CRUSTACEANS. 497 



Hamble, near Southampton, in which he can store with ease fifty 

 thousand lobsters, which will keep in good condition for six weeks. 

 Mr. Scovell's tank is supplied from the coasts of France, Scotland, and 

 Ireland, where fine lobsters abound. He employs three large and 

 well-appointed smacks, each of which can carry from five thousand to 

 ten thousand. On the coast of Ireland alone, it is said, ten thousand 

 fine lobsters a week might be taken. 



The Lobster (Homarus) is found in great abundance all round our 

 coast ; frequenting the more rocky shores and clear water, where it is of 

 no great depth, about the time of depositing its eggs. Various are the 

 modes in which they are taken ; cone-shaped traps made of wicker- 

 work, and baited with garbage, are perhaps the most successful. 

 These are sunk among the rocks, arid marked by buoys. Sometimes 

 nets are sunk, baited by the same material. In other places a 

 wooden instrument, which acts like a pair of tongs, is used for their 

 capture. 



Mr. Pennant, the naturalist, paid great attention to the lobsters, 

 and their habits are well described in a letter from Mr. Travis, of 

 Scarborough. " The larger ones," he says, " are in their best season 

 from the middle of October to the beginning of May. Many of the 

 smaller ones, and some few of the larger individuals, 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 sizeable lobsters ; if 

 under four inches, they are esteemed half size, and two of them are 

 reckoned for one of size. Under four inches they are called pawks, 

 and these are the best summer lobsters. The pincers of one of the 

 lobster's large claws are furnished with knobs, while the other claw is 

 always serrated. With the former it keeps firm hold of the stalks of 

 submarine plants ; with the latter it cuts and masticates its food very 

 dexterously. The knobbed or thumb claw, as the fishermen call it, is 

 sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right side, and it is more 

 dangerous to be seized by the serrated claw than the other. 



There is little doubt that the lobsters cast their shell annually, but 

 the mode in which it is performed is not satisfactorily explained. It 

 is supposed that the old shell is cast, and that the animal retires 

 to some lurking-place till the new covering acquires consistence to 

 contend with his armour-clad congeners. Others contend that the 

 process is one of absorption, otherwise, if there were a period of moult, 



2 K 



