Abstract
PART vi. of the Ceylon Marine Biological Reports (dated January, 1912) contains the announcement that the laboratory, which has been maintained by the Ceylon Company of Pearl Fishers, has been closed, as the leasing of the pearl—banks has not proved a commercial success. Mr. T. Southwell, scientific adviser to the company, discusses the causes of this failure. He points out that the uncertain nature of the pearl-fishery has been recognised for several centuries, and that periods of barrenness have succeeded years of plenty. The banks were leased by the company in 1905, and there were successful fisheries for pearl-oysters in 1906 and 1907, since when no fisheries have been held. The banks are reported as being at the present time absolutely barren, due to the rapaciousness of man and his neglect to leave breeding stocks, and due also to the attacks of voracious fish. So thoroughly have the banks been depleted, not only of pearl-oysters but of all molluscs, that during the last two and a half years fewer than half a dozen molluscs have been obtained, in spite of the efforts of divers and the use of the trawl and dredge.
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The Ceylon Pearl Fishery . Nature 89, 350 (1912). https://doi.org/10.1038/089350a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/089350a0