American Fisheries Society. use 
a chance to grow into adult lobsters. In this way only can we 
hope to decrease the usual natural mortality which is estimated 
amounts to about 999 in every thousand. This was the prob- 
lem laid out for the Commission by Doctor Bumpus, and this is 
the problem which has been carried out to a successful solution. 
As has already been said the eggs need little or no protec- 
tion except from man. ‘The mother lobster securely fastens 
them to the appendages of the under side of her body, carries 
them safe protected for many months, continually aerates them 
by the movements of her appendages, and as they slowly hatch, 
scatters them widespread as she moves about from place to place. 
Most states recognize the importance of protecting the ege- 
bearing lobsters. Laws are on the books imposing a penalty for 
taking, having in one’s possession, or selling them, and if a 
careful inspection by deputies with power of arrest and prose- 
cution is made, a certain protection will be afforded. It is 
needless to say that at the present time the strict enforcement 
of these laws is impossible and that many of the short and “egg” 
lobsters caught, are not returned to the water. 
The newly hatched fry, however, are at once the victims 
of circumstances. They float helplessly about with every shift- 
ing current. Everyone who has studied the subject at all has 
admitted that the early stages of the fry are the critical stages 
of a lobster’s life, and could they be protected and permitted 
to grow to the stage where they change their habits, seek the 
bottom and burrow in the sand, the problem of the lobster cul- 
ture would be solved. 
The little lobster which hatches from the egg begins to eat 
immediately, grows but little until it is about three days old, 
when it sheds its skin and becomes a considerably larger sec- 
ond stage fry. It remains in this stage on an average four or 
five days when it moults and grows again and becomes a third 
stage fry. Again after five or six days it again moults and be- 
comes a fourth stage fry. It is during this stage, that it changes 
its habits from a free-swimming larva and takes to the bottom 
to assume the habits of a full grown lobster. The whole process, 
varying with many factors such as temperature, food, ete., takes 
from eleven to twenty-one days. 
The difficulties connected with rearing the fry to this later 
