THE AMERICAN LOBSTER. Ill 



In speaking of the size attained by the European lobster, Sars says: 



It is ;i remarkable fact thai the Lobsters on our southern coast never get as large as those farther 

 north. 1 have never seen an unusually large specimen among the many lobsters which I examined at 

 the different fishing stations. The lobsters which are occasionally caught farther north are generally 

 much larger, and bo judge from their appearance much older. At Floro I once saw a lobster which 

 was not much smaller than the immense specimen in the Bergen Museum. This specimen, as far as I 

 remember, comes from a still more northerly point of our western coast. {176.) 



I am able to give some comparative measurements of the "immense specimen" 

 to which Sars refers in the passage just quoted, through the kindness of my friend, 

 Dr. Einar Lbnnberg, of the University of Upsala. If the length of this lobster and 

 the measurements of its large claws (No. 2 a, table 29) are compared witli the -other 

 specimen (No. 1 a), and with lobster No. 7, table 30, we shall see that in all prob- 

 ability the Bergen specimen did not weigh above 10 pounds. It is nearly an inch 

 longer than lobster No. 7, which weighed after preservation in alcohol a little less 

 than 10 pounds. On the other hand, the claws of this American lobster are larger 

 than those of the Norwegian specimen, and the claws constitute in old lobsters more 

 than one-half the weight of the entire animal. (See table 31 a.) The latter probably 

 weighed when alive not over 10 pounds. 



In reference to my questions about the Bergen lobster, Dr. Lonnberg writes: 

 The specimen is now dry, and, as we never weigh any lobsters in our couutry, the weight is not 

 recorded. 



He says the date of capture is doubtful, but it was probably between 1850 and 1865. 



It has been an accepted belief that the American lobster attains a greater size 

 than its European counterpart, but it seems to be a fact that the maximum size of 

 each species is nearly the same. The lobster fishery is much older in Europe than in 

 this country, and the average size has there been long reduced to a minimum by 

 overfishing. At the time when Sars's paper was written (about twenty years ago) 

 it would not have occurred to one familiar with the American species to look upon a 

 10-pound lobster as an "immense specimen," though at present there are comparatively 

 few of this size which find their way to markets. In fact the same gradual falling off 

 in size, due to the same cause, has been experienced in recent years on the coast of 

 Maine and in the Maritime Provinces. It is probable, however, that the American 

 lobster is stockier than the European, and that length for length the American species 

 will weigh the more. 



Buckland (29) speaks of a "breed" of lobsters caught at Bognor which are always 

 small. They are called "chicken lobsters," and it takes 11 to 20 to weigh a pound. 

 This merely illustrates how the size may be kept down by the persistency of fishermen. 



Rathbun (155), in speaking of the occurrence of large lobsters in American 

 waters, says: 



A dealer at New Haven states that twenty years ago 12 to 16 pound lobsters were common, but 

 during the past ten years a lobster weighing 10 pounds has been rarely seen. A Boston dealer writes 

 that during the past season (1880) he had received and sold lobsters weighing from 12 to 15 pounds 

 each. A specimen taken at Boothbay, Maine, and said to weigh between 30 and 40 pounds, 



had such claws that the meat from one of them was equal to that of an ordinary-sized lobster. 



I have. examined and carefully measured a lobster taken at Boothbay which is 

 probably the one here referred to, and will describe it presently. The actual weight 

 of this lobster was probably not over 22 pounds. 



A lobster "shipped from Eastport in 1875" is said to have weighed 19 pounds 

 and to have "measured 3 feet 5 inches in length (measurement from tips of extended 



