LOBSTERS AND THE LOBSTER PROBLEM IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
> 
Pad 
By GEORGE W. FIELD, 
Chairman Massachusetts Board of Fisheries and Game. 
& 
Mr. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: In 1873 it was found 
necessary in the state of Massachusetts to make some regulations restricting 
the catching of lobsters. At that time the first law was made, and, as subse- 
quent experience has shown, it proved to be a biological blunder and a thor- 
oughly illogical procedure. They started out with the assumption that if the 
lobster had an opportunity to lay one litter of eggs this would be sufficient 
to insure a supply for increasing demand. It was not long after that it 
was found the lobster supply in the neighborhood of the great cities— 
particularly New York and Boston, the great markets—was decreasing very 
rapidly; and that decrease has continued until now the supply in Massa- 
chusetts has diminished over 66 per cent in the neighborhood of Boston in 
three years. If we examine the evidence, there is absolutely no question 
that this decline in the lobster catch is an actual and not a theoretical one. 
It is evident, first, from the fact that it is necessary for the fisherman to 
tend, not 10, 20, 30, or 50 traps, as he formerly did, but he must now have 100 
or 200, in order to get the same number of lobsters. The number of men in 
the business has increased very largely. They are obliged to cover a larger area 
in order to get a proper supply. But most prominent of all is the fact that the 
number of egg-bearing lobsters has diminished in proportion to the total number 
of lobsters in the water. In 18g0 statistical evidence indicated that there was 
about 1 egg-bearing lobster to every 20 which were not carrying eggs; whereas 
in 1907 it was found that this ratio had declined so that there was only about 1 
egg-bearing lobster to every 101, showing that the egg-bearing lobsters were 
only about one-fifth as numerous as they formerly were. This has come about 
from the fact that we have been taking from the larger lobsters, the adult lobsters, 
each year. We have, in other words, been cutting off the big timber, which was 
producing the new material, the seed, and in that way we have diminished the 
reproductive capacity of the race. During the past four years, in my personal 
experience, we made measurements of about 3,500 or 4,000 egg-bearing lobsters 
each year. These measurements have been carefully made, and the lobsters 
211 
