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174 CEYLON PEARL FISHERIES.
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placenta),* and
he made no practical suggestion of any value. Previous to his advent
Master-Attendant Steuart and Dr. Kelaart had paid a good deal of
attention to this subject, the latter first reporting that the peral
oyster was capable of detaching its byssus and moving from place to
place. In'our own time Master-Attendant Donnan as Inspector of the
Pearl Banks has, through careful observation, acquired a practical
experience surpassed by no living authority on the subject of Pearl
Oysters and Pearl Fisheries. For some years it was supposed, and Mr.
Holdsworth supported the idea, that the action of currents carrying
muddy deposits over the banks of young oysters, accounted for the lapse
of fisheries, but Captain Donnan has disproved this opinion. He says:—"
In-my experience I have never found the slightest trace of mud being
carried over the banks. The bed of the banks remains undisturbed as
evidenced by the fact of a tank, which was sunk on the banks with some
young oysters in it to test their growth in 1867, having remained
undisturbed to this day. The tank embedded itself about a foot in the
sand, and I have had it examined every year since, and it remains the
same, no further accumulation or washing of sand round it." But all the
experience gained, and all we have learned about the terribly
dtstructive action of skates and other enemies, has failed to shew us
any means of turning a fitful and uncertain into a regular and
continuous source of revenue. Capt. Donnan has, however, acquired much
practical knowledge as to the porper age at which the oysters should be
fished; he has reduced the inspection of the banks to a system; and he
shows in the case of the Ceylon oyster banks the danger of waiting too
long equally with that of fishing too early; the proper age being
generally between the fourth and sixth year, but the oysters are liable
occasionally to get detached and to disappear altogether after five
years. The fishing of any one particular bank must, however, be guided
by circumstances, and the results of careful inspections held twice a
year: this was well shewn in the case of our last two Fisheries. The
outturn of pearls in the sample taken in November 1879, proved that the
oysters were too young for fishing in the spring of 1880, but \ then
there were such an enormous number of oysters on the bed—more than
could possibly be fished in one year—that it was decided to fish a
portion of the bank during that season rather than run the risk of
losing them if kept another year. The oysters fished in. 1880 were 4£
years old, and 26 millions of them only yielded one-third the amount
that the remainder, 18J millions, kept for fishing in 1881 and
consequently 53 years at the time of fishing, gave. This, however,
cannot alwayt be taken as a criterion, for the oysters fished in 1874,
1877, and 1879, were only 4 years old; and gave better results than the
oysters fished in 1880, which were six months older.
Considering
the half-million of pounds sterling netted during the first 14 years of
British occupation, it was no wonder though Ceylon should' be regarded
as an Eldorado worthy of being kept in exchange for Java by the English
authorities at the peace of 1815 ; but alas!-possibly through
overfishing and careless management in those early days^-all the
fisheries 'since 1809 put together make up no more than an equivalent
sum to that obtained by our first two Governors—the Hon. Frederick
North, afterwards Earl of Guildford; and General Sir Thomas Maitland,
the "King Tom" of Malta and Ionian Islands celebrity. Governor Sir
Robert Brownrigg, the conqueror of the Kandyan Kingdom, received one
windfall of .£100,000 in 1814; and then there was a blank until, in the
four closing years of Sir Edward Barnes' prolonged and brilliant
administration, £120,000 was received. This good fortune, continued
throughout the time of Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton—one year, 1834, alone
being blank—and the Pearl Fishery gave this Governor altogether
*
Capt. Donnan has, however, seen some Persian Gulf oyster shells,
between which and the Gulf of Mannar oysters he could see no
difference.
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