39 
to Liverpool, or by the fisheries steamer from Port Erin 
to any required spot. 
I would propose that if this suggestion is carried out 
and a vivarium is formed at Port Erin, the operations 
should not be restricted to the mere breeding of lobsters and 
the protection of the parents and spawn till hatching, but 
that an attempt be made to retain the young larve and 
rear them, either (1) through their early stages and then 
set them free as young lobsters in suitable localities 
throughout the district, or (2), if it is possible, to rear 
them up till they are adult. 
I would set about this in the following manner :— 
Starting with a vivarium like that at Brodick I would 
stock it with breeding lobsters, or with females having 
spawn on the abdomen. I would examine the spawn 
at intervals when feeding the lobsters, and when any 
Spawn was seen to assume the characteristic appearance 
which it has for a day or so before hatching I would 
transfer that mother lobster into a separate box or com- 
partment of the vivarium walled in with wire gauze 
sufficiently fine to prevent the hatched larve from pass- 
ing through. Here she would have to be fed for a few 
days, until all her spawn was hatched out, then she could 
be removed and put back in the vivarium, and the wire 
gauze box, or “‘ nursery cage,’’ would now contain all the 
young free swimming larvee and could be lifted out of the 
vivarium and examined from time to time, while suitable 
food (possibly Copepoda, which can readily be obtained in 
quantity, would do) could be added, and if necessary some 
of the young lobsters could be taken out from time to 
time and distributed into other nursery cages or placed in 
tanks. 
No doubt the greater part of the rearing work would be 
at first experimental until the most suitable food and the 
