362 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



30,000, or 1 in 15,000. A much higher rate was indicated 

 for the Woods Hole region, although my examination 

 covered only 4645 individuals. Now when we consider 

 that 8-inch lobsters when at breeding age produce on the 

 average 5000 eggs, and that a 17-inch lobster, which must 

 be at least twenty years old, has probably laid on an average 

 nine batches of eggs to the number of 300,000, the average 

 number sought is bound to be high. We may consider 

 20,000 or even 30,000, as a modest estimate, and well within 

 the truth. 



If the law of survival is a hard and stubborn fact, and 

 if the average number of eggs approximates that given 

 above, and I cannot see how such a conclusion can be 

 avoided upon scientific grounds, their bearing upon the 

 methods in question is evident. It means that this race of 

 animals is maintained, not by paltry thousands, but by 

 billions and hundred of billions of eggs. It means that the 

 present and past gauge laws have been robbing this fishery 

 of its best breeding stocl<, first because the breeding age is 

 variable, and second because the number of eggs borne is 

 proportional to the cube of the length of the mature animal. 

 If the lobsters matured at a uniform age and size, and 

 reached full breeding capacity at once, the question would 

 be simplified, but neither of these conditions is fulfilled. 

 The age of becoming mature covers a period corresponding 

 to a length of a little over 7 inches to a length of a little 

 over 12 inches, and probably not over 3 per cent of the 

 9-inch size, the legal gauge in certain states, have ever laid 

 a single ^gg. Again owing to the rapid geometric increase 

 in the product of eggs in relation to volume or size of the 

 animal, the value of a 15-inch lobster to the fishery is vastly 

 greater than that of the 9 or 10-inch size. Under the present 

 gauge laws the fishery is being steadily depleted of the eggs 

 which it sorely needs, which it must have if it is ever to 

 be rejuvenated, and which it can get only through its larger 

 and best breeding animals. Protection of the female 

 lobsters with eggs already attached to the body is only a 



