ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



stony seaweeds, corallines, and bryozoa over 

 the reefs. 



We have not yet been able to evaluate the 

 effects of all of these agencies but even so it 

 seems quite certain that the reefs around Tutuila 

 are, geologically speaking, structures of the 

 present day. 



In other words we conclude that these reefs 

 have grown outward from the shore over an old 

 submerged platform which was cut down to the 

 then sea level in a past age, perhaps in the 

 glacial epoch when the ice was heaped up in a 

 vast sheet over the northern regions of America, 

 and the surface of the tropical oceans may have 

 thus been lowered about 120 feet, as is main- 

 tained bv Professor Reginald A. Dalv. 



ITEMS OE INTEREST 



The Blue Lobster. — The blue lobster, 

 though rare, is not distinct in species from the 

 common green lobster. 



Almost by accident we learned at the Aqua- 

 rium that the blue lobster may be born green, 

 like the common lobster, and later change to 

 blue. 



It is said that any lobster, exposed long 

 enough to bright light, will turn temporarily a 

 brilliant blue. In referring to blue lobsters we 

 mean only those which are naturally blue. Most 

 of these have been taken from the depths of 

 ocean, and the Aquarium exhibited one giant in- 

 digo blue lobster from deep waters which was 

 described in the November 1917 Bulletin. 



A small, common green lobster, that had 

 molted once under observation in our laboratory, 

 was transferred to an exhibition tank, and a few 

 months later molted and came out blue. It 

 never had been subjected to bright light. The 

 animal was returned to an observation tank and 

 within a year cast its first dark blue shell, twelve 

 inches long, for another blue one, the heavy 

 claws being a beautiful sky-blue, the body 

 darker and mottled along the sides with cream. 

 It seems certain now that this lobster is "true 

 blue" and unlikely to molt back into its original 

 green. 



From Herrick's studies of the lobster, we 

 judge bv the size of our specimen that it must 

 have molted, since birth, twenty-five or twenty- 

 six times before turning blue, and that its age 

 was then six or seven years. 



If this lobster, which has already lived longer 

 than any blue lobster ever kept captive, attains 

 its full growth at the Aquarium, it will be the 

 first blue lobster ever reared in captivity. 



Among crustaceans, lobsters are notable for 

 longevity, and Herrick estimates that giant 

 specimens weighing twenty-five or thirty-five 

 pounds, have weathered the storms of life for 

 possibly fifty years or more. T M M 



The Dogger-Boat. — The Aquarium, it is 

 hoped, will soon be in possession of its new 

 well-boat, the completion of which has been 

 greatly delayed by labor troubles. 



Well-boats are not modern inventions, though 

 the name is comparatively recent, superseding 

 "dogger-boat." from the middle Dutch "dogger- 

 boot." 



It seems quite certain that the Dutch had 

 well-boats as early as the 17th century and per- 

 haps considerably earlier, for English diction- 

 aries printed in the beginning of the 18th 

 century mention the dogger or dogger-boat, so 

 called from the Dutch "dogger-boot" — a vessel 

 with a well in the center for bringing fish alive 

 to shore; also dogger-fish — fish brought alive to 

 shore in such vessels ; and dogger-men — fisher- 

 men and sailors employed on doggers. 



The origin of the word is not altogether clear, 

 the earliest dictionary that mentions its deriva- 

 tion stating that it is from dog. a sea term. This 

 is interesting, and not improbable, since the 

 Dutch word for dog is dogge; but later diction- 

 aries differ on this point. One printed in the 

 18th century says it is from Dogger Bank, where 

 dogger-boats are principally used, two 19th 

 century authorities state that dogger is Dutch 

 for cod, and a third that it is Dutch for trawling 

 vessel. 



We know that cod and herring were much 

 sought for upon a certain shoal in the North 

 Sea, and might reasonably infer that if dogger 

 is Dutch for cod, this shoal came to be called 

 Dogger Bank because of the cod that were there ; 

 that the boats with live wells used by the Dutch 

 for capturing cod off the Dogger Bank, came 

 thus to be called dogger-boats; and that eventu- 

 ally any sandbank was called a dogger-bank, any 

 fisherman a dogger-man. and any fish taken alive 

 to shore in a well-boat, dogger-fish. 



English-Dutch dictionaries, however, do not 

 give dogger as the Dutch for cod, though they 

 indicate that a "dogger-boot" is synonymous 

 with a "heringsboot." 



In any event, if the Dutch dogger-fish are ex- 

 clusively cod and herring, the Aquarium dogger- 

 fish will have a much wider range; for it is 

 expected that a great variety of species will come 

 to New York in our "dogger-boot." 



I. M. M. 



