I90 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



and after 330 days or more of successful fosterage deliver her young to the teeming 

 and merciless sea. She shows this parental instinct not onlv hv kep pirg^ tn mver hii<- 

 by folding her tail in emergencies, so that the inquisitive cunner and insidious eel an d 

 other troublesome neighbors can not pick ofF her eggs or pull them out of her t^oo d 

 pocket. Further, by the incessant beating of the egg-laden sw immerets, the lodgment of 

 destructive parasites isdiscouraged. The lobster also instinctively cleans her antennae 

 by drawing their whips through the brushes of the great maxillipeds and applies the 

 "broom," the tips of the last pair of slender legs, to the swimmerets and underside of 

 the tail when ready to deposit a new batch of eggs." Sexual union is largely, if not 

 wholly, indiscriminate, and it is possible that the males "try" every lobster which they 

 meet, or at least every female, whatever her condition (see p. 303). 



Lobsters about to molt, and possibly after the shell is cast, often conceal themselve s 

 in sand or seaweed, and the soft lobster will instinctively eat its own cast or swallow a 

 miscellaneous mass of calcareous fragments, presumably for the purpose of obtaining an 

 immediate and abundant supply of lime for the hardening of its new shell (see p. 185). 



Most important to the welfare of the lobster race no doubt is the instinct of fear 

 upon which all their characteristic actions of burrowing, hiding, and what we have 

 described as "stealth" and "caution" depend. Moreover, it is as important for the 

 life of the young as of the adult, for this instinct manifests itself with comparative 

 suddenness, as in birds, at the close of the larval swimming life, in the fourth-stage 

 lobster, when, as if by magic, the lobsterling casts aside its larval habits, together with 

 its characteristic larval organs, and appears in a new r61e, with new armor to suit the 

 part which it is to play. It betrays fear and caution, and now goes to the bottom, digs 

 burrows, and hides. The possession of the instinct of fear gives ground for the hope 

 that the method of rearing the young to the fourth or fifth stage before liberation, 

 which has met with complete success, may yet furnish a means of restocking our coastal 

 waters, and of thus reviving the decayed lobster fisheries of the northern Atlantic States. 



The intelligence of the lobster is shown in its power of associating things with 

 actions or of forming habits in the technical sense ; in other words, in a power, however 

 limited, of profiting by experience. Thus the lobster h abitually returns to its burro w 

 or place o f hiding, which^it recognizes and claims as its own, being ready to fight fof il;s 

 possession. There can be little doubt that it finds its way back by the same process ^ha t 

 the fox returns to its hole or the bird to its nest, through the power of assoeiatinn, though 

 not necessarily through the mediation of the same sense. 



But this rudimentary power of using experience as guide does not carry the lobster 

 very far any more than it does many of the fishes and lower vertebrates generally. It 

 does not enable it to escape from a trap or to avoid this engine of destruction in the 

 future when once set free. 



a It may be noted further that Coste, who made some remarkable statements about the European lobster which are not 

 confirmed by later observers, says that "In order to favor incubation the brood lobsters can expose at will their eggs to the 

 light or keep them in shadow, according as they bend or straighten their tails; when assuming the latter attitude they will 

 now bring their eggs to rest, or now wash them by gently moving the swimmerets." ( jj, p. 204.) 



