82 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



Before the molt takes place the lobster has been for a long time preparing for it, 

 while growth, has been going on. After molting, it is several weeks before the new 

 shell is as hard as the old one, so that the lobster is, for a large part of its life, either 

 preparing for a molt or recovering from one. It is therefore not remarkable that 

 lobsters have acquired many popular names among fishermen, such as "hard shell" or 

 "old shell" lobster; " shedder," "black shell," or " crack back" (lobsters preparing to 

 molt); "soft shell," "new shell," "shadow," "rubber shell," "paper shell," "buckle 

 shell" lobster, etc. (lobsters which have recently molted). 



HABITS OF MOLTING LOBSTERS. 



Shedders can be readily distinguished by the dark, dull colors of the old shell 

 hence the common name of " black lobster," and by the deep reddish tint of the 

 membranes at the joints, where the flesh is now seen through the old and new cuticle. 

 The lobster is now naturally sluggish, though not too inactive to enter a trap. When in 

 this condition they very commonly haunt shallow water with a sandy, muddy, or weedy 

 bottom, and at low tide have been taken out of bunches of eelgrass in a few inches of 

 water. When in this condition they frequently dig a shallow hole in the mud under 

 stones, where they can await the coming change with greater security from enemies. 

 Fishermen frequently see a shed shell lying on the bottom and a soft lobster close by 

 under a rock or bunch of kelp. 



It is well known that many prawns habitually molt in the early morning while it 

 is yet dark. The lobster when kept in an aquarium molts either by day or night, and 

 it probably does the same in nature. In those which Brook observed {26) the shells 

 were cast off in the night and partially buried. 



Shedders and soft lobsters used to be a favorite bait with fishermen who knew 

 where to look for them and could then find them in abundance. The shell of the black 

 lobster was peeled off, and the soft, pulpy flesh formed a tempting bait which fish 

 found difficult to resist. Mr. Vinal N. Edwards says that in 1869 or 1870 he used to 

 take molting lobsters for bait at Menemsha, in Vineyard Sound, in October, sometimes 

 a barrel of them at a time. He says that he never found a molting lobster buried in 

 the sand, but they were usually under bunches of seaweed, such as the common kelp 

 (Fucns vesiculosus) with their bodies only partially surrounded by the sand, and in 5 to 

 9 feet of water. It was not uncommon formerly to catch shedders in fyke nets, but he 

 has taken none in recent years. He used to take them occasionally with hook and line. 

 The lobster probably requires greater freedom in getting free from its old shell than 

 could be found in the most carefully constructed burrow. 



While at the Vinal Haven Islands, August 26, 1893, 1 saw in the pound at that place 

 a number of soft lobsters which had molted but a few hours before. One was found 

 lying in the eelgrass ; another, a male, was exposed on the mud bottom in 2 feet of 

 water. A shedder, weighing upward of 10 pounds, was caught by Mr. M. B. Spinney 

 in Seal Cove, Small Point, Maine, in the month of August, in very shallow water; and 

 in Sagadahoc Bay, near the mouth of the Kennebec Biver, a large soft lobster was once 

 found and close beside it its cast-off shell. The lobster lay buried under roots of 

 eelgrass and was out of water, when discovered, at low tide. 



In the Peabody Academy of Science, at Salem, Massachusetts, there is a crushing- 

 claw of a lobster said to have come from Gloucester and to have weighed 39 pounds. 

 An outline drawing of this claw is given in plate 15 (see p. 115). This lobster probably 



