38 REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 
the process is the same, the old skin being split across the back, 
between the thorax and the abdomen, and the body worked 
out through this opening, leaving the cast-off skin otherwise 
intact. 
The actual process of moulting usually occupies only a few 
minutes, but not infrequently something goes wrong and the 
struggle is quite prolonged. Often the lobster dies in the process, 
and the period of moulting is at best a very precarious one in the 
life of the lobster, whether in the young stages or in the later 
ones. 
The newly-hatched lobsters feed normally upon all sorts of 
minute organisms (copepods, diatoms, etc.), and will readily eat 
some kinds of flesh, if it is chopped into fine pieces and kept sus- 
pended in the water where the fry come in contact with it. Ap- 
parently they do not distinguish food sufticiently well to go to it 
from any considerable distance, but take -what they come in con- 
tact with ; and as they are continuously moving about in an ocean 
full of organisms, they must rarely want for food. 
When a large number of fry are kept in an enclosure, the natural 
food-supply, consisting of other organisms, is of course not suffi- 
cient in quantity, and other food must be introduced. The fry 
decidedly prefer an animal to a vegetable diet, and in providing 
an animal food it is necessary to select tissues which can easily 
be shredded or crumbled into small pieces. Shredded fresh fish is 
fairly good, and is very satisfactory in the later stages. The best 
food so far discovered is the soft parts of clams. The bodies of 
the clams are cut out and chopped into fine pieces in a chopping- 
tray and then thrown into the water. 
There is one habit of the fry which makes the question of ample 
food-supply especially important—their atrocious cannibalism’ 
The only way to prevent them from destroying one another is to 
give them an abundance of food. 
There are two main difficulties in the way of providing a suitable 
enclosure for the fry which will allow them sufficient freedom, and 
which will at the same time confine them and protect them from 
