66 DEPARTMENT OF THE NAYAL SERVICE 



8 GEORGE V, A. 1918 



The artificial hatching of lobster eggs may be important, though many doubt it; the 

 artificial rearing of lobster fry to the fourth or fifth stage may be important, though 

 this remains to be proved, at any rate in Canadian waters; but the biggest of all 

 lobster problems is how to increase the number of fertilized eggs. Unfertilized eggs 

 are probably produced in vast numbers, if biennial spawning is the rule; in vaster 

 numbers still, if annual spawning is the rule. 



Reverting again to the 7,151 adults bought by Mr. W. S. Trask this season, among 

 which he found only thirty-five berried females, and to Mr. J. W. Tidd's catch of 3,000 

 lobsters in 1913, among which he found only three berried females, we are faced with 

 the problem of explaining how it happens that there were not about 3,500 berried 

 females among Mr. Trash's purchases, if lobsters spawn annually, or 1,750 if lobsters 

 spawn biennially, similarly with Mr. Tidd's catch, and with the catch of every lobster 

 fisherman in the Maritime Provinces. 



We have no knowledge of the extent to which the sexes mingle with each other 

 in the sea. Conclusions based upon the tagging of lobsters and their subsequent 

 liberation and capture may be misleading. Tagging does seem to indicate, however, 

 that they are strongly local in their habits, and, if so, they may meet each other only 

 at intervals and solely by accident. How different conditions are to-day for mating, 

 compared with what they were in early colonial days when lobsters were so abundant 

 along the Atlantic coast that after every storm they were found lying along the shore 

 in windrows! 



If the facilities for mating are lacking, this may be the reason why so few 

 females carry fertilized eggs. If there is no mating, the mothers will extrude their 

 eggs annually or biennially, as the case may be, but the eggs, being unfertilized, will 

 " go bad " and subsequently drop oS. 



It must not be supposed, therefore, that the eggs found in June, July, August, 

 and September on berried females are necessarily " good eggs." For breeding pur- 

 poses they may be as useless as those of a pullet with which no cockerel has cohabited. 

 As illustrating the truth of this statement, it is only necessary to point out that of 

 twenty-eight females which extruded eggs in Long Beach pond this season, only five 

 were found to carry fertilized eggs. These results are quite different from those of 

 last year, but the conditions were different in the two years. In 1914 the matiing 

 lobsters were placed in a compartment specially located near the entrance of fresh sea- 

 water from the intake pipe, and by the end of the season, as already stated, 64 per cent 

 of the females carried fertilized eggs, as compared with 1 per cent reported by fisher- 

 men. In the case of the mating lobsters of this year, 1915, some of them, were placed 

 at first in the pond and others of them in the pound. Subsequently they were trans- 

 ferred to two of our rearing boxes, and later again to the third compartment of the 

 pound. Considering, too, that there were only 26 males to 109 females and that the 

 transfer from one enclosure to another was unnatural; considering also the unfavour- 

 able conditions under which they lived in the pound, one can readily understand that 

 copulation took place less frequently than under the more natural conditions of 1914. 

 But after making every allowance for the conditions which militated against the 

 extrusion and fertilization of eggs, we find that 44 out of 109 females extruded eggs 

 in the summer of 1915, or over 40 per cent. 



When it is remembered that the Shell Fish Commission estimated from their inquir- 

 ies that the percentage of berried females ranged from 2 per cent to 40 per cent,* 

 and that this latter percentage existed only where fishing is permitted in June and 

 July, as in Northumberland strait, and when it is considered also that in these months 

 some lobsters are carrying old eggs and others are carrying new ones, it will readily 

 be seen that the 40 per cent does not represent the true proportion of newly extruded 

 eggs at all. Let us find out, if possible, the correct proportion of hen-lobsters which 

 carry new eggs, or of those which carry mature eggs, but not a combination of the two. 



* These figures were obtained not from the Commission but by correspondence with only 

 one member of the Commission. 



