REPOET OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 127 



described, and after many failures, accidents, and reverses, we suc- 

 ceeded in raising several hundred lobsters to the fourth stage." 



During the following season, 1900, several lots of newly hatched 

 fry were transported from the United States Fish Commission 

 Station at Woods Hole to the new floating laboratory of the Rhode 

 Island Commission of Inland Fisheries at Wickford, R. I. (the two 

 Commissions working in cooperation), where further experiments 

 with scrim bags were started parallel to those still being conducted at 

 Woods Hole. At the floating laboratory at Wickford the trials and 

 reverses of the previous year at Woods Hole were again experienced; 

 but the experiments were under the eye of the person in charge, by 

 night as well as by day, because the small houseboat functioned as a 

 residence. The greatest virtue of the loosely hung scrim bags con- 

 sisted in the undulatory "peristaltic" movements, due to wind and 

 tide, which tended to keep the lobsters off the bottom; but it was 

 observed that during the nights there were periods of dead calm and 

 of slack tide, when the fry sank to the bottom and died. This led 

 to the simple conclusion that if the fry, left to themselves, persisted 

 in sinking to the bottom to die, they must be stirred up and prevented 

 from sinking, so after this they were stirred with an oar continually 

 night and da}'. The total reared to the fourth stage was 3,425. 

 The results showed unequivocally that the proper principle had been 

 discovered, and immediately plans were laid to substitute a mechani- 

 cal apparatus by which this method could be less laboriously carried 

 into effect. Curiously enough, some large two-bladed fans revolving 

 over a restaurant table for the purpose of driving away flies suggested 

 the type of apparatus suited to the purpose, and this type has been 

 in use ever since. 



The next j^ear, 1901, the United States Fish Commission again co- 

 operated with the Rhode Island Commission. Some of the fry were 

 imported from Woods Hole and some were hatched at Wickford. 

 An apparatus for using the two-bladed propeller was designed and 

 installed by ]\Ir. G. H. Sherwood. The results confirmed the correct- 

 ness of the principle, and the output for the year was 8,974. 



