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Does pearls reproduce by itself through time

At the request of several families he and Mrs Legge gave a home for some months to a young Dutch girl, a granddaughter of the first Dutch governor of the Straits Settlements. She had several pearls of which the Dutch residents were great collectors, got from oysters found in a river of the Malay Peninsula, when she left them she gave Mrs Legge a small box containing a large pearl the size of a pea, with a blue spot on it, and two others not so large. This box was then put away and locked up. Several weeks later he took it out and on opening it discovered more than a dozen pearls, most of them very small. Astonished at the phenomenon he called his chief servant, a Portuguese, who happened to enter the room and who expressed no surprise but declared it to be a common occurrence. On enquiry he found that many of the Dutch people had jars of pearls, large and small, which had accumulated in this way. Some years later he related the incident at dinner on board ship. The captain was a cautious Highlander and said nothing, but two years after, meeting James Legge in Hong Kong he came up to him with the words, 'It's true, Doctor,' 'What is true?' 'What you told us about the pearls.' He added that he had disbelieved the story at the time, but had investigated the matter on his voyages between China and Calcutta. Nearly forty years after, a letter was published in the Times asserting the same thing, and provoked a good deal of correspondence.

-- James Legge, Missionary and Scholar, by Helen Edith Legge , Religious Tract Society (Great Britain), Page 23.

 I can't find the answer to this curious claim, if anybody knew the truth, please kindly leave your comment, it will be much appreciated.
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