LOBSTERS. 77 



instructive experiments were carried out by the Lancashire 

 and Western Sea Fisheries Committee in 1905, concerning 

 which Mr. Johnstone, in his instructive and interesting book 

 to which I have previously alluded, says : 



" At Morecambe on the coast of Lancashire there is a large area of 

 foreshore on which " over-production " takes place ; that is to say, 

 enormous numbers of mussels are spawned, so that there is not room 

 for all the molluscs to grow, and great numbers remain permanently 

 stunted and dwarfed, reproducing nevertheless, so that the over- 

 crowding of the mussel-beds persists. Formerly great masses of these 

 small mussels were carted away by farmers and applied to the land as 

 manure. Then the Fishery Committee (in some ignorance, apparently, 

 of the problem with which they had to deal) stepped in and prevented 

 the " removal from the fishery " of mussels which were under a certain 

 size, which they fixed by regulation. So the depletion of the beds 

 ceased, and, as a consequence, they came to contain enormous numbers 

 of mussels which, being stunted and under the legal size, had absolutely 

 no economic value. The Fishery Authority now proceeded to apply 

 the logical complement to its restrictive legislation and encouraged 

 fishermen to " transplant " the undersized shellfish. Great numbers 

 of the molluscs were therefore removed from the overcrowded beds 

 and re-deposited in a locality " Ringhole " where the con- 

 ditions were known to be such as to favour the growth of the 

 shellfish. 



Now the great theoretical interest of this experiment was over- 

 looked, so that there is, unfortunately, not so much data regarding it 

 as one would wish for, but I attempt an estimate here which is probably 

 a fairly approximate one. I may observe that the experiment was a 

 very decided success in a commercial sense, and was warmly welcomed 

 by the fishermen, who derived great benefits from its results. In 

 April, 1905, some 347 tons of dwarfed mussels were taken from the 

 overcrowded beds and put down in Ringhole. The fishing of this 

 area was then prohibited by mutual agreement among the fishermen 

 until November of the same year, when the transplanted shellfish were 

 taken for the markets. 



The stunted mussels measured, when transplanted, If in. to Ifin.. 

 in length and 4,634 bags were re-deposited. Each bag contained on 

 the average some 7,000 mussels. Therefore about 32 millions of the 

 shellfish were dealt with. 



Now we cannot assume that all these mussels survived in their new 

 home. Probably not less than half of them did so. The rest were 

 doubtless smothered by sand and mud, or destroyed by star-fishes,. 



