140 GENERAL ZOOLOGY 



and vicinity are caught, the chances are against that region 

 recovering its lost supply. 



Slow, inactive animals living on the bottom fall an easy 

 prey to lobsters. When confined in pounds, lobsters even 

 dig up clams and crush the shells in their powerful crush- 

 ing claw, which is the thicker one of the two. Fish also are 

 caught, even where both captor and prey have perfect free- 

 dom of action. Those who have studied the habits of lobsters 

 closely believe that although the lobster is a scavenger in 

 the sea, it nevertheless prefers living food to dead organic 

 matter. Seaweeds form part of their food. The processes of 

 eating, swallowing, grinding in the stomach, and digestion are 

 exactly the same as in the crayfish. 



Molting in the lobster, as in some other animals with a hard 

 exoskeleton, is an extremely important and critical event, 

 since the store of vitality is drawn upon in preparation for 

 the act of shedding the hard armor, and in fully restoring a 

 protective sheath. In the act of molting, the lobster does 

 not, as a rule, split the dorsal shell. The animal bends, mak- 

 ing a sharp angle at the junction of the cephalothorax and 

 the abdomen. The soft body at that point begins to withdraw 

 from the carapace. Getting out of the rigid shell is made pos- 

 sible by a preliminary process of taking up into the blood the 

 lime in the exoskeleton, along the median line of the carapace, 

 at the rostrum or beak, and at the narrow joints of the cheli- 

 ped and walking-appendages. The blood leaves the append- 

 ages and flows into the sinuses of the cephalothorax. The 

 withdrawal of the cephalothorax and its appendages soon fol- 

 lows, and lastly the abdomen is withdrawn from its old cover- 

 ing, and the soft, defenseless lobster conceals itself as quickly 

 as its weakened condition will permit. The volume and 

 weight rapidly become greater, due to the absorption of water. 

 Later, while the new shell formed beforehand under the old 

 one is becoming harder, the water previously absorbed is 



