136 REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



hatching is that the practice of buying egg lobsters, usually at a 

 premium, discourages the fishermen from scraping off the immature 

 eggs in order to evade the law. 



C. HATCHING AND REARING AS DEVELOPED BY THE RHODE ISLAND 

 COMMISSION. 



1. Introduction. 



In view of the decided disadvantage with which the recently 

 hatched larvse commence life, and the very slight advantage, if any, 

 which hatching them artificially has over the natural methods, it 

 has been clearly recognized for a dozen years or more that some 

 further protection must be given the young lobster if artificial 

 methods are to make any appreciable difference in the lobster supply. 

 Herrick, in whose charge the United States Bureau of Fisheries 

 placed the investigation of the entire lobster problem, said, in 1895, 

 " The problem of artificial propagation of the lobster will be solved 

 when means are devised by which larvae, after hatching, can be 

 reared in enclosures until the fifth or sixth stage, when they are able 

 to take care of themselves." 



This idea of rearing the larvae until they are able to care for them- 

 selves has been before the Rhode Island Commission since 1898. 

 But instead of rearing them to the fifth and sixth stages it has been 

 the policy to rear them only to the fourth stage, when, as has been 

 seen, the lobsters assume the general form of the adult and to some 

 extent its habits. It is true that the lobster does not entirely give 

 up its swimming habits till it reaches the fifth stage, and occasionally 

 not until the sixth stage is reached. But since, as will be shown 

 later, the fourth stage lobster does burrow and, if liberated with care, 

 at favorable localities, will hide among the stones and eel-grass, it 

 has been- thought impractical to retain them until a later stage. 



The successful method of rearing the lobsters through the free- 

 swimming stage was the result of many painstaking experiments. 

 Since the idea was hit upon in 1900 it has taken five years of con- 



