40 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



At the time this was written it was not known that the lobster usually carries 

 her eggs for a period of ten or eleven months. It was. therefore, quite natural that 

 Verrill should misconstrue the discriminative statement of Smith (182), who says: 



The season at which the female lobsters carry eggs varies very much on different parts of the 

 coast. Lobsters from New London and Stonington, Connecticut, are with eggs in April and May, 

 while at Halifax, Nova Scotia, I found them with eggs, in which the embryos were just beginning to 

 develop, early in September. A corresponding variation is noticed in the lobster of the European coast. 



Verrill further says {196, p. 745): 



Subsequent observations have shown that the breeding season of the lobster extends over a large 

 part of the year. Mr. Vinal N. Edwards has forwarded two living females, of medium size, 



taken in Vineyard Sound, December 12, both carrying an abundance of freshly laid eggs. He states 

 that he finds about one in twenty carrying eggs at that season. 



Wheildon says, in a paper published in 1875 (20,2), that the assumption that the 

 lobster has a definite annual spawning season is an error, and that in February of that 

 year he had obtained "spawn in several stages of development from newly laid eggs 

 to the swimming larvae." 



The following statement of a member of the local government of Prince Edward 

 Island expresses an opinion upon the breeding habits of the lobster, which is as 

 misleading as it is common: 



I feel certain that the close season has not and can not accomplish anything toward the first 

 object [protection for lobsters while spawning], as it is now admitted by everyone who has had any 

 experience in packing, that lobsters in spawn are caught at all seasons of the year and that they 

 have no particular season for spawning. 



Bumpus concludes that — 



The eggs are normally deposited during the months of July and August, and develop rapidly so 

 long as the water is relatively warm. Large numbers of eggs collected during the winter 



months, both from the colder waters of Nahant as well as from the warmer waters of Woods Hole, 

 were almost invariably in the same advanced stage of development — the eyes large and bright, the 

 appendages well outlined, and the yolk occupying but a fraction, perhaps one-third of the surface 

 exposure. 



Out of hundreds of lobsters found "in berry" in May, 1890, at Woods Hole, " not 

 a single one had eggs in early stages of development." (30) 



After fluctuating from one view to another, I came to the conclusion that the 

 breeding season was limited as defined in the paragraph just quoted, but as my obser- 

 vations had been restricted to the summer months and to the region about Woods 

 Hole, I determined to extend them to other points of the coast and to other seasons 

 of the year. The results of these inquiries I will now give in detail. They may be 

 summarized as follows : 



For the majority of lobsters there is a definite breeding season, which is the 

 summer, July and August being the months in which the greatest number of eggs are 

 laid. A minority, on the other hand, perhaps 20 to 25 per cent of the entire number 

 of spawners, lay their eggs at other times of the year, in the fall and winter at least, 

 if not also in the spring. The fall and winter eggs are normally extruded, and do not 

 appear to be necessarily the product of the first reproductive period. A glance at 

 table 12 shows that while the average size of the females is small, it is fully up to the 

 average of all females captured during the same time. 



I received an "egg-lobster," which is not recorded in the following tables, from 

 Woods Hole early in December. It was 12£ inches long, and its eggs were just past 

 the egg-nauplius stage. If laid in July or August, they would Lave reached this stage 

 in about 18 days. 



