Ibid, cho.pter "Food'% p« 25 



-: .. Yfe do not know what kind of food.t?i.e youngest lobsters ccit in 

 nc.ture, but in confihen&nt they tlirive excellently on different 

 foods. I have the impression that the young lobsters durin;,; the 

 first period Seize 6verything of adequate size; if it is not foodj 

 they let t]ie thing go again. They eqt living. Crustacea v;ith great 

 appetite, and preferably their own brothers and sisters. • Tfiese 

 cannibalistic tendencies continue all their lives. The young lob- 

 sters thrive excellently on crabs and ox liver. 



As mentioned before the appetite of the lobster is sriall vrtaen 

 the vrater is cold. The need for food and the appetite increase vnth 

 the temperatvire. Another factor which decides the appetite is the 

 shedding' of the shells. In this period the lobster lives on its 

 oTm resources. The body absorbs "water and gets thin. I have not 

 analyzed these conditions, but by weighing the lobster imiaed lately 

 before and after th.o change of shells, vre found out that the soft 

 lobster is about 100 per cent heavier then the soft parts before 

 the change, I can mention one example from our ex"periments. The 

 weight is put down in grams. 



lTo« Sex Height Changed YiTeight l/eight of VTeight w'eight 



The groi'fth of the young lobsters we. know only from reared 

 individuals; arid one has to be careful in t ransf erring these 

 results to conditions in nature; hoirever, the main trends vshould 

 be obtained by carefully conducted experiments. The young lobsters 

 at Fl/devigen reach a length of about 30. m:a, in the first growing 

 period and about 60 m^i. in the second; some individuals are much 

 longer and some much shorter than the figures mentioned. At Port 

 Erin - the biological station on the Isle ^f Ifan - an exj^eriment 

 was recently made by which 72 out of 99 young lobsters were brought 



89 



