SALT-WATER FISHERIES OF NORWAY. 675 



exportation of lobsters to foreign countries (especially to England) 

 Drings considerable sums of money into the country every year, the 

 government has long since taken steps to prevent the destruction of 

 this important source of income by making regulations for the better 

 protection of the lobster. The views regarding the time and extent of 

 these regulations have been very different, and of late years memorials 

 have been presented to the government from various places asking for 

 a change in the existing lobster-laws. But, unfortunately, very little 

 has been done so far. In order to judge in this matter it is absolutely 

 necessary to have as complete a knowledge as possible of the natural 

 history of the lobster. But in this respect very little progress has 

 been made. Although the lobster belongs to the commonest marine 

 animals on the coast of Europe, and has been made the subject of 

 special investigations by many naturalists, its mode of life is still en- 

 veloped in darkness. Even some of the most important points in its 

 natural history have till quite recently been entirely unknown. I have 

 already on former occasions endeavored to throw light on one of these 

 points which, in my opinion, deserves special attention, viz, the propa- 

 gation and development of the lobster (see "Fi(7. SelsJcahets Forhand- 

 linger'''' for 1874 — Transactions of the Academy of Sciences). It was my 

 intention on the present journey to observe other pbints in the natural 

 history of the lobster, and gather all the information which might throw 

 light on them ; I consequently staid for some time at several places on 

 our southern and western coast where lobster-fisheries are carried on, 

 among the rest, Tananger. Although I must confess that the results of 

 these investigations did not come up to my expectations, I, neverthe- 

 less, will briefly report my experience, chiefly with a view of gaining a 

 basis for my opinion regarding the i)rotection of the lobster and the 

 best time for it. 



As to its organization and its analogy with similar crustaceans, the 

 lobster must doubtless be on the whole considered as a stationary ani- 

 mal. It never undertakes long migrations like some of our fish. The 

 lobster certainly moves about with great swiftness and ease aided by 

 its strong tail and the swimming apparatus attached to it ; but this 

 mode of moving about is evidently not the rule. The hard-shell and 

 lX)nderous lobster must always make an extra exertion in moving 

 about, and its movements can therefore not be of long duration. Peo- 

 ple certainly talk of the so-called "traveling lobsters" {'■'• Fcerd-lmmmer''^) 

 which are said to come from the open sea in large schools ; and some 

 even say that they have seen such schools many miles from the coast 

 moving about rapidly near the surface of the sea. If this is really so, I 

 consider it as absolutely certain that these schools come from no very 

 great distance, possibly from some of the elevated bottoms off the coast. 

 The grown lobster is, as every lobster-fisher will know, in its whole 

 mode of life, a genuine bottom-animal, and prefers a stony or uneven 

 bottom overgrown with algse where it finds good hiding-places for lying 



