LOBSTER-LIFE. 155 



or train to London, and knocked about in barrows, carts, markets, and shops, until he wishes 

 they would boil him, and have done with it at once. Lobster-pots are, practically, wicker- 

 basket traps. The hole at the bottom allows free ingress, but makes it difficult for the 

 victim to get out. They are baited with garbage, and the position of each on the rocks or 

 sand below is marked by a buoy. Each fisherman has his own private mark on them ; and 

 woe to the lobster- thief, as to the crab-thief ! Sometimes nets are used for catching 

 lobsters. 



Mr. Pennant says that large lobsters are in their best season from the middle of October 

 to. the beginning of May. The smaller ones are good all the summer. If they are four- 

 and-a-half inches long from the top of the head to the end of the back shell they are 

 called " sizable " lobsters ; if under four inches, " half -size," and two are reckoned as one of 

 size. Under four inches, they are called "pawks." 



There is little doubt that up to a certain age lobsters shed their shells annually, but 

 the mode of performance is not quite understood to-day. " It is supposed that the old 

 shell is cast, and that the animal retires to some lui'king-place till the new covering acquires 

 consistence to contend with his armour-clad congeners. . . . The most probable con- 

 jecture is that the shell sloughs off piecemeal, as it does in the cray-fish. The greatest 

 mystery of all, perhaps, is the process by which the lobster withdraws the fleshy part of its 

 claws from their calcareous covering. Fishermen say the lobster pines before casting its 

 shell, and thus gets thin, so as to permit of its withdrawing its members from it." He 

 sheds tears first, and shell second. 



The common English lobster, as seen in the fishmonger's shop, is very unlike his 

 relatives beneath the waves. " The curled-up form," says Major Lord, " in which he is 

 seen when so exposed is not that usually assumed in his own element, except in the act 

 of exerting its immense powers of retrograde motion. These are so great that one sudden 

 downward sweep of its curiously-constructed oar-like tail is sufficient to send it like an arrow, 

 three or four and twenty feet, with the most extraordinary precision, thereby enabling our 

 friend to retreat with the greatest rapidity into nooks, corners, and crevices among the rocks, 

 where pursuit would be hopeless. His eyes being arranged on foot-stalks, or stems, are free 

 from the inconvenient trammels of sockets, and possess a radius of vision commanding both 

 front and rear, and from their compound form (being made up of a number of square lenses) 

 are extremely penetrating and powerful. The slightest shadow passing over the pool in which 

 the lobster may chance to be crawling or swimming will frequently cause one of these backward 

 shoots to be made, and the lobster vanishes into some cleft or cavity with a rapidity of motion 

 which no harlequin could ever, in his wildest dreams, hope to achieve. Down among the deep 

 channels, between the crags at the sea's bottom, alarms, except from the sea-robbers themselves, 

 are not to be dreaded. Here the lobsters are at home, and in such spots the wicker trap, or 

 the trunk net, may be laid down for them : nets of this kind are in general use. They are 

 made by fastening a number of stout wooden hoops to longitudinal bars, and covering them 

 with network. Their internal construction is much like that of the crab-pot, only there are 

 two entrances instead of one, and twine is used instead of willows or twigs to prevent the 

 prisoners from escaping. Heavy stones are attached to them as sinkers. Fish offal is used as 

 bait, and corks at the end of lines serve to point out their position and haul them up by. 



