17 



"The lobster along with the eggs, emits at the same time a kind of adhesive 

 liquid, which binds the eggs one to the other, and attaches thern all to the 

 small feet under the tail, where they remain in perfect shelter from all harm 

 until they are sufficiently ripe for final expulsion. 



" In order to forward and force the regular incubation of the ova, the females 

 have the power to give them more or less light, as they consider requisite, by 

 closing or opening the fold of the tail. Sometimes the eggs are kept quite 

 covered, and at other times they give them a kind of washing by moving the 

 flanges of the tail in a peculiar manner. The incubation lasts six months, 

 during which time the female takes such good care of the ova, that it is rare to 

 find an injured embryo or barren egg. 



" It is during the months of March, April, and May that the actual birth of 

 the young lobster takes place. The females, in order to expel the embryos, 

 now ready to burst the shells of the eggs, extend their tails, make light 

 oscillations with the fan and its appendages, so as to rid themselves gradually of 

 the young lobsters, which they succeed in doing in a few days. The young 

 lobster as soon as born makes away from its parent, rises to the surface of the 

 water and leaves the shores for the deep waters of the sea, where it passes the 

 earliest days of its existence in a vagabond state for 30 or 40 days. During 

 this time it undergoes four different changes of shell, but on the fourth it 

 loses its natatory organs, and is therefore no longer able to swim on the 

 surface of the water but falls to the bottom, where it has to remain for the 

 future ; according, however, to its increase of size it gains courage to approach 

 the shore which it had left at its birth. The number of enemies which assail 

 the young embryos in the deep sea is enormous, thousands of all kinds of fish, 

 mollusca, and Crustacea are pursuing it continually to destroy it. The very 

 changing of the shell causes great ravages at these periods, as the young 

 lobsters have to undergo a crisis which appears to be a necessary condition to 

 their rapid growth. In fact every young lobster loses and remakes its crusty 

 shell from eight to ten times the first year, five to seven the second, three to 

 four the third, and from two to three the fourth year. However, after the 

 fifth year the change is only annual, for the reason that were the changes more 

 frequent the shell would not last long enough to protect the ova adhering to 

 the shell of the female during the six months' incubation. The lobster 

 increases rapidly in size until the second year, and goes on increasing more 

 gradually until the fifth, when it begins to reproduce, and from this period the 

 growth is still more gradual." 



In July 1867 I took down two berried hens and placed them in my experi- 

 mental fishery at Reculvers near Heme Bay. 



In a few days all the berries hatched out, the water was swarming with thou- Young lobsters, 

 sands of little zoea. After they were hatched the little lobsters swarm 

 about in shoals near the surface, but at the end of a fortnight, although they 

 had undergone no alteration of form, they took up their residence at the 

 bottom. Cold easterly winds which had lowered the temperature of water may 

 have had something to do with the change of habit. I was not able to raise 

 these zoea as the place was so muddy, and young lobsters I believe require 

 rocks. 



By the kindness of Mr. Henry Lee, who has made several beautiful micro- 

 scopic preparations of young lobsters hatched both at Reculvers and at the 

 Brighton Aquarium, I am enabled to give in the Appendix, 1st, a drawing of 

 the egg of the lobster with the young just ready to hatch out; 2nd, the 

 portrait of a lobster 24 hours old. {See Diagram No. 4.) 



A correspondent at Brixham in 1873 hatched out young lobsters. He 

 writes : " I caught a berried hen in our trammel and placed her in a tank 

 " about 5 feet square with a constant flow of water. In two days the tank 

 " was alive with young lobsters, and others were rapidly hatching ; they seemed 

 "' busily employed in seeking for food amongst the animalculse with which 

 " the salt water is supposed to be filled." 



Lobsters when zoea undergo many transformations and sheddings of shell 

 before they assume the form of their mother. 



Mr. Saville Kent, curator of the Westminster Aquarium, informs me that 

 according to his observation a little zoea lobster sheds his shell 12 times before 



