BRITISH STALK-EYED CRUSTACBA. 105 
referred to by Bell as coming from fishermen—and I have 
heard of the same thing myself—is that old Lobsters have 
“frequently” been seen with their brood of young ones round 
them, and, moreover, that such is the love shown by the mother 
for her young that she warns them of approaching danger by 
by rattling her claws. Now all this is very pretty, but I fear it 
will not bear investigation. In the first place, considering that 
crustaceans undergo metamorphosis, as do insects, it would be 
quite as probable for a butterfly or moth to show maternal love 
for a swarm of young larve or caterpillars as for a ‘‘hen” 
lobster to recognise her young through the larval stages of their 
existence. But more than this, a lobster is a slow-moving, 
heavy creature, living on the floor of the sea, whilst its zoea 
when it emerges from the egg is a minute free-swimming 
surface-loving atom, millions of which form the regular food of a 
host of fishes, and a very small percentage of which ever reach 
the Lobster-stage at all. During this free-swimming period 
some of the various swarms unite, and probably wander far from 
their ponderous and unknown parent, and when ultimately the 
survivors sink to the bottom and commence life in the Lobster- 
stage, it certainly is most improbable, in fact impossible, that the 
few survivors of the immense zoea progeny should re-unite and 
recognise their original parent, or that the parent should 
recognise what it certainly never saw before, at any rate in the 
form then arrived at. 
The Lobster, as I have already stated, is common on all our 
shores, and is elsewhere widely distributed. It is usually caught 
in ‘‘ pots,” but its fishery is sufficiently well known as to need no 
description from me. I have a record that, after the great gale 
and snow-storm of January, 1881, large quantities of lobsters, 
some weighing eight or nine pounds, were thrown up on the coast 
near Shoreham for a distance of ten miles. 
Though exercising common means of self-preservation, the 
Lobster is incapable of any discriminating faculty, and, 
I should imagine, could be caught in any kind of trap pro- 
perly baited. I remember once watching a fisherman taking 
lobsters from his pots, when one of them seized the rim of the 
pot with one of its large claws and held firmly by it. I wondered 
how the man would make it let go without endangering the claw 
itself, when I saw him seize the other claw and hold it firmly 
