LOBSTER INYESTIGATIONS 



69 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 38a 



At first they ate voraciously; later on, much more moderately. Their only toilet 

 instruments were the opposable thumb and finger (pincers) of their walking legs. 

 Every part of their body which could be reached by those appendages was carefully 

 gone over. It was no uncommon thing to see a lobster raise the first pair of walking 

 legs over the great claws and use them in cleaning the rostrum and antennules. The 

 antennae (feelers) would be grasped by the pincers and drawn through between the 

 thumb and finger, thus stripping off algffi and dirt, in much the same way as a person 

 might strip off the excess of dirt from a string by drawing it through between his 

 thumb and finger. 



When thus cleaning themselves, the animals rest almost entirely upon the tips of 

 their great claws and the telson which is bent at right angles to tlie long axis of the 

 body. The middle region is arched slightly upward, and the walking legs are thus left 

 almost completely free for cleaning movements. 



THE HATCHING POSTURE. 



This posture has often been described and does not differ from the cleaning one, 

 excepting that the animal rests on its walking legs as well as on its great claws and 

 telson. The movements are limited to a gentle swaying backwards and forwards of 

 the swimming feet, evidently for the purpose of assisting the fry to liberate themselves 

 from the egg capsule (shell). 



EGG-LAYIKG POSTURE. 



The egg-laying posture, as we saw it, was different from that described by Anderton. 

 The general position is that of a more or less erect frog. The abdomen is bent com- 

 pletely under the body, and the broad tail is well spread out on each side, so as to form 

 an almost perfect cup. The anterior part of the body is inclined at an angle of nearly 



Fig. 7. — The egg-laying posture. 



45°, on account of the animal resting on the tips of the great claws. The posture is 

 such as to allow the eggs, as soon as they leave the orifice of the oviduct, to fall by 

 gravity over the receptaculum seminis and drop easily and naturally into the abdominal 

 cup already describied. After the eggs have filled the cup, the female turns upon her 

 back for 15 or 20 minutes and remains almost motionless, the walking legs alone 

 swaying hackwards and forwards at intervals of a minute or two. During this quiet 

 period the egg glue is apparently hardening so as to fix the eggs to each other and to 

 the hairs of the swimnierets. 

 38a— 6 



