INLAND FISHERIES. 97 



about four weeks, during- which they pass through the stag-es 

 represented in Fig's. 1, 2, 3, before setthng- to the bottom to assume 

 the shape and retiring- habits of the adult (Plate B, Fig. 4). If it 

 were possible to carry the young lobster through this free-swim- 

 ming period of their youth, there is every reason to believe that 

 the young- so reared wx)uld, on liberation, seek hiding places in 

 the crevices of rocks, under shells, etc., and the period of greatest 

 mortality would thus be overcome. 



Efforts repeatedly have been made to brood the young, but the 

 animals are so delicate, and at the same time so voracious, that 

 it is extremely difficult to keep them alive in any of the more 

 ordinary forms of hatching apjDaratus. One of the Commissioners, 

 during the past spring-, prepared several large " fish-cars " (about 

 sixteen feet in length, six feet in width, and five feet in height), 

 with fine wire mesh, the holes of which were sufficiently large to 

 enable many small animals to enter as food, but so small that the 

 young lobsters could not escape. The bottoms of some of these 

 cars were covered with gravel and pieces of growing seaweed, and 

 everything was done that could be done to make a natural en- 

 vironment. 



The experiment, so far as the young lobsters were concerned, 

 was a failure. The young of rapidly growing predatory animals 

 worked themselves into the car and preyed upon the helpless 

 larvae. The sea water, laden with dirt and sediment, on reaching 

 the more quiet water of the interior of the car, simply precipitated 

 its refuse and left a quantity of decaying organic matter to poison 

 the water. 



The next experiment consisted in the placing of a large cheese- 

 cloth cage inside of one of the fish-cars. The mesh of the car 

 thus protected the finer mesh of the cheese-cloth frame, but the 

 young lobsters did not flourish. There was not sufficient motion 

 to the water to keep them floating ; their feet became entangled in 

 the fibres of the cloth, and they preyed sadly upon each other. 



The breeding season of the lobster is not sufficiently extended 

 to enable one to experiment along a larg-e number of lines, but 



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