examination whether the large admixture of fresh water with the sea over the Ceylon banks, may not have something to
do with the exemption of our pearl oysters from the destruction which a
minute, parasitical shell has so frequently inflicted on those on the
Indian banks. When formerly writing on the subject I compared the mode
of growth of the pest in question to that of the red spider on the
leaves of plants. The leaves in the one case and the animals in the
other are suffocated by the films of the parasite. The suran is
so little known on the Ceylon Banks that Sir Emerson Tennent did not
even allude to it, and we are not aware of any reference to its
existence in any reports oh our local fisheries. But in regard to the
Indian fisheries, its relation to the oysters is almost that which Hemileia vastairix bears
to coffee. If, however, Capt. Phipps is correct in the statement that
if the young oysters can only get a year's start free of their enemy,
they are safe, it would seem that danger from this source is at an end
as regards the five squar miles oysters described by the Madras Mail as
being ready for fishing next year. The Hon. H. S. Thomas, of the Madras
Civil Service, in his elaborate Report of 1884 on the Pearl and Chank
Fisheries of India and Ceylon, states that the Suran (mis-spelt suram, sooram and tkooram) is a Madiola, a
name derived from its resemblance to a small measure or drinking
vessel. There are 70 existing and 150 fossil species of this genus Mytilidce. And then he quotes:—" The Madiola are
distinguished from the mussels by their habit of burrowing or spinning
a nest, using stones, fragments of shells and the byssal threads"
(Tryon's Conchology) "and this," he adds, "is the peculiarity with
which we are practically concerned. Making by aggulination, a regular
blanket of triturated shells and sand, they seem to cover and smother
the oyster with it. If they are found mixed with young oysters, less
than one year old, the destruction of the whole bed of oysters in this
way is reported to be the invariable result." He goes on to state the
opinon of the divers that the age of the Madiola being four years while the oysters attain, or would attain, seven years, the dead Madiola; putrify
and poison the beds. But this is not credited by Captain Phipps^ or Mr.
Thomas, who, on the contrary, believe that after the oysters get beyond
one year old, they are able to eat the spat of the Madiola: as it falls. The Madiola are also preyed upon by a "trigger fish," Batistes mites.
The Madras Mail is
greatly mistaken in supposing that chank fishing has been abandoned in
Ceylon. The writer has probably been misled by the fact that fishing
for chanks (Turbinella rafa) has been forbidden, and very
properly so on the pearl banks. In the early part of this century, the
chank fisheries of Ceylon were of very great importance, the shells
being exported to India, in enormous quantities. And still the fishing
of live chanks from the sea and of " dead chanks" from deposits of mud
goes on to a much greater extent and value than the Madras Mail shews for the southern Presidency. Referring to Ferguson's Directory we
find that in 1884, the chank fishery of the north of the island
realized not R25,ooo, as in the Madras Presidency, but
Ri74,762,-thus:—From the mud in the shallow water of the channel
between Jaffna and Elephant Pass, the shells dug out were 615,000
valued at Ri23,66o. Of live shells fished the number is given at
1,179,000, valued at R5i,io2. But what with approaching great pearl
fisheries in India and Ceylon the question is where are the divers to
come from? In Ceylon the boatmen and divers now receive as their wages
one-third of the oysters (hey bring on shore. But no inducement can
create divers. Apart from the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, the Eastern
Archipelago might yield help, in the severe competition which seems
inevitable-
PEARL FISHERY OF 1887.
The Report of the Government Agent, Northern Province (Superintendent of the
fishery), to the Hon. theColonial Secretary, dated Silavatturai, May 16th, 188;, states:—
The banks fished were the Northern Motaragam, about two and a quarter
