76 LOBSTERS. 



European species." I venture to query, however, whether 

 the American lobster is or was primarily larger than the 

 English lobster, because there are, I submit, many causes 

 which may have individually, and collectively, tended to make 

 the American lobster at present larger on the average than the 

 European, and vice versa. 1st. It was brought out in 

 evidence before the Royal Commission in 1876 (which resulted 

 in passing the Act in 1877 prohibiting the capturing of lobsters 

 under Sin. in length from the tip of the " beak " (rostrum] to 

 the end of the telson (" tail "), that owing to overfishing, or 

 perhaps to reckless fishing, i.e., removing from the sea 

 practically every lobster caught, regardless of its size, and, 

 therefore, as to whether it had sufficiently matured as to have 

 reproduced its own species, the average size of the lobsters 

 caught in Britain had decreased in 25 years from Sin. to 4Jin. 

 in length, and the fishermen had to go greater distances from 

 home to obtain them. 



2nd. The average size of the lobster now captured along 

 the Dorset coast is, I understand, less than those caught 

 either on the Cornish, Devon, Isle of Wight, or N. Eastern 

 coasts. This is so noticeable that the fishermen along our 

 coast, from Weymouth to St. Alban's Head, declare the lob- 

 sters they capture are a different species to those caught else- 

 where in Britain, but this is denied by Dr. Masterman, a 

 gentleman well known to some of us, who is an Inspector of 

 Fisheries under the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and 

 therefore knows what he is talking about. 



Srdly. We have such facts as I alluded to, when speaking 

 upon our President's Annual Address at our meeting on the 

 12th May last year, to the effect that it had been proved that 

 if plaice were given a fair chance to feed and grow (in other 

 words be removed from from places where overcrowding 

 existed and food was relatively scarce, and placed in more 

 favourable localities, they would, in a given time, increase 

 by about twice as great a ratio as if they had remained in 

 their old habitation. The experiment I mentioned, however, 

 referred to benthic vertebrate fish, but some other deeply 



