THE SEASON OF J9I0 AT THE FISHERIES EXPERI- 

 MENT STATION AT WICKFORD, R. L 



By Earnest W. Barnes 



It is not the intention of the present paper to give a 

 detailed account of the season's work at the Wickford 

 Hatchery, but rather to mention a few important results. 

 In many ways the past season has been the most successful 

 that the station has ever had. Particularly has this been 

 true of the lobster rearing. 



The hatching of the eggs began at Wickford on May 

 20th, and the season ended August 15th. Approximately 

 1500 ripe egg lobsters were received during this period and 

 although many of these, especially in the latter part of the 

 season, had considerably less than the average number of 

 eggs, over half a million fry (511,274 by actual count) 

 were reared to the fourth stage (the stage in which the 

 lobsterlings begin to crawl upon the bottom). This num- 

 ber surpasses our best previous record by nearly 200,000 

 and is, furthermore, interesting in the fact that only 1500 

 tgg lobsters were used while in 1908, the best previous 

 year, over 3000 egg lobsters were required. 



But these figures should not be taken as a basis for com- 

 puting the best results obtainable per egg lobster by the 

 methods used at Wickford, because we are often compelled, 

 especially in the last and best part of the season, either to 

 crowd our hatching cars or to permit lobsters of different 

 ages to occupy the same car. This latter course is par- 

 ticularly disastrous because of the instinctive cannibalism, 

 the older iry having a great advantage over the younger and 

 consequently weaker ones. 



In order to determine further possibilities of the method 

 as at present developed, two egg lobsters, with about an 

 average number of eggs each, were placed in a rearing car 



