28 



come across it accidentall3% and occasionally eat it. It was 

 found that when light was entirely excluded the larvas 

 kept more on the bottom, and advantage was taken of 

 this to keep a good supply of food there for them, the 

 stale pieces being removed each day and a fresh supply 

 added. Other forms of food were also tried, such as 

 minute Crustacea, chiefly young Copepoda, which were 

 collected amongst the Zostera, and the larvae of shore 

 crabs that were occasionally sent off in swarms from a 

 stock of berried shore crabs kept in one of the tanks. 

 The young lobsters swam amongst these little Crusta- 

 ceans where they had gathered on the lighted side of the 

 jars, and sometimes even appeared to pursue them, but 

 the most careful observations failed to show that they 

 were capturing them. Fragments of freshly-killed nnissels, 

 shrimps, and fish were tried, and although sometimes 

 eaten, at other times such food would be refused, so that 

 no particular kind of food could finally be adopted with 

 success. The larvae were also kept in both filtered and 

 unfiltered sea-water, but with no definite results. On the 

 whole, it was found that the larvae kept entirely in the 

 dark and supplied with a mixture of crab liver and crushed 

 shrimps lived longer than those treated in any other way ; 

 but the moulting process always proved fatal in the end. 



There is thus apparently considerable difficulty in rear- 

 ing the larv£e of lobsters in confinement. Unless future 

 experiments bring out some satisfactory method of dealing 

 with them, it will be necessary to set them free almost as 

 soon as hatched.* Berried lobsters have occasionally been 

 found on the rocky scars in the Barrow Channel, so that 

 these places would, no doubt, be suitable ground on which 

 to set our larvae free. 



* Professor Herdmau lias discussed this matter Ijotli in jegard to young tish 

 and lobsters in the introduction (see page 7). 



