Dec. 1> 1900.] THE TKOPICaL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
395 
pearls of value have been got from the mussels 
fished in our Scottisli rivers- the pearls in 
the Scottish Crown now forming the regalia of 
Great Britain were all ^'ot in the Tay and the 
pearls gathered there in three years (1761-1764) weie 
valued at £10,000. A fine pearl similarly found 
in the Conway is said to be in the Koyal 
Crown of England. Now remembering that 
the Scottish mussel is allied to the so-called 
Ceylon pearl oyster, it will be seen that pearls 
can be cultivated in quiet river estuaries as 
well as in the deep water on Ceylon banks, and 
in the case of Australia inside the barrier reefs. 
—I have taken a special interest in tliis question 
of Pearl Oysters and their Culture ever since I 
visited Western Australia in 1875. Sir Wni. 
Kobinson, a brother of Sir Hercules, was 
Governor there and he kindly put all available 
information about the local Pearl Shell and 
Oyster lishing, then intheir infancy, at my disposal. 
I met the gentleman who first discovered that 
the blisters on the inside of the large pearl 
shells contained line peails, of a golden yellow 
or white colour, some of which were valued 
up to £1,500 each ; while one cluster known as the 
" Southern Cross " was valaed up to £10,000. 
Captain Donnan may be surprised to learn that 
in those early days so plentiful were the oysters 
within the barrier reef on the west and north-west 
coast of Australia that the pearlers simply vyaded in 
and pulled up from ^he reefs in shallow water an 
ample supply of large oysters, some of them 
with ''ery fine pearls. This fact is also men- 
tioned by Saville-Kent ; but the case is very difier- 
eut now, all the fishing beingin deep water-only 
it seems to show that such oysters flourish and 
develop pearls even in comparatively shallow water. 
The readiness with which pearl oysters adhere 
by their byssus is shown by some 40 being 
found on a single Pinna or Razor shell and 
by Mr. Saville-K^nt's experience of their growing 
above a mangrove swamp off N.-W. Australia, 
There is great encouragement, too, for culture 
when we know that the happy little family for 
which each oyster prepares a dainty home 
numbers, on an average, as many as 
12 million eggs and this when the parent is but 
one year old. An Knglish dramatist has told 
us that " an oyster may be crossed in love," 
but there is ample margin to go upon ; and 
our little meleagrina is most enterprising and 
able both to climb a wall and take a vvalk, 
justifying that other poet of " the Walrus and 
the Carpenter ' when he said :— " Oh, oyster 
come and walk with us." (Laughter.) I trust there- 
fore that the step taken with so much prompti- 
tude and public spirit by Your Excellency and 
approved by the Secretary of State, in re- 
ferring Sir William Twynani's Report for 
the highest scientific opinion in England, 
may result in a Scientific Mission of 
Enquiry and Experiment. Professor Ray l.an- 
kester would seem to be a little unjust to Mr. 
Holdsworth who signed himself f.l .S. , F.z.s., 
and who first showed us the difference between 
certain pearl or pearl-shell yielding oysters. But 
it was a fact that Mr. Holdsworth had never 
seen a Hshery or even a bank covered with our 
oysters ; .and therefore there was much reason to 
hope that Professor Herdman, F.R.S ,- if he came 
out, now that he and the scientific world knew so 
much more than in the " sixties," and especially 
if he had the help and experience of our expert, 
Capt. Doanau, and was also lent the aid of I>r, 
Thurston by the Indian authorities (who ought) 
to be asked to join in the Mission with Ceylon) — 
would be able to give us results worthy of his high 
reputation and keen powers of observation. There 
was a great deal of literature, including accounts 
of Pearl Fisheries and Experiments, to be collated — 
there might even be later Reports in reference to 
Calif ornian and Central American Fisheries, than 
Mr. Collett or himself had obtained ; — but 
not the least interesting contributions to place 
before Professor Herdman would be both the 
valuable papers read that evening, and Mr. 
Collett by iutroducing the subject and giving the 
Society so good a paper, had laid the members 
and the whole intelligent community of Ceylon 
under a debt of gratitude for which he deserved 
the cordial vote of thanks he thus proposed with 
great pleasure. (Applause). 
Dr. Vanboet : — I have much pleasure in second* 
ing the vote of thanks to Mr. Oollett, for the very 
interesting paper he has jnst read to us. Although 
it professes to be only a resume of imformation 
derived mostly from sober scientific journals and 
statistical reports of a not especially enlivening 
nature, it has nothing of the dry-as-dust character 
traditionally associated with scientific papers, but reads 
more like an article intended for a popular monthly 
than a contribution to a staid scientific jour- 
nal like ours. To some extent, no donbt, he 
has been inspired by his theme which appeals 
to so many interests, — historic, poetic, economic, 
and even political over and above its scientific 
aspects, and has even allowed himself to subor- 
dinate the instincts of the born naturalist to 
the demands of literary art — as for instance in 
sandwichiug the only technical portion of his 
paper — not the least important from a scientific 
point of view— between a quaint disquisition on 
the right of an oyster to be called a fish (reminding 
one of Baron Cuvier's famous criticism of the French 
Encyclopedist's definition of a crab) — and an interest- 
ing speculation on the folk-lore relating to the origin 
of pearls. I, for one, was boping that while in this 
mood he would, even while accepting the ugly theory 
(if scientifically established which I doubt) of the 
parasitic origin of pearls, have protested against the 
scientific barbarity, which has no excuse, of robbing 
the pearl oyster, — our Ceylon oyster, — of its legitimate 
time-honoured beautiful Greek name, associated with 
a thousand poetic legends and at least one great 
Biblical illustration, and substituting for it a vile, 
inappropriate Latin term, which means, not only 
painted and coloured, but false and counterfeit. But 
like a true Englishman, it is the commercial, practical 
aspect of the subject which has engaged his attention, 
rather than its aesthetic side, so I am not surprised 
to find him strike the key note of his paper in the 
introductory announcement, that since Diamonds like 
South African shares are going up, the Ceylon Govern- 
ment and the Ceylon Public had better look after 
their interests in local fisheries, as Pearls are sure to 
follow suit. After such a warning, it is hardly neces- 
sary to say, that in the selection of his scientific facts, 
he has collated them (if I may be excused the term) 
so as to keep in view all those that are likely to 
be of general interest and eschew what would be 
technical and comparatively uninteresting. I shonid 
have wished, however, he had given the natural history 
of the bivalve he had selected for his subject, a little 
mors of his attention on the paper he has read to us, 
as no one could have dealt with it better with his 
extensive reading and special researches in this section 
of Natural Science. I have no intention of detaining 
the meeting at this late hour and shall therefore con- 
fine myself only to one or two points of practical 
importance, on which I shall be glad to be en- 
lightened by Mr. Collett. The first refers to the ques- 
tion mooted originally by Dr. Kelaart in his Re- 
port yf 1857, are oysters monwcious 91 dicecious— JSj 
