100 REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



fluencing the lobster's life and growth. Obviously food is one of the 

 most important of these factors. A food to be most satisfactory 

 must combine a maximum of results with a minimum cost. The 

 present paper presents the ex;periments made for the purpose of 

 finding a food most satisfactory for rearing young lobsters. 



I. Previous Feeding-Experiments. 



The problem of food necessarily demanded a good share of attention 

 in attempting to rear the lobsters. The item of food is especially 

 important because the rapidly growing lobster requires almost con- 

 stant feeding, and if not amply fed, their cannibalistic habits lead to 

 mutual destruction. A brief review of the various expedients em- 

 ployed to feed the fry embraces an interesting phase in the history 

 of lobster culture. 



a. Codfish and Lohster^s Liver. 



One of the first foods to be tried was shredded codfish. This was 

 described in a commission report for 1899 as "containing a sufficient 

 amount of air to cause it to descend slowly through the water and 

 thus becomes an attractive object to the young animals, which 

 quickly follow any moving object" (p. 98). 



Codfish was soon replaced by lobster's liver, and the Commission 

 congratulated itself upon "finding an excellent food, a food that is 

 practically the same as that giving nutriment to the embryo while 

 Avithin the egg." In the report of the Rhode Island Fish Commission 

 for 1900, Dr. H. C. Bumpus observes that "It is a well-known fact 

 that the food-yolk of the lobster's egg is finally stored in the liver of 

 the growing embryo, and at the time of hatching the supply of this 

 material is nearly exhausted. The liver of the adult lobster (the 

 greenish-colored gland, so delicious to the taste, and often called the 

 "fat") is made up of a number of short fibers, which may be readily 

 cut up into morsels practically microscopic. These float about in 



