104 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
whilst I held it; such an operation as this would of course prove 
fatal, since the animal would be deprived of any hold whatever. 
Curious facts are mentioned by fishermen as to the timidity 
and loss of claws of Lobsters. It is said that severe thunder- 
storms often cause them to “‘shoot”’ their claws, as also does the 
discharge of heavy guns. I believe there is a story on record 
of a dispute between the local authorities of some district and 
the fishermen, the latter being ultimately coerced into submission 
by a threat to fire off all the guns at the fort. Now as the fort 
in question overlooked the lobster-grounds, the effect of such a 
proceeding was regarded with as much terror by the fishermen 
as it ultimately would have been by the lobsters themselves had 
such a threat been carried out; so the men gave way, and the 
Lobsters saved their claws and continued in a marketable 
condition for their future captors. 
The reproduction of limbs thus lost or injured in fights with 
each other or their foes—for maimed antenne, which are quite 
common, seem to point to such skirmishes—is also of great 
interest. The wounded part soon hardens over and forms a 
small bud, in which the future new limb is developed, not in a 
straight position, but, if a leg, folded, and in the case of antenne 
the new member is coiled within the membrane in a spiral form, 
which of course assumes a straightened position at the next 
exuviation. I donot see how, after the first moult subsequent to 
a lost limb, a reproduced member can possibly grow more rapidly 
than the rest of the carapace; nor do I think it does, but that it 
always remains in the same proportion to the rest of the limbs as 
it did when it first threw off the membrane which had formed 
over the wounded part. I have in my collection a large number 
of specimens, including many genera and species that have lost 
limbs and reproduced them, and there is in nearly all a vast 
difference in size between the old and new members; and in the 
case of veterans whose ‘“moulting” time has either ceased or 
else takes place at long intervals there is nothing, I think, to 
prove that, after the first casting-off of the membrane already 
referred to, the exuviation of one limb can be carried independently 
of the rest of the carapace. In this case, therefore, it would be 
absolutely impossible for a lost limb to bereproduced that would 
ever attain the size of the one it replaces. 
Another curious ‘‘anecdote,” for I cannot call it a fact, 
