OF TITE GULF OF MAXAAR. IIS 
Enemies of the Pearl Oyster. 
A word may be said in parting on the enemies of our 
pearl oyster. Foremost among these in all official reports 
has ever figured the dreaded " Suram," which is the Tamil 
name for a Modiola. Its habit is to make by agglutination a 
regular blanket of triturated shells and sand, with which a 
colony of Modiola seems to cover and smother the young 
oyster. If they are found mixed with young oysters of less 
than one year old the death of the whole bed of oysters is 
reported to be the invariable result. Whereas, if the oysters 
chance to get a clear year's start of the Modiola, they are not 
troubled by them, from which it would seem that the oysters 
are then old enough to live upon the minute ova and larvae 
of the Modiola. The same inference would seem to be indi- 
cated by the fact that in a bed of half-grown oysters Modiola 
are not present, though they may still be found round the 
edge of the oyster bed, where they have escaped being con- 
sumed by the oysters. Thus it would seem that like many 
an analogous position in nature the Modiola might in man's 
hands be made the friend and feeder of the pearl oyster 
rather than its enemy, that is to say, if Pisciculture is 
ever permitted to become a practical science in India. The 
minute ova of the Aricula vexillum probably form in like 
manner a large element in the food of the pearl oyster. 
Next among the reputed enemies of the pearl oyster 
prominence has been given to Turbinella rapa, which is the 
chank or holy shell of the Hindus, but Turbinella rapa affects 
rather the muddier sands which yield the worms on which it 
chiefly feeds, and though stray individuals are sometimes 
found on the sand patches among the rocks affected by pearl 
oysters, they have no means of injuring the live shell-encased 
pearl oyster. Though it must be admitted that two Super- 
intendents of Pearl Fisheries aver that they have seen 
Turbinella rapa eating an oyster, I hold that Turbinella rapa 
was only eating an already dead oyster, in accordance with the 
