64 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



The concession to the cooks contained in the previous extracts is no more defen- 

 sible than the idea that the lobster when in berry is necessarily at its best as an article 

 of food. The reviewer just referred to, thus speaks upon the latter point: 



We were under the impression — a common one, we believe — that as the spawning season began 

 to come on all the food eaten went chiefly to aid the growth of the innumerable eggs in the female or 

 of the soft roe in the male. 



Travis (191), writing in 1768 from Scarborough — a place which still abounds in 

 lobsters — says : 



It is a common mistake that a berried hen is always in perfection for the table. When her 

 berries appear large and brownish she will always be found exhausted, watery, and poor. * * * 

 Cock lobsters are in general better than hens in winter. 



It should be borne in mind that there is no organic connection between the 

 external eggs, which are carried under the " tail," of the lobster, any more than 

 there is between a plaster and the skin to which it is made to adhere by an adhesive 

 substance. 



The case of the berried lobster and of the roe-herring are not strictly analogous, 

 since the lobster is carrying her eggs which have been extruded, perhaps months 

 before, while the herring is yet in the active process of producing the spawn within the 

 body. 



One would suppose that the only time when the lobster could be compared as to 

 the effects of spawning with fish like the salmon would be for a short period after the 

 eggs were laid. But this is not exactly the case, and Travis was nearer right than 

 his successors, when he maintained that the egg-lobster was an inferior article of food. 

 The fact is that the egg-lobster is in poorer condition or weighs relatively less than 

 the female of the same length without eggs. This point is illustrated more fully in 

 another part of this work (see p. 119). 



The lobster at the time of egg-laying is not in as poor condition, however, as the 

 shotted herring or the salmon, which at this period is worthless as food, and the 

 reason is plain. The ovary of the lobster ripens slowly during a period of at least 

 two years, and the production and emission of the eggs is not so severe a drain upon 

 its vitality as in the case of the fish. After the eggs have been laid for some time, the 

 lobster gains in flesh; the ovary resumes its slow growth, but it is a year before the 

 "coral" becomes very conspicuous. The testes, corresponding to the "soft roe" of 

 fishes, are always very small, and produce sperm, not at a particular period, as is the 

 case with many species of fish, but probably throughout the entire year. The time 

 when the adult lobster is in the poorest condition for food is when the animal is 

 getting ready to cast its shell, and for a few weeks after the molt while the new shell 

 is still soft. 



The destruction of a few hundred thousand eggs, or even a few millions, would 

 have no appreciable effect upon the supply of lobsters at any point on the coast; but 

 where the practice of taking lobsters with eggs is general throughout the range of the 

 fishery, the total amount of ova or embryos which are thus killed is prodigious, and 

 can not fail to lessen the number of adults. 



