44 DEPARTMENT OF THE NATAL SERVICE 



" ^ 6 GEORGE V, A. 1916 



chosen. For example, it cost nearly $5 per 1,000 feet b.m. to ibring lumber from "Wey- 

 mouth, 7 miles away, and lay it down on the beach where construction was going on. 

 Then, too, the cost of labour is high. Labourers ask $2 a day, handymen $2.25, car- 

 penters $3 and $3.50 a day, a master carpenter $4. The rate for an ox^team and man 

 ranges from $4 a day to $3. These wages may not be too high; but, at any rate, they 

 exceed the rates which prevail around Little River. 



THE PONDS AND SANCTUARY. 



The acquisition of Long Beach pond, Nova Scotia, and Gabarus pond. Cape 

 Breton,- by the Government as sanctuaries for buried lobsters should need no defence. 

 In fact "the reservation of natural inshore lagoons, harbours and coves" as breeding 

 grounds for lobsters was recommended by the Lobster Commission of 1898 (see page 

 33 of their report). 



It is not necessary that the sanctuaries should all be like the two mentioned above. 

 On the contrary, they should be of diiferent sizes, depending upon the varying needs of 

 different localities. Some of thfem might well be very small harbours, having narrow- 

 entrances, and sheltered from high winds. Such entrances could be closed with a 

 latticed fence or gate so as to admit tidal water freely, and at the same time retain 

 lobsters. Others might be small wooden inclosures placed in coves or other sheltered 

 places along the coast. Small sanctuaries might be quite as useful as large ones, and 

 would not cost one tithe of the money. 



To realize how useful a small wooden sanctuary may be, one has only to learn tliat 

 the wooden pounds (within Long Beach pond) which accommodated 196 berried 

 lobsters in 1913, during the time that the cement pound was being built, was a struc- 

 ture only 20 feet by 20 feet. " Too small," you exclaim. Of course it was ; but it 

 was suflicient to retain the lobsters until the open season ended when they were 

 returned to the sea to hatch their eggs in the natural way. 



This wooden enclosure could not have cost more than $150; it might just as well 

 have been located in any other sheltered place than in Long Beach pond, and it accom- 

 modated nearly 200 berried lobsters throughout the open season of 1913 and through 

 part of the season of 1914. 



It must not be understood that this report advocates the establishment of tidal 

 enclosures without any regard to cost. On the contrary, it recommends that a number 

 of small wooden enclosures, costing not more than $200 or $300 each, be established 

 as an experiment along the maritime coast at points convenient to large lobster 

 factories, and it bases this recommendation upon the work accomplished at Long 

 Beach pond in 1913 and 1914, 



In making this recommendation it must be distinctly understood that the berried 

 lobsters are not to be retained in the pound while hatching their eggs. They should 

 be returned to the open sea as soon as the eggs show the first signs of hatching out. 

 Our observations at Long Beach are decidedly opposed to the idea that the lobster 

 larvae could ever grow into adults or even " tinkers " within the confines of the pond. 

 There were too many enemies present in the pond to permit of the growth of even a 

 single larva into an adult lobster. 



Furthermore, this recommendation is based upon the supposition that berried 

 lobsters collected by the patrol boats shall be properly cared for during transijortation. 

 They should be towed to the sanctuaries in specially constructed tanks, or they should 

 be packed in moist sea-weed and kept cool with ice throughout the journey. 



Then again on reaching the sanctuaries the mother lobsters should get all the 

 food they will eat — and good food, not gurry. Of course every one knows that the 

 average fisherman feeds his impounded loibsters (if he feeds them at all) upon tlvi 

 decaying heads, backbone, ribs, fins, and viscera of fish which he is cutting up for 



