NOTKS ON THE LOBSTER. 273 



As to the Crawfish, we get them very seldom, and never very small — the 

 youngest I have seen was about eight inches in length. The Crawfish fre- 

 quent places where Prawn-pots are never set. 



The five Lobsters, mentioned before, were kept some time in a perforated 

 box, moored in the tideway; in this box was also placed Coitus huTialis, and 

 some specimens alive of the Solenette Mmiochirus Uwjuatulus. Some days after, 

 on opening the box, I found nothing but some remains of the Solenettes. On 

 putting some more specimens in the box I took out the Cottits^ believing them 

 to be the evil doers, especially as a day or two previous, having missed 

 several Syngnathi, I found one coiled away in the stomach of a Coitus, giving 

 its destroyer a very extraordinary appearance. 



With all my precautions still the Solenettes disappeared, and I succeeded 

 in tracing home the crime to the Lobsters, one of which I caught — Flagrmite 

 delicto. Having covered so much paper with what I at first intended to 

 comprise in a few lines, 1 will make a clean breast^ and at once commit all 

 my knowledge of the Lobster to paper. 



The following show the large quantity exported from Norway from 181;") 

 to 1835; it is taken from a book, entitled "Norway and the Norwegians," 

 by R. G. Latham; — "From 1815 to 1835 there was exported from Norway 

 the following quantity of Lobsters, in round numbers: — 1815 to 1819, six 

 hundred and five thousand; 1820 to 1824, nine hundred and twenty-seven 

 thousand; 1825 to 1829, one million, three hundred and twenty thousand; 

 1830 to 1835, seven hundred and eighty-four thousand; making a grand total 

 of three millions, six hundred and thirty-six thousand." 



A single Lobster costs in Norway three-halfpence; a trifling duty is laid 

 upon them when they leave the country. The London market chiefly mono- 

 polizes the supply. The Norway Ijobster season is in the winter; they then 

 bite more freely: they are not caught in June. This differs from the times 

 Lobsters are caught in this part of the coast. The Portland and North Shore 

 Lobster-catcher prepares his pots about March, and continues them as long as 

 the weather will permit — 'that alone deciding him when to bring his pots 

 ashore. Warm and fine weather are here necessary to the success of the 

 Lobster-catcher. 



Here, as elsewhere, the colour of the Lobster varies very much; and the 

 fishermen can tell by the colour whether it has been caught off Portland or 

 the North Shore, distant about eight miles from each other. 



The Norway Lobsters are purchased before they are caught. They pass 

 the time between capture and embarkation in flat tanks, pierced with holes, 

 and half sunk, lying off the neighbourhood of Laurvig; in this manner they 

 wait weeks, and even months before they are shipped for market. 



The Norway Lobstera are smaller than those which are caught on the 

 English coast; they also vary much in colour, some being of a light blue, 

 qr occasionally one side is black, whilst the other is white — this is a rarity. 

 They fight a great deal amongst themselves: hence the great number of one 



VOL. III. i N 



