REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 71 



Spec. No. 8. Color, cream; body spots, white; claw tips, cream; 

 number of white spots on and posterior to cephalo-thoracic line. 



Spec. No. 9. Color, cream-slate; claw tips, white; border of 

 telson and of exopodites, cream color; body spots not prominent; 

 color changed very suddenly to salmon. 



Spec. No. 10. Eccentric coloration in all details; general color, 

 light brown ; outer claw tips of each chela, cream color, with band of 

 same along whole margin of claw; left chela has outer claw very 

 white, both on tip and outer margin. Both of the exopodites (of 

 last abdominal somite), cream color; endopodites of same, light; 

 body spots, snow white; whole lobster ciuite transparent. 



Ninth Stage. 



The difference in color between the ninth stage lobster and the 

 stages which immediately precede and follow it can be determined 

 only by viewing such general conditions as those which formed the 

 basis of our observations on the color characteristics of the seventh 

 and eighth stages, wherein the stage could never be determined by 

 the color of the single individual, but which nevertheless held a 

 characteristic that could be used readily enough as a rough criterion 

 for the distinction of large numbers of lobsters whose exact stage 

 was not known. So it is in the case of the ninth stage; when many 

 lobsters of this stage are observed as to their color, the fact is evident 

 that there is a tendency for the blue coloration which was beginning 

 to be emphasized in the eighth stage to have still greater prominence 

 here, with a corresponding diminution of the relative number of 

 lobsters manifesting the pure slate so characteristic of the seventh 

 stage, or the cream-slate and blue-slate more characteristic of the 

 eighth stage. A glance at the table for the ninth stage will show 

 these facts. In this stage the white spottings have begun to be- 

 come less prominent and less frequent in occurrence. 



