ABOUT LOBSTERS 19 



objects with them and its feet. Being dim-sighted the lob- 

 ster must necessarily sense holes or other unfavorable con- 

 ditions in the bottom with its feet, and the foot movement 

 is probably quite fumbling in its search for something solid 

 to bear its weight. 7 



The lobster's hairs are tremendously responsive to even 

 very dilute evidences of food, and a lobster will react vigor- 

 ously to the trail left in the water by a finger which has been 

 in contact with meat. 



Even more remarkable is a lobster's reaction to fish * * 

 oil spilled on the surface of a shallow ocean pool. There 

 its response can be seen. The lobster will move until 

 it is beneath this oil film and follow it even though the 

 oil is only on the surface and several feet above it. 



Hearing. A lobster has no organ comparable to an 

 ear, and probably does not have a sense of hearing. It 

 does sense noise, not as sound but rather as vibrations. 

 Lobstermen in Cohasset agree that they cannot catch 

 lobsters following the explosions of Fourth of July fire- 

 works on nearby Nantasket Beach. Enormous lobsters 

 were caught in New York waters until Revolutionary 

 days. In Letters From America 1792, it says, " Since 

 the incessant cannonading lobsters have entirely for- 

 saken the coast; not one having been taken or seen 

 since the commencement of hostilities." 



Touch. Touch is the most primitive sense of animals, 

 and in a lobster it is present in the hairs, which also act as 

 taste and smell organs. The antennae are particularly rich 

 in these hairs to record whatever they touch. 



Balance. It is commonly observed that while living fish 

 swim with their bodies erect and poised, a dead one floats 

 on its side. The upright position is maintained in life by 

 compensating movements which are automatically called in- 

 to play by special sensory bodies called static organs. This 

 is true of lobsters, as of all animals which carry themselves 



7 See page 46. 



