260 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



mit one lobster lying within it — smaller than was well for them. The 

 depth of the apartments was about G inches, and the bottoms were bored 

 with an auger-hole to allow drainage. A handful of wet straw was put 

 in each apartment and a lobster laid upon it, theu sponges dripping 

 with salt water were placed above and around it until quite concealed 

 from sight and from dry air by this stratum of wet sponges. 



There were twelve of these boxes, each containing twelve above-de- 

 scribed apartments, placed in the aquarium-car, one upon another, in 

 two piles of six boxes each, against the side of the car. In going over 

 the lobsters twice a day, the boxes were taken down and the sponges 

 were removed from the lobsters one at a time and squeezed over the 

 animal, which, if alive, will respond to it by blinking its eyes and 

 stretching its claws, perhaps moving its body a little. The sponges 

 were then dipped into a pailful of sea-water and wetted again, and were 

 carefully arranged as before about the lobster. Pieces of ice which an- 

 other person had been breaking up meanwhile were strewn over each 

 box, among the apartments and sponges, to keep cool the water in the 

 sponges and the moisture in the straw and around the lobster. It was 

 slow work, and the lobsters were too much exposed during the opera- 

 tions. Often, after the boxes were piled up again, pailsful of salt water 

 were poured over the whole. During the first two or three days only a 

 few were found dead when they were repacked. 



At noon, Saturday, June 6, sixty lobsters were put into one of the 

 large salt-water tanks with the striped bass and some other salt-water 

 fish. Into this tank, as into all the others, air was continually forced 

 through hose from the air force-pumps, kept in motion by a band pass- 

 ing around the axle of a pair of the car-wheels. The lobsters in this 

 salt water, the next morning, at Chicago, appeared to be doing very 

 well ; but Sunday afternoon the lid of this tank was discovered to have 

 fallen, aud upon raising it all the lobsters were found dead. The fish 

 also in the tank were dead. Whether the falling of the lid was the 

 cause of their death, we could not quite decide ; but it seemed very 

 probable that it was because the air pumped into the tank after the lid 

 fell, having no means of escape at the top of the tank, exerted a great 

 pressure upon the water and in this way killed them, and also because 

 of the impure air which was confined inside for some time without being 

 replaced by purer. The fact that the fish died also shows that it was 

 some external calamity common to them both. The wooden tanks, the 

 mixture of resin and tallow, though but little, with which the tank was 

 smeared, the number in oue tank, aud the company with the fish, are 

 also variable quantities whose effects might be discussed relative to 

 this result and also to the result of the experiment which was thus 

 checked. Therefore this case should not be considered a fair experi- 

 ment and as deciding whether lobsters cannot be transported healthily, 

 in an open tank of salt water, into which air is continually forced, 

 without changing the salt water itself, and kept constantly at a low 



