522 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



The Lobster (Homarus vulgaris) is, indeed, 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, and 

 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 sizable 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 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 

 seize it by the serrated claw than the other. 



There is little doubt that up to a certain age 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, it would be shown by their shells. The 

 most probable conjecture 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 with- 

 drawing its members from it. 



The female lobster does not seem to cast her shell the same year 

 in which she deposits her ova, or, as the fishermen say, "is in berry." 

 When the ova first appear under the tail, they are small and very 

 black, but before they are ready for deposition they are almost as 



