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THE PEARL
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part
of each year inspecting the various banks so as to be informed as to
the whereabouts of mature oysters, and the location and progress of the
young and immature. They keep a record of their condition at different
periods, and regulate the fisheries by permitting fishing only when
they consider the banks to be ripe for it.
The
oysters mature in from four to six years so that ordinarily a bank may
be fished once in that period, but it sometimes happens that the young
oysters are swept away by violent storms or crowded out by natural
enemies. In 1901 the Ceylon banks were found to be in a bad way, there
were plenty of young oysters but none full-grown. The government
officers could not account for the condition, and in response to a
report of the facts the government sent Prof. W. A. Herdman to Ceylon
in 1902. He examined the whole of the bottom of the Gulf of Manaar and
discovered banks on which were full-grown oysters, so that a fishing
was fixed for the 23rd of February 1903. Weather prevented
commencement until the second of March, when fishing began and lasted
forty-
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