tained during spring (near the end of the incuba- 

 tion period) trap fishing in the area of Arnold's 

 Cove, Placentia Bay, on the southeast coast of 

 Newfoundland in 1969, and in the areas of Ship 

 Harbour and Paradise in Placentia Bay in 1970 

 (Figure 1). Portions of the samples (up to 50 

 American lobsters) were usually held in floating 

 wooden boxes (about 100-lb capacity) for several 

 days before being subjected to detailed biological 

 examination. Carapace lengths (millimeters) 

 were recorded and the abdomens of ovigerous 

 specimens with attached egg masses were pre- 

 served individually in 109r Formalin.' Loss of eggs 

 over the holding period cannot be discounted, but 

 it is felt that such losses were minimal. 



Eggs were removed from the pleopods, washed 

 on a screen of fine-meshed plankton netting to 

 remove the larger pieces of connective tissue and 

 other material, and then left to soak in freshwater 

 overnight. After soaking, the eggs were spread 



'Reference to trade names does not imply endorsement by the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA. 



thinly over very shallow pans to dry at room tem- 

 perature until they were quite hard (usually after 

 about 24 h land could withstand being rubbed over 

 a fine-meshed screen to remove the remaining 

 connective tissue. After drying and final cleaning, 

 the weight of the egg sample was obtained (to the 

 nearest 0.0001 g). A subsample, representing ap- 

 proximately 1/30 of the whole sample (as deter- 

 mined by weighing), was weighed and the eggs 

 counted manually. The number of eggs in the 

 whole sample was then calculated. 



To determine the error associated with this 

 method, total numbers for 11 samples were deter- 

 mined by actual counts for comparison with the 

 estimated total numbers for the same samples. 

 The error ranged from -3.67c to 0.04*7^ and for the 

 11 sets of counts totaled the error was 0.54''/^ . 



Carapace length and fecundity data were log 

 (base 10) transformed and the linearized version of 

 the power curve was fitted to each set. The linear 

 relationships thus derived were compared by 

 analysis of covariance. 



59* 



i?» I I I I I I I I I I I I [ I I I I I I I I I I I "p i ' I ^ I I I I I I I I I I 1 1 I  



-f 



Figure l.— Map of Newfoundland 

 showing places mentioned in the text. 





a I I  ' I l_L 



51' 





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797 



