138 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



I have never seen a blue lobster of perfectly uniform tint or without markings 

 on the shell; yet lobsters which very nearly answer this description are occasionally 

 taken, according to abundant testimony. Passing from this condition, there is a graded 

 series of colors, from the decidedly blue to the distinctly blackish or bluish greeu. 



There is a well-preserved skeleton of a blue lobster in the museum of the 

 Peabody Academy of Science at Salem, Massachusetts. ' This specimen is a male, 

 111 inches long, and has a hard shell. The carapace is deep indigo above, but lighter 

 on the sides with rather faint spots of light blue. The ''tail" is of a purplish cast, 

 with fine spots or marbling of dark blue. The large claws are purplish above, with 

 abundant darker blotches, while they are cream-colored below, with some fine blue 

 spots. The other legs are cream-colored, washed or speckled with blue. 



Mr. J. W. Savage received at Boston, in June, 1893, about a hundred exceptionally 

 blue lobsters from Nova Scotia. They had "hard shells," and would average If pounds 

 each in weight. As he expressed it, "they were as blue as bluejays." In April of 

 the same year Mr. A. P. Greenleaf, of Boothbay, Maine, received also from Nova 

 Scotia, as he informed me, two thousand or more very blue lobsters. He says that 

 the usual spots and other markings of the shell were not conspicuous, and that the 

 colors were so bright that he was almost afraid to ship them to market. A female 

 egg-bearing lobster from Nova Scotia, which I examined in September, was of a dull 

 leaden blue color over the whole upper part of the body. The lateral edges of the 

 carapace were sky blue, the claws very dark, almost black, above, and dull red below. 

 I have already referred to the bluing of lobsters (p. 135), which is due to either a 

 physical or chemical change in the shell pigments and has no adaptational significance. 



Blue crayfishes described by Lereboullet (119) were "of an azure or cobalt color 

 more or less intense; the claws deeply colored; the legs paler, and the lower parts of 

 the body of a pale red." He thought that the shell contained three kinds of pigment — 

 red, blue, and green, and that in the red and blue varieties one of these pigments was 

 excessively developed. 



RED LOBSTERS. 



Occasionally red living lobsters are seen, which are very rarely as bright in 

 color as those which have been boiled. Mr. F. W. Collins, of Rockland, Maine, had 

 a lobster of this variety in September, 1890. It was taken in Dyers Bay, near Jones- 

 port, Maine. It had a hard shell, and when in the floating car with other lobsters 

 was very conspicuous for its bright color. 



Mr. S. M. Johnson informs me that lobsters of this interesting color variety are 

 met with "more or less frequently." Speaking of one which was obtained in 1892, he 

 says that "although taken by itself the color was somewhat paler than the ordinary 

 boiled lobster, yet if put with others that had been boiled it would have been hard to 

 distinguish the difference." 



Through the kindness of Messrs. Johnson and Young I received on April 9, 1894, 

 a remarkably perfect specimen of a red lobster, of which I have made a drawing 

 colored as accurately as possible from life (plate 16, fig. 21). It was alive and active 

 when it reached Cleveland, had a fairly hard shell, was without external eggs, and 

 measured llg inches. Except in color, it was perfectly normal. It was caught in the 

 vicinity of Mount Desert, Maine. The ovaries, which were immature, were of a light 



1 I had the privilege of examining this and other specimens in the museum through the courtesy 

 of Mr. John Robinson, treasurer of the Peabody Academy of Science. 



