REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 189 



even 20 to 30 per cent, of the liberated lobsters were recaught in less 

 than 3 months.* When we seriously consider such facts as these, and 

 realize that a female lobster which has had the rare good fortune to 

 live to attain a length of 15 inches will produce on an average 7 times 

 the number of eggs laid by a 9-inch lobster, it is a question whether 

 State legislation should protect only the young and often sexually 

 immature lobsters whose productivity is so much less than that of 

 the older and larger individuals — individuals in whom life is cut short 

 long before the period of maximum generative ability has l^een 

 reached. It is not at all probable that the lobster problem will ever 

 be solved by protecting the lobster in its earlier years alone; nor yet 

 by protecting it only in its old age. Perhaps the time has come when 

 there should be both a maximum and a minimum size limit between 

 which lobsters may be taken. There seems to be no other method 

 of legislation whereby it is possible to effectually combine the highest 

 value of the lobster fisheries to man with the maximum advantage 

 to the lobster itself. 



X. Observations on " Giant " Lobsters. 



Except the facts presented in the last section, concerning the very 

 large or "giant" lobsters no accurate data regarding the rate of 

 growth is at hand. We are at liberty to believe, however, that by 

 the time a male lobster has attained a length of 10 inches, and per- 

 chance earlier, it does not molt oftener than once in a year: and after 

 the 15-inch limit not oftener than once in two years. 



This estimate of the frequency of moUiug is less than that accepted by 

 most observers. Sars (77) -oTote concerning the European lobster, "The 

 lobster changes its skin once a year as long as it grows; when it has ceased 

 growing the changing does not occur so often." It is reasonable to believe, 

 however, that the frequency of the molting period for all lobsters does not 

 differ greatly from the frequency of molting in the case of other aged macru- 



*In European waters it has been estimated, according to Ehrenbaum ('03), that of large 

 number of lobsters liberated 40 per cent, were recaught within a period of 9 months; and that 

 in 2J years 65 per cent, of them had again come into the pots of the lobster fishermen. 



