BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 12,3 



carcous matter, has assumed the normal hardness, is he reckoned fit 

 for use as an article of food. 



The faculty possessed by this curious crustacean for repairing injuries 

 is very remarkable. Most curious of all is the power which the lobster 

 has of easting off the entire arm when only the claw is wounded. This 

 fact has never been sufficiently noticed. It would seem as if the new 

 growth could only issue from the second joint from the body. Slight 

 hurts received below that are commonly found healed over. When the 

 injury is serious, the arm instantly snaps off at the second joint (where 

 the diameter is the least), and this without any apparent effort on the part 

 of the lobster — certainly not by " a violent muscular contraction, or by 

 striking it against some hard body," as gravely set down in some work 

 on natural history. 1 am inclined to think it may be due to something 

 akin to the electric shock characteristic of some species of fish. 



Progression is effected by means of the legs proper, which grow from 

 the thorax. It is always a slow and crawling motion, during which the 

 fan-like processes of the tail are expanded but motionless, the large 

 joints of the arms are at a sharp angle, the claws slightly elevated, held 

 close to the head, in such a position as to offer the least possible resist- 

 ance to the water. The tentacles are continually moving from side to 

 side, and in advance, as if to make sure of the road. Should danger 

 threaten him in front, he beats a retreat with astonishing rapidity. He 

 is great on taking back-water, for which he is admirably fitted by 

 nature. 



That lobsters have a very acute sense of smell is clearly proved by 

 their being attracted from a long distance to traps that are well baited. 

 If the bait is such as to give off particles abundantly, however fine, lob- 

 sters may be observed nearly a mile away, in the direction towards which 

 the tide runs, making for the place where the bait is deposited. Traps 

 also that are attached to a trawl-line, sweeping with a steady current, 

 are never fished so well as single traps set in the same locality but 

 across the tide. The reason is obvious. In the one case the scent goes 

 out in a narrow trail, as from a single trap ; in the other it is widely 

 diffused. The use of the little protuberances, one in each transverse rib 

 of the abdomen, has not been ascertained. I have been led to believe 

 that they act as prods to hold the small shell-fish on which the lobster 

 preys, and to draw more surely from the mud. The lobster, as before 

 described, digs with his tail, which very handily wraps the bivalve 

 partly round as soon as reached. Thus the little horns on the extremity 

 of the tail are directly opposed to those near the thorax, and the prize 

 cannot easily slip from the grasp. 



The season at which the female lobsters carry eggs varies very much 

 on different parts of the coast. Lobsters in Connecticut are with eggs 

 in April and May. In Nova Scotia they have been found with eggs, 

 in which the embryos were just beginning to develop, early in Sep- 

 tember ; and in New Brunswick the female lobsters are full of spawn 



