The fisheries are by law restricted exclusively to the _waghers_ of ten villages, which are Varinar, Sashana, Sika, Balachedi, Jhakher, Sarmat, Bharana, Salaya, Chudesar, and Bedi. The collection of the pearls is left entirely to these men, who at Divala—the Hindu new year—bring all the pearls gathered by them to the durbar. There an estimate is made of their value, one fourth of which is paid to the _waghers_, and the pearls are turned over to the representatives of the state treasury for sale. This method of conducting the industry has been long established. In recent years the government experimented in farming out the revenue, but the old custom has been resumed in order to placate the native fishermen. A few pearl-oysters are also found on the Ratnagiri coast below Bombay, and likewise at Kananur in the Malabar district. In 1901–1902, there was some local excitement about pearls found at Belapur and quantities were reported as collected; but since then little has been heard of the industry in that region. Elsewhere on the west coast of India, pearls are obtained from the so-called “window-glass” shell, of the genus _Placuna_. The individual shells are flat, thin, and transparent, and are still used in Goa and vicinity as a substitute for glass in windows. This mollusk is abundant from Karachi, near the Baluchistan border, to the Kanara district south of Bombay; and wherever it occurs in any abundance it is collected for the sake of the small pearls found therein. Of the fishery at Karachi, Mr. E. H. Aitken writes: “It is farmed out by Government for a good sum. In 1901, the amount realized was Rs.3650 for a period of three years; but the lessee lost heavily, and in 1904 the highest offer for a similar period of three years was Rs.1851. Pearls may be found in as many as ten to twenty per cent. of the mature mollusks.” Pearls are far more numerous in the _Placuna_ than in the pearl-oysters, but few of them are of sufficient size or luster to be used as ornaments, ranking with the so-called medicinal pearls of Europe. They are much softer in texture than the pearls of the Margaritiferæ. The largest are commonly of irregular form, with the surface slightly botryoidal or like the “strawberry” pearls of the Mississippi. While not often used as ornaments, they are highly valued by the Hindus in calcined or powdered form for medicinal purposes, and especially to be chewed with the betel-nut, and are also used in the original form in funeral rites, a small quantity being placed in the mouth of a deceased person.