188 REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



stage, the ll-inch limit can not be reached before 8 years or more, the 

 higher degree of probability being in favor of the larger estimate.* 



2. Lobsters over Eleven Inches in Length. 



This discrepancy in the relative rate of development of male and 

 female lobsters makes itself more evident as a possible explanation 

 of a phenomenon observable in the case of very large lobsters which 

 have been caught from time to time in both European and American 

 waters. In nearly all instances in which the sex has been observed, 

 these "giant" lobsters have been males. Herrick makes note of this 

 fact. Observations made by G. Browne Goode ('84), in 1880 on the 

 length of lobsters in the region of Provincetown, Mass., revealed the 

 fact that, while the largest male lobsters gave an average length of 

 18 to 22 inches, the females measured only from 15 to 16 inches. All 

 the "giant" lobsters from Rhode Island waters which have come 

 within the writer's observation have been of the male sex. From 

 other localities also there are available numerous statistics to show 

 that the largest lobsters caught have, with hardly an exception, been 

 males. A list of these is presented on a later page. (Table No. 17.) 



It is indeed probable that, in these days when the lobster fisheries 

 are being driven to the uttermost, there are few female lobsters which 

 are able to escape the pots during the course of the many years that 

 are necessary for the growth of the female lobster even to a length of 

 16 inches. As Bumpus ('99) has observed, there are few chances for 

 the continuance of the life of any lobsters over marketable size. This 

 condition of affairs is doubly apparent when we note that of 479 

 tagged lobsters liberated in the neighborhood of Woods Hole during 

 the summer of 1898, 76 individuals, and probably more.f were 

 recaptured within a period of 4 months, and that in single instances 



*We observe that Appellof ('99) concludes that it requires 6 or 7 years for a lobster to reach 

 sexual maturity (8i inches) on the west coast of Norway, and that the number of molts which 

 have been experienced to that time is 17 to 19. Meek ('04), on the other hand, concludes that 

 a lobster 9 to 10 inches long is 4 or 5 years old. 



tThe facts that many tags were undoubtedly lost, either through accident or by the molting 

 of the lobster, and that several fisherman failed to make any report of tagged lobsters which 

 they had captured, make it extremely probable that more than the 76 lobsters bearing the tags 

 fell into the hands of the lobster fisherman within the time scheduled. 



