REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 11 



built. They will be placed in the old side floats and in two additional 

 side floats which are to be connected with the original ones. This 

 will about double the capacity of the plant. An additional engine, 

 3 HP. Morse Fairbanks, which is practically a duplicate of the original 

 one, has been installed. While either engine is capable of running 

 all of the machinery, it was thought advisable to have a duplicate 

 engine to provide for emergencies. An incidental advantage of 

 the boxes over the bags consists of their usefulness in the hatching of 

 the eggs. 



The methods of hatching the eggs, like those of rearing the young, 

 have gone through a gradual evolution at the Wickford plant. At 

 first the eggs were brushed off from the female lobster and were 

 placed in the rearing bags and swirled around in the water by the 

 moving propellers; this method very much resembled that in use in 

 many stations where lobster eggs are hatched in jars. Then a simpler 

 and better method was adopted, namely, that of putting the egg- 

 bearing lobsters into shallow crates and placing these crates in the 

 hatching bags. The young lobsters as fast as they were hatched 

 would go out between the slats of the crate into the water of the hatch- 

 ing bag. Subsequently the depth of these crates was increased, 

 and alterations were made in their construction which proved to be 

 an improvement. The present form of rearing boxes does away 

 with a necessity of special crates, for the old egg-bearing lobsters can 

 be placed directly in the rearing boxes, where they crawl around on 

 the bottom, and as fast as the eggs are hatched the fry rise "auto- 

 matically" into the current and are kept off the bottom by the move- 

 ment of the revolving paddles. As the lobsters are (like hens) the 

 best possible incubators, and as the large size of the boxes and the 

 excellent circulation of the water allow freedom of movement and 

 comfortable surroundings, the scheme is nearly ideal in simplicity 

 and effectiveness. 



Another desideratum which has been mentioned in previous re- 

 ports is an ideal food for the fry. Among the many foods that 

 have been tried, chopped clams have seemed to give the best results, 



