Let us now say something of the shells in which pearls grow. Your Beatitude is not ignorant of the fact that Aristotle, and Pliny who followed the former in his theories, were not of the same opinion concerning the growth of pearls. They held but one point in common, and upon all others they differed. Neither would admit that pearl oysters moved after they were once formed. They declare that there exist at the bottom of the sea, meadows, as it were, upon which an aromatic plant resembling thyme grows; they affirm they had seen these fields. In such places these animals resembling oysters are born and grow, engendering about them numerous progeny. They are not satisfied to have one, three, four, or even more pearls, for as many as a hundred and twenty pearls have been found in one shell on the fisheries of that island; and the captain, Caspar Morales, and his companions carefully counted them. While the Spaniards were there, the cacique had his divers bring up pearls. The matrix of these pearl oysters may be compared to the organ in which hens form their numerous eggs. The pearls are produced in the following manner: as soon as they are ripe and leave the womb of their mother, they are found detached from the lips of the matrix. They follow one by one each in turn detaching itself, after a brief interval. In the beginning the pearls are enclosed, as it were, in the belly of the oyster, where they grow just as a child while in the womb of its mother lives on the substance of her body. Later on they leave the maternal asylum, where they were hidden. The pearl oysters found--as I myself have seen from time to time--upon the beach and imbedded in the sand on different Atlantic coasts, have been cast up from the depths of the sea by storms, and do not come there of themselves. Why brilliant morning dew gives a white tint to pearls; why bad weather causes them to turn yellow; why they like a clear sky, and remain immovable when it thunders, are questions which cannot be examined with precision by those ignorant natives. It is not a subject that can be treated by limited minds. It is further said that the largest pearl oysters remain at the bottom, the commoner ones in the half-depths, and the little ones near the surface; but the reasons given to sustain this theory are poor ones. The immovable mollusc does not reason about the choice of its home. Everything depends on the determination, the ability, and the breath of the divers. The large pearl oysters do not move about; they are created and find their sustenance in the deepest places, for the number of divers who venture to penetrate to the bottom of the sea to collect them is few. They are afraid of polyps, which are greedy for oyster meat and are always grouped about the places where they are. They are likewise afraid of other sea-monsters, and most of all they fear to suffocate if they stay too long under water. The pearl oysters in the