AND ITS EFFECT ON THE CRAB AND LOBSTER FISHERIES. 



265 



Table L, showing the Actual Catch of Crahs, Lobsters, and Octopus 

 hy a Plymouth fisherman, in Plymouth Sound, during one week 

 in October, 1900, distinguishing the living shell fish from those 

 which had been killed {and often eaten) by Octopus. 



It will be seen that in Plymouth Sound, inside the Breakwater, the 

 fisherman set thirty baited crab pots daily on an average during this 

 experiment. His average daily catch consisted of less than one live 

 crab and three live lobsters, and of nearly eleven octopus ; while he 

 removed daily the corpses or mutilated remains of as many as seven 

 crabs and seven lobsters. Of eight crabs caught daily in his pots, at 

 least seven, on an average, fell victims to the attacks of octopus ; and of 

 every ten lobsters caught only three escaped. The number of octopus 

 caught in the pots is not an accurate measure of their actual abundance, 

 because, unlike the crabs and lobsters, they can make their escape from 

 the pots after entering them. In the Bovisand pots the bait was found 

 to have disappeared, although no crabs or lobsters were caught. The 

 capture of one or two octopus, however, in each string of pots shows that 

 the creatures had entered the pots to devour the bait, and then taken 

 their departure. It is, on the other hand, not improbable that the octopus 

 actually caught in one or other of these pots were the same which had 

 eaten the bait in the empty pots. 



Be this as it may, the figures in the preceding table reveal in a striking 



T 2 



