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An exception to the usual mode of diving is practised by the Malayalam fishermen, who, in some seasons—as in 1903, for instance—attend in large numbers from Travancore and northward on the Malabar coast. These men are rather low in skill and physical endurance.^[140] They dive head foremost from a spring-board, and even with this assistance,—or possibly we should say, handicapped by this method,—they find the average depth of eight fathoms too great for them to work in with much comfort, rarely remaining under water longer than forty-five seconds.

The number of oysters secured on each visit to the bottom ranges from nothing to seventy-five or more, averaging between fifteen and fifty. This depends not only on the ability of the fishermen, but also on the abundance of oysters and the ease with which they may be collected. Sometimes they are held together in loose bunches of five to ten in each, and a diver can easily gather one hundred in the short length of time he remains submerged. In other localities they may be somewhat firmly attached individually to the bottom, so that some force is necessary to release them, thus reducing the possible quantity. Ordinarily one dive clears a space of several square yards.