WHAT WE KNOW OF THE LOBSTER. 283 



Since this I have taken, for the New York Fishery Commission, a large number 

 of lobster eggs and have turned out this year from Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, 

 177,000 young lobsters into the waters of Long Island Sound. These were from eggs 

 which otherwise would have been sent to market with the parent and have been boiled 

 and thrown away with the shells, and were therefore just so many saved from 

 destruction and given a chance to struggle for life. There is no law in the State of 

 New York relating to "berried" lobsters, and from what is said above of the Massa- 

 chusetts law, it does not seem that one would be advisable, unless so framed that the 

 lobstermau should take the eggs from the lobster and either keep them in a place 

 where they would hatch or, better yet, save them for an agent of the fishery commission, 

 who could collect them at intervals and would reward the lobstermau sufficiently to 

 make him interested to turn in as many good eggs as possible. 



The eggs, which, as before said, are carried on the appendages under the abdomen, 

 number 15 to the linear inch, and measure 0,090 to the fluid ounce, are attached not 

 only to the swimmerets, but also to each other by threads, and are aerated by an 

 almost constant motion of the appendages, and in confinement many eggs are loosened 

 and fall off, perhaps from the habit that the parent has of poking among them with 

 her legs. In the spider crab this poking is not only frequent, but the eggs are eaten 

 by the parent, at least when in confinement, but I have never seen a lobster eat its 

 eggs. It has been said that lobsters spawn at all times of the year. This is not so, 

 for the reason that they are not as active in winter and do not feed as much as in 

 summer, and also because the young do not hatch until the water reaches a tempera- 

 ture of about 60° F., which in Long Island Sound might occur after the latter part 

 of May, and in that region the hatching season is over by tlie middle of July, and as 

 the mother has been feeding while carrying her eggs, she can then shed her shell and 

 begin to develop the so-called "coral" that epicures prize, which will form the eggs to 

 be laid the second year. The fact that female lobsters bearing eggs outside while 

 others have the coral inside are taken in winter supports the theory of biennial 

 spawning. August 10, 1803, 1 took a lobster from a car which the owner told me had 

 spawned two days before. The microscope could detect nothing in the eggs, because 

 the yolk filled them entirely. Four days later the yolk had shrunken and the "mul- 

 berry" stage could be seen in the clear space, and by the 25th the eye was visible. The 

 eggs are dark when first laid, and grow lighter in color as they develop. From this 

 until October no change was seen. The water growing cooler, the mother did not take 

 as much food as before, but seemed as pugnacious as ever, showing fight to anyone who 

 approached the glass. At present she is living in a tank about 12 by 18 inches and 

 may live all winter. She had been plugged in the claws to prevent danger in hand- 

 ling, but I removed the plugs, and she can now use her claws as well as ever. 



When our little lobster comes from the egg an inexperienced eye might easily 

 suppose it to be a young shrimp or any other crustacean, for, unlike its fresh- water 

 prototype, the crawfish, which at hatching resembles its parent in everything but size, 

 the young lobster is an embryo or larval state, as much so as an embryo trout, which 

 has no resemblance to its parent. It molts perhaps 4 to times during the first ten 

 days of its life, and makes, according to Prof. S. I. Smith, of Yale, three changes of 

 form in this time before getting the large claws and assuming the shape of its parents. 

 They swim throughout all these changes and perhaps long after, which makes it 

 certain that a plant of young made at a particular spot may be repeated many times 

 without danger of overstocking that locality, for as they swim away the tides and 



