CKL'STACEA 280 



Range. The American lobster ranges along the Atlanti. 

 seaboard from Labrador to North Carolina. Possibly no ven- 

 ture in the held of maruie a(|niculture would prove of greater 

 eronomic value than the hitroduction of this species into the 

 Pacific; but although egg-bearing l()l)sters have been shipped 

 across the conthient by thousands and in carload lots, up to 

 this time all attempts of the United States Bureau of Fish- 

 eries to colonize the Pacific have failed. While hiding among 

 the crevices of rocks would seem to suit the habit of the 

 lobster l)est, it apparently thrives as well on sandy and even 

 muddy bottoms, and it ranges from the tide pools to water 

 100 fathoms, or even more, in depth. ^ 



Size, growth, and life history. Female lobsters spawn once in two 

 years; the eggs as laid are cemented to the swirnmerets underneath 

 the abdomen, and here they are carried during the long incubation 

 period from July or Auoust of one vear till ]\[uv or July of the next. 

 Tlie liatchlings — delicate, transparent creatures about one third of an 

 inch in length — swim feebly, or rather "tread water," and so ten<l to rise 

 toward the surface. They feed voraciously upon copepods and diatoms 

 that they find floating in the water, and they eat one another wiieneyer 

 they can — a vicious habit which is one of the chief ditliculties in rear- 

 ing them artificially. They swim thus for two or three weeks, growing 

 and molting three times in the interval, all this time at the mercy ot 

 every tide, ^yaye, and current and of every open mouth they may 

 enconnter. This is the critical period in the lobster's life, and ]»robal>ly 

 not one in ten thousand, under natural conditions, suryiyes its accidents 

 and dangers. 



At the third molt the young assumes adult I'orm. and the liny l»»b- 

 sterling tends to seek the bottom and may eycn Itcgin to burrow for 

 greater i>rotection. It is now a little over half an inch in length, still a 

 helpless morsel for every shar^veyed minnow, ^^'hen it is about twenty- 

 five days old, the fourth molt brings the lol»strrling to the fifth stanc 



' Barnes, Methods of I'rotectin^' and I'ropagatjutr the Lobster. K. L. 

 Freeman Co., Providence, Khode Lsland, 101 1 . Refer to this for further data 

 on the habits and natural history of the h^bster. Al.so, if undertakini: 

 special work on this problem, write to Kxperiinent Station. Wi(kf<trd. 

 Rhode Island, for np-to-date information. 



