REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 87 



the meshes. This could only have been when they were less than 

 perhaps slightly over 1 mm. in their greatest diameter, which prob- 

 ably corresponds to a length of perhaps about 3.5 mm. or 4 mm. It 

 is therefore possible to get an approximate idea of the rate of growth 

 of squeteague of this age. 



These specimens were taken from the same bag on July 28; this 

 bag was put into the water on July 11; the largest specimen, there- 

 fore, could not have been in the bag more than 17 days, and in that 

 time or less it must have grown to 12.5 mm. from about 4 mm. or 

 less. The conditions of life existing in these bags in which the lob- 

 ster fry are so successfully reared apparently do not differ materi- 

 ally from those in the water outside, except that an abundant food 

 supply is always present; nevertheless the conditions in these bags 

 must be somewhat artificial, and how much these affect the rate of 

 growth of the young squeteague is, at the present time, impossible to 

 decide. 



The finding of such small fry of the squeteague under such cir- 

 cumstances would ordinarily justify us in drawing further conclusions 

 regarding the time and place of the spawning of this species. But 

 unfortunately it is not possible to do so with certainty in this case. 

 The writer of these notes, on July 3, at 9 A. M., fertilized artificially 

 several thousand eggs of squeteague which w^ere secured from fish 

 traps out in Narragansett Bay. These hatched out about 1 A. M.,. 

 July 5, and were released at the Experiment Station in the water of 

 Mill Cove at 4 P. M. of the same day. It is thus impossible to know 

 whether the specimens found on July 28 came of the lot released on 

 July 5, or whether they came from eggs of squeteague which spawned 

 naturally in the cove. It is evident, however, that the w^ater of the 

 cove is very favorable to the eggs, since they hatch with sach facility 

 there; the water there seems, also, to be well adapted for the younger 

 stages of the fish, since they were present in the cove until after the 

 middle of August at least, and those specimens which were kept in 

 captivity thrived until killed by the cold weather in October. There 

 is, therefore, in the present observations, nothing which does not tend 



