37° BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OE FISHERIES. 



(4) To increase the supply of lobsters in the sea by fry or larvae artificially hatched 

 and immediately liberated, and as practiced chiefly in Canada, by holding the berried 

 lobsters in large inclosures, called lobster pounds, ponds, preserves, or parks, and 

 later setting them free when the young are ready to hatch. 



(5) By the rearing method later introduced of holding the fry artificially hatched 

 and rearing them until the fourth or fifth stages, when they go to the bottom and are 

 able to take care of themselves. We need not enter here into other legislative channels, 

 such as laws prohibiting the sale of broken or picked-out lobster meat, the operation 

 of canneries, and the construction of gear, however necessary they may be for this 

 fishery. We shall devote our attention mainly to those questions of most vital con- 

 cern to the fishery as a whole. 



CLOSED SEASONS. 



A closed season for any animal, during which it is made illegal to hunt or fish for 

 it, can only be completely justified and placed upon a scientific basis when it is made to 

 correspond to the breeding season of the species as a whole, and when this season is 

 Umited to a relatively small part of the year. Neither of these things is possible in 

 the lobster, since the question is compUcated by the fact that this animal spawns but 

 once in two years, so that not more than one-half of the adult females reproduce 

 annually, and the eggs when laid are carried about by the lobsters through nearly an 

 entire year. Closed seasons of this character are therefore not to be recommended, 

 since they serve merely to restrict the total amount of fishing done in the year, and 

 do not touch the root of the difiiculty. 



There is a closed season in the maritime provinces from June 30 to January 14, 

 and in 1889 the Norwegian fisheries laws prohibited the taking and sale of lobsters 

 from July to November. The apparent aim in these cases is to protect the lobsters 

 during the spawning season and for a longer or shorter period after it, but the females 

 only can receive much benefit, and then only provided the law against the destruction 

 of their eggs is observed. Closed seasons set a limit to the period of destruction and 

 may help to preserve the females by taking them into the protected class, after they 

 have emitted their eggs. 



As we have already shown, the lobster is a very sedentary animal, so far as any 

 extended coastwise migration is concerned, and many which escape the traps in the 

 fall will undoubtedly enter them again in the spring and upon the very same grounds. 



PROTECTION OF BERRIED LOBSTERS. 



A certain percentage of lobsters captured at all times of the year bear spawn, and 

 how best to save these animals and their eggs is a serious question. The Maine laws 

 impose a fine of |io for every berried lobster destroyed or offered for sale. It is an 

 easy matter to brush or comb off the eggs, however, and thus evade the law, which it 

 is impossible to enforce completely; but however difiicult of enforcement it is not wise 

 to invite the destruction of the seed, upon which we depend for every future crop. 



