JANUARY 12, 1912] 
trouble and expense in collecting and afterwards 
hatching them and committing the young to the 
merey of the sea, while we have legalized the 
destruction of the great source of the eggs them- 
selves—the large producing females. 
And again Herrick states: 
This race needs eggs, not by the tens of thou- 
sands merely, but by the tens of billions, and it 
must have them or perish. Moreover, it can get 
them only, or mainly, through the big producers, 
the destruction of which the present gauge laws 
have legalized. If the lobster is a good incubator, 
the sea is a very poor nursery. 
Thus Herrick brands as thoroughly inef- 
fective any gauge law which protects the 
female lobster merely to the 9, 10 or 104 inch 
limit. This limit enables them to lay, in all 
probability, but a single lot of eggs, usually 
not more than 10,000, and, according to Her- 
rick’s estimate, only one lobster out of 15,000 
eggs reaches maturity. 
Analyzed in the light of the law of survival 
(one out of 15,000 eggs), Herrick does not 
look upon the showing of the lobster hatch- 
eries aS very encouraging, since, to hold the 
lobster fishery at an equilibrium would require 
the hatching of larvee by the trillions; we can 
not work on such a scale. In the method of 
rearing the young through the critical or 
larval period, as practised at the Wickford 
Experiment Station ot the Rhode Island Com- 
mission of Inland Fisheries, Herrick, however, 
sees great possibilities of material aid to the 
lobster fishery. 
The chapter on Preservation and Propaga- 
tion concludes with a set of five reeommenda- 
tions devised to protect the lobster fishery. 
These are worth presenting in full: 
1. Adopt a double gauge or length limit, placing 
in a perpetual close season or protected class all 
below and all above these limits. Place the legal 
bar so as to embrace the average period of sexual 
maturity, and thus to include what we have called 
the intermediate class of adolescents, or smaller 
adults. These limits should be approximately 9 
inches and 11 inches, inclusive, thus legalizing the 
destruction of lobsters from 9 to 11 inches long 
only when measured alive. In this way we protect 
the young as well as the larger adults, upon which 
we depend for a continuous supply of eggs. The 
SCIENCE 71 
precise terms of these limits are not so vital, pro- 
vided we preserve the principle of protecting the 
larger adults. 
2. Protect the ‘‘berried’’ lobster on principle, 
and pay a bounty for it, as is now done, whether 
the law is evaded or not, and use its eggs for con- 
structive work, or for experimental purposes with 
such work in view. 
3. Abolish the closed season if it still exists; let 
the fishing extend throughout the year. 
4, Wherever possible, adopt the plan of rearing 
the young to the bottom-seeking stage before 
liberation, or cooperate with the United States 
Bureau of Fisheries or with sister states to this 
end. 
5. License every lobster fisherman, and adopt a 
standard trap or pot which shall work automat- 
ically, so far as possible in favor of the double 
gauge, the entrance rings being of such a diameter 
as to exclude all lobsters above the gauge, and the 
slats of the trap of such a distance apart as to 
permit the undersized animals to escape. 
If the double gauge should prove ineffectual 
because of not being uniformly adopted cr 
rigidly enforced, Herrick recommends the fol- 
lowing steps with reference to the mainte- 
nance of the present laws: 
1. Raise the legal gauge to 103 inches wherever 
it now stands below this limit. 
2. License every lobster fisherman, and adopt a 
standard trap, with slats of sufficient distance 
apart to permit the undersized lobsters to escape. 
3. Destroy the enormously destructive inter- 
state commerce in short lobsters. 
4. Do not turn another larval lobster into the 
sea, but devote the energy expended in lobster 
hatcheries to rearing these young to the bottom- 
seeking stage after the methods now successfully 
practised at Wickford, R. I. 
To conclude, it may be said that this vol- 
ume on the American lobster is written in a 
clear and fascinating style, by virtue of which 
it will find approval in the hands of many 
classes of readers. To the scientifically 
minded it will be a mine of information, 
exact, well-classified and marvelously com- 
plete; to the ordinary reader it will prove an 
entertaining essay and study in natural his- 
tory, while to those especially interested in 
the preservation and propagation of the lob- 
ster, it should serve as a trustworthy guide 
