378 ANIMAL FOOD RESOURCES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 



quantity ; 20,000 or 30,000 a-week might be easily 

 captured on about twenty miles of the coast of Clifden, 

 Buifen Island, and Bunown, but the people have no 

 means of taking them. They only fish close to the 

 shore, and large lobsters cannot go into the pots used; 

 those of five or six pounds', or eight or nine pounds' 

 weight, are only taken by clinging to the sides of the 

 pots'; and if the fishermen had boats sufiicient to go out 

 to the rocks seven or eight miles off", they, with proper 

 gear, would take the finest fish in the world, and in the 

 greatest quantities. They may be had in season every 

 day in the year that men could venture out to set the 

 pots, but they never do so in the winter." The size and 

 age to which they sometimes attain was evidenced by 

 one caught a few years ago in Plymouth Sound in a 

 trawl net, which was reported in the Field. Its length 

 was, from the tip of the claws to end of tail, 3 ft. 2 in. ; 

 weight, 15 lbs. 2^ oz. Several small oysters, mussels, 

 and barnacles were adhering to the shell, and it was 

 supposed to be one hundred years old, although what 

 grounds there were for the assumption were not stated. 

 M. Payen gives the following as the percentage com- 

 position of the edible parts of the lobster : — ■ 



There is no substance which conveys phosphorus so 

 readily into the human system, and which the system so 



