper to-day was regarding Oysters 

 and how to conserve them. A poet of old — Yirgil, I believe 

 (Mr. Burrows will correct me if I am wrong) — said there is no one more 

 bitter than a beautiful woman whose charms have been spurned. 

 There is here no lady who has been in that unpleasant position ; but 

 my charms have been consistently spurned by the oyster since I 

 assumed the administration of this Colony. (Laughter.) And yet no 

 man was more kindly disposed to the oyster than I was when I landed 

 here. (Renewed laughter.) I looked forward keenly to making his 

 acquaintance, and anticipated the great advantage that would follow 

 upon such intimacy. (Laughter.) Indeed, I may say that I built 

 castles in the air — at any rate, on his shells I built many a railway and 

 many an irrigation scheme. (Laughter.) Unfortunately I have been 

 persistently boycotted by the oyster. (Renewed laughter.) And 

 now my feelings toward the oyster have greatly changed, and I begin 

 to remember that he has always been hostile to me personally ; that 

 I have never taken an oyster that has not disagreed with me. (Loud 

 laughter.) Altogether I begin to look upon the oyster as a capricious, 

 deceitful fish or mollusc, or, as Mr. Haly expresses it, an " invertebrate " 

 creature. (Laughter.) These being the feelings I entertain towards 

 the oyster, when I was called upon to consider measures, not for its 

 destruction, but for its conservancy, I was greatly perplexed. It is 

 difficult for a just man to satisfy his own private vindictive feelings 

 and do his duty as Governor of the Colony ; but happily the difficulty 

 no longer exists. Thanks to Mr. Collett, these conflicting feelings have 

 been reconciled, because he tells us that the pearl is a pathological 

 product ; that is to say, only disease in the dying oyster can produce 

 the pearl, and therefore what we call the conservancy of the oyster is 

 only to produce those unhealthy conditions of life which will make it 

 diseased or dying. Under those circumstances I am one; with you all in 

 your desire to conserve the oyster. (Laughter and applause.) Joking 

 apart, I think this talk on our fisheries will not be without its advan- 

 tages, if it has induced us to consider and reflect whether more scientific 

 treatment, more scientific procedure, could not be adopted than that of 

 two or three thousand years ago. Mr. Haly is not, but no doubt ought 

 to be, a Member of the Legislative Council ; if he had been, he would 

 have known that that wise and sagacious and far-sighted entity — the 

 Hon. Treasurer, who is present, will bear me out in describing it as 

 such — the Government of Ceylon (laughter) — has already taken up the 

 matter, and has approached the Secretary of State, and through the 



