788 NATURAL HISTORY OP AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



in shoal waters, especially those which are more or less covered with growths of the larger 

 seaweeds. Vegetation is not, however, essential to their well-being, for they live on the barren 

 sands, as at Provincetown, Cape Cod, and on rocky, stony, and hard bottoms, wherever they 

 can find food. At the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, they are said to occasionally occur on the 

 mud, and this fact is recorded of them in other localities. On rocky bottoms they remain 

 more or less concealed under and among the rocks and stones, watching for their prey. In 

 the Bay of Fundy and elsewhere they are often seen lurking under stones at low water, 

 and about the wharves. The lobster-pots are generally set upon gravelly and sandy bottoms. 

 In many localities the young, under eight or ten inches long, are often abundant in shallow 

 coves or bays, which are more or less filled up with kelp and other large seaweeds. In such 

 places as these they have been commonly taken in the beam trawl used by the United States 

 Fish Commission for bottom fish, in Long Island Sound, Narragansett Bay, and Vineyard 

 Sound. One cause assigned for the great decrease in the abundance of Lobsters in Plymouth 

 Bay, Massachusetts, is the raking over of the rocky bottom for Irish moss, which industry is 

 carried on to a very great extent, thereby uncovering and destroying the young and damaging 

 their grounds. 



MIGRATIONS. The Lobsters inhabiting the shoaler grounds in summer move into deeper 

 water, as a rule, on the approach of cold weather, and return again in the spring. In some 

 localities, however, a few Lobsters are said to remain in moderately shoal water the entire year, 

 especially toward the south. But all Lobsters do not leave their deeper abiding places in summer, 

 for they appear to occur in greater or less abundance in all depths at all seasons. The extent of 

 the fall migrations is not very great, but the Lobsters move off beyond the influence of the extreme 

 cold into slightly deeper water, generally not far away, where the temperature remains milder 

 and more uniform. Those who fish for Lobsters in the winter have, therefore, to set their pots at 

 a greater distance from land than in the summer, but the winter fishery is of slight importance 

 compared with the summer. 



Lobsters are said to approach the shores of Nova Scotia in May and to recede from them in 

 November, their winter quarters being in depths of ten to forty-five fathoms. In the summer 

 they are abundant close to shore. At the month of the Bay of Fundy they generally come into 

 shoal water in April, and move off again in October or November. During the summer 

 months they abound under the shelter of overhanging rocks and among the kelp near shore. 

 About five or six weeks are taken tip by these migrations. They do not move in a body, but 

 approach and recede gradually, as the temperature of the water changes. Throughout the coast 

 of Maine the spring and fall migrations are about the same, but vary more or less according to 

 the character and temperature of the different seasons. In the summer, they enter the numerous 

 buys and indentations of the coast line, which they leave again in the fall. They leave the 

 shallow waters of the coast of New Hampshire in December or November, and can be caught 

 during the entire winter in depths of twenty fathoms. Boston Harbor has always been famous 

 as a fishing ground for Lobsters, but in the fall it is completely deserted by these crustaceans, 

 which repair to the deeper waters of Massachusetts Bay, where a winter fishery can be carried 

 on. A sudden cold spell is said to send them off rapidly, and they have been known to entirely 

 disappear from shoal water in the course of a day or two. Lobster fishing ceases at Province- 

 town, Cape Cod, the latter part of September, as the Lobsters become scarce after that time. In 

 Vineyard Sound the fall migrations extend into the deeper holes not far distant from the summer 

 grounds, but some individuals remain in comparatively shallow water the entire year. The same 

 is true of Long Island Sound, where Lobsters do not move far from their summer haunts, but 



