ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



425 



A GIANT LOBSTER. 

 Taken at Cranberry Isles, coast of Maine 



taining a length of about three feet. It is 

 said that when kept in aquaria it is able to 

 kill other fishes by its electric discharges. 



Other fishes with more or less important 

 electrical organs are, the Mormyries, very 

 peculiar fishes of the fresh waters of North- 

 ern Africa, with extremely long, downward- 

 curved jaws. 



It is said that one may receive a shock from 

 the electric organs of the ray, through a 

 stream of water poured down upon it. The 

 battery of electrical fishes may become com- 

 pletely exhausted by frequent discharges, but 

 is renewed again after a period of rest. It is 

 doubtless useful to them, both in the capture 

 of their prey or in enabling them to escape 

 from their enemies. 



A LARGE LOBSTER. 



ON January SSrd, 1908, the Aquarium 

 received a live male lobster, measuring 

 thirty-four inches in exti-eme length, 

 and weighing fourteen and one-half pounds. 



It was at once placed in a tank of cold sea- 

 water, but it unfortunately died the next day, 

 its death being attributed to the fact that it 

 had been shipped with considerable ice packed 

 in the sea-weed about it. It was taken at 

 Cranberry Isles, Hancock County, Maine, and 

 after death was mounted for the Aquarium. 



It is many years since a lobster of large 

 size has been seen at the Aquarium. Large 

 lobsters are now verj-^ rare, although twenty- 



pound specimens were not 

 uncommon twenty-five 

 years ago. 



Professor Herrick in his 

 exhaustive work on the 

 American Lobster, pub- 

 lished in 1895 by the LT. S. 

 Bureau of Fisheries, con- 

 sidered very carefully the 

 records pertaining to lob- 

 sters of large size, and ex- 

 amined many of the larg- 

 est known specimens in 

 museums and private col- 

 lections. 



Although lobsters are 

 said to reach weights ex- 

 ceeding thirty pounds. 

 Professor Herrick states that he "never ob- 

 tained any reliable evidence that lobsters 

 weighing over twenty-five pounds have ever 

 been caught." Notwithstanding the records 

 respecting the great weight of the European 

 lobsters, Professor Herrick's investigations 

 led him to the conclusion tliat it never equalled 

 the American lobster in size. 



His measurements of most of the large 

 specimens presei'ved in this country led him 

 to reject the records respecting the weight of 

 many of them. What he considers "prob- 

 abl}' one of the largest lobsters ever taken on 

 the Atlantic coast," came into his possession 

 in August, 1893. It was captured in Penob- 

 scot Bay. Its living weight was found to 

 be a little over twenty-three pounds." The 

 length of this lobster was only twenty inches. 

 (jMeasurement taken from the end of the 

 spine or rostrum to the end of the tail.) The 

 length of the New York Aquarium specimen, 

 measured from rostrum to tail, was sixteen 

 inches. 



This was a male lobster, and all the records 

 examined by Professor Herrick apply to lob- 

 sters of the male sex. He never heard of a 

 female lobster which exceeded eighteen and 

 one-half pounds. 



In 1897 the Aquarium received a lobster, 

 taken off Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, 

 which had a length of twentA'-three and three- 

 quarter inches from rostrum to tail, an ex- 

 treme length of thirty-nine and three-quarter 

 inches, and weight of thirty-four pounds. 



