CRUSTA( 1:a 291 



the lobster law in your own state and in nciglihoring statt's and discuss 

 practical inijirovenients.^ 



Probably no one has ever sim-u a lobster known t<» !..• d.-ad of old 

 age. While specimens over 1.") inches long and weighing nion- than 

 2 or 3 i)ounds are now rare in the markets, specimens 2 feet in lengtli 

 and weighing 10 jiounds wci<- not iiii<- some years ago. Tin- largest 

 lobster on record was caugiit off the New Jersey coast in l.s!)7. From 

 <nd of chela; to tip of tail it measured 42 inches, and it weighed 

 :!1 jtonnds. (Jrowth lias been followed ni> to the thirtv-tliird year at 

 which time the lobster is almost 2 feet long. If a lobster lives forty 

 years and produces twenty batches of eggs, averaging 10(),(M)0 each, an 

 adult pair would produce 2,000,(100 eggs. This would mean, with the 

 species holding its own in the struggle for existence, that under natural 

 conditions only one eg^^ in a million grows to Ix-coine adult. If man 

 kills the one. that nature has preserved out of the million to keep up the 

 species, eggs and young will fail and the lobster will beconie extinct. 

 Our laws are leased on the totally inadetpuite assumption of the fisher- 

 men that if a lobster is spared until it grows to be 10 inches long and 

 lays only one batch of eggs — about 10,000 — the population of the 

 species will be maintained. Botli theory and experience prove the 

 fallacy of this idea. 



Brooks's law. ^^'e must work out a biologically correct solution of 

 this problem or lose our lobsters. Dr. AV. K. lirooks^ has given a dis- 

 cussion of the problem as applied to nnuine fislies. This might well be 



1 Khode Island has led the way by making a clo.sed .season, from Novem- 

 ber 15 to April 15. All the states except New York tine from :^5 to SUHJ for 

 killing an egg lobster, but the eggs are easily bru.shed off. Short-lobster laws 

 differ. In Maine a lobster nm.st measure 4| inche.s, body length (eiiual to 

 10^ inches long) ; in New Hampshire, 10| inches; in Mas.sachusetts, S> inches; 

 in Rhode Island, 4| inches, body mea.sure ; and in New York, im-hes. 

 According to the biologfcally correct view of Dr. Field, of the Massachu.setts 

 Fisheries and Game Commission, all these shortdobster laws protect the 

 wrong end of the animal's life. A lob.ster 10 inches lonir jinxhu'es 10.000 

 eggs; one 12 inches long, 20,000; a lO-inch lobster, lOU.HOO. The old lob- 

 ster is thus ten times as valuable to the species for egg production, and, 

 being coanser and tougher, may not be as valuable for food as the legal- 

 limit lob.ster. According to Field, lob.ster pots should be made with open- 

 ings too small for the large lobsters to enter, 3{ or 3i inches in diameter, and 

 with slats open enough to permit all lobsters under a certain size to escape. 



-Brooks. "The Artificial I'ropau^ation of Sea Fishes," Popular Science 

 Monthly, Vol. XX.XV (1880), pp. 35".»-.3r.7. 



