32 



LOBSTER CULTURE. 



By a. meek. 



The alterations last summer connected with the new storage 

 tank interfered to some extent w^ith the experiments, but the 

 results are the best we have obtained so far. 



The supply of berried lobsters was obtained from the local 

 fishermen in April and May. They were placed in the small 

 tanks of the workers' aquarium, and were afterwards transferred 

 to the centre pool of the public aquarium. In the meantime, in 

 accordance with our previous experience, a number of eggs had 

 been lost. A number of berried lobsters were placed also in an 

 open air tank on the roof of the building. The depth of the 

 centre pool is 16 in., and of the roof tank 26 in. 



The first larvae were observed in the roof tank on June 8th, 

 and the first lobsterling was found in this tank on July 2nd. 

 About 160 larvas were removed from the roof tank to the small 

 tanks in the workers' aquarium and of these 30 or 18 per cent, 

 were reared to the lobsterling and succeeding stages. The water 

 supplied to these tanks w^as filtered. On July 10th, the roof 

 tank was cleaned, and 16 lobsterlings were found, and these 

 wath the 30 already mentioned made a total of 46. Six of these 

 were placed in one of the large tanks of the public aquarium on 

 July 29th. Of those remaining in the workers' aquarium, some 

 had reached the sixth stage on August 3rd, when 24 were still 

 living. Many died in casting, and some were found with the 

 cuticle torn, and the under part of the thorax eaten away. The 

 last died on September 4th, and was then 1"9 cm. long. Of 

 those placed in the large tank, two were found to be living on 

 September 27th, and w^ere then about 3'5 cm. long. They were 

 removed to a glass vessel in the workers' aquarium. One died 

 in casting on October 8th. The other cast on March 16th, when 

 it reached the size of 4 cm. This one is still alive (June 30th). 



Li the floor pool the first larvae appeared on July 2nd, and 

 on Julv 12th, 160 larvae were taken to the roof tank. Those 



