LOBSTER INVESTIGATIONS 



67 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 38a 



MATING GROUNDS. 



So few facts are known in regard to the mating of lobsters that special attention 

 should be given to this subject next year. While the pound has proved to be useless 

 this season as a suitable place in which to rear fry or retain adults, the southwest end 

 of the pond, as stated in last year's report, could be made very useful, both as a sanct- 

 uary for beried females and as a mating ground for commercial lobsters. If the com- 

 partments at present in the pound were removed to the southwest end of the pond, and 

 the cost of doing this need not exceed $200, there would then be ample space for both 

 sanctuary and mating ground and better conditions than prevailed this past summer. 



It cannot be stated too often that the great problem is how to increase the number 

 of fertilized eggs. The hatchery cannot add a single fry to those which the mother will 

 hatch out. On the contrary, the hatchery often starts them upon their ocean life, 

 infected with diatoms, as shown by Professor Gorham. The rearing plant guards and 

 feeds the fry for a brief three or four weeks, and then liberates them to take their 

 chances in wind and tide and among a multiplicity of voracious enemies. In contrast 

 with the uncertainty of hatching and rearing fry, an increase in the number of females 

 carrying fertilized eggs would mean an incalculable increase in the number of fry, and 

 consequently, a better chance of survival until they become adults. 



Fig. 5. Two lobsters resting in their shLltti j. 



To realize how greatly the number of berried lobsters may be increased, as they 

 were actually increased in the pound in 1914 from 1 per cent to 64 per cent, we have 

 only to consider how rapidly a farmer could increase his poultry if he bred from 

 sixty-four hens out of a hundred, instead of from one hen. He might use a hatching 

 apparatus (as we do for lobsters) and a rearing apparatus also, if there is such a thing 

 for chickens, but the increase in his poultry would be slow indeed, compared with what 

 it would be if he bred from sixty-four mothers in place of from one. If we could come 

 anything near increasing our berried lobsters from 1 per cent to 64 per cent, we might 

 burn down our lobster hatcheries and never notice the loss, so far as the lobster indus- 

 try is concerned. 



