April 18, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



615 



SUGGESTIONS FOR NEW LEGISLATION. 



The logical basis, then, for the law is : 



1. Protect the adults.. Catch only the 

 small lobsters, not the large ones. 



2. Protect enough of the young to ensure 

 a sufficient number of adults. 



3. Protect those below a size which ex- 

 perience has sho^vn to be adapted for eco- 

 nomic use, say six inches. 



4. Use only a legal standard pot, having 

 the opening of such size as to prevent the 

 entrance of a lobster say above nine or 

 ten inches, and with slats far enough apart 

 and numerous enough to insure the escape 

 of all lobsters less than six inches. Fix a 

 date when all pots shall conform to the 

 standard. 



5. Penalize the possession or sale of lob- 

 sters above ten inches and below six inches, 

 and of pots not conforming to the legal 

 standard. 



6. Establish a State committee, to co- 

 operate with similar committees from the 

 other lobster-producing States and the 

 British maritime provinces, for considering 

 the advantages and possibilities of uniform 

 lobster laws, for coordinated investigations 

 of the important economic facts in the nat- 

 ural history of the lobster, and for devis- 

 ing improved methods of artificial lobster 

 culture. Rhode Island is obtaining very 

 valuable and practical results on some im- 

 portant phases of the question under the 

 direction of Professor Mead. 



The chief apparent objections are: 

 1. That such a proposal as has been out- 

 lined is too radical, too great a departure 

 from precedents and from the laws in force 

 in other States. To this it may be an- 

 swered that the existing lobster laws have 

 little common-sense foundation; they have 

 been based upon misconceptions, and often, 

 no doubt, upon ignorance and local poli- 

 tics ; they are directly contrary to scientific 



experience, and the continued decline of 

 the lobster industry has proved them to be 

 ineffective for the purposes for which they 

 were instituted. They are based neither 

 upon the laws of human economy nor upon 

 the natural liistory of the lobster. 



2. It has been claimed that ' such laws 

 a.s those proposed would lead to the capture 

 of all the lobsters.' At first an actually 

 greater number of lobsters would undoubt- 

 edly come into the market; but the in- 

 creased number of individuals killed would 

 not result in such an increased weight as 

 to materially affect market conditions, and 

 the productive capacity of the protected 

 individuals would be expected to more 

 than offset the apparent loss from the mar- 

 keting of immature individuals. In other 

 words, the actual value of one above ten 

 inches long in potential productive capac- 

 ity is many times that of one between six 

 and ten inches long, and man could use as 

 food a larger number of six-inch lobsters 

 without doing the biological damage which 

 results from the killing of a single lobster 

 of from nine to eleven inches long, and at 

 the same time have an actually greater 

 weight of lobster meat. If it is feared that 

 under this proposal the lobster does not get 

 sufficient protection, make the limit still 

 narrower, say from between eight or nine 

 inches to six inches. 



1. Such a law would be relatively easy 

 of enforcement, through the inspection of 

 lobster pots. 



2. It would work a minimum injury to 

 vested interests, since sufficient time can 

 be given to make all pots conform to the 

 standard. 



3. It does not remove the lobster from 

 the market, and so does not interfere with 

 the immediate or future interests of fisher- 

 men, dealers and consumers. 



4. By protecting those lobsters which are 

 of greatest biological value the interference 



