NATURAL HISTORY OF AMERICAN LOBSTER. 379 



the storm, and the rock-ribbed coast also, by giving to this race billions of eggs each 

 year; but no provision was made for millions of traps working night and day at the 

 bottom of the sea to destroy the producers of these eggs. 



THE PROPAGATION OF THE LOBSTER. 



The method of rearing the young through their critical larval or pelagic period, 

 until they finally go to the bottom in the fourth or fifth stages, promises material aid 

 to this fishery. While opinions may differ upon most of the questions which have been 

 hitherto discussed, here is a subject upon which all should be agreed, and we believe 

 that the method can not be extended too far or adopted too widely. Accordingly 

 we shall briefly review the history of lobster rearing. 



The first successful attempts at the artificial breeding of fish in America were 

 made upon the speckled trout by Dr. Theodatus GarUck and Prof. H. A. Ackley, of 

 Cleveland, Ohio, in 1853, the eggs and sperm being forcibly removed from the bodies 

 of the ripe animals, brought into contact, and young trout subsequently reared from 

 the eggs thus artificially impregnated. 



No such results have ever been obtained in the Crustacea, nor is such a procedure 

 possible in an animal like the lobster, owing to the unyielding nature of its body, due 

 to a hard external skeleton. In the case of this animal we can only remove the already 

 naturally fertilized and developing eggs from the underside of the abdomen, to which 

 they are attached by the female herself at the time of egg laying, and afterwards give 

 them such favorable conditions that the processes of development will proceed in a 

 normal course to the time of hatching, as in the case of the artificial incubation of the 

 eggs of fowls. 



Messrs. Guillon and Coste were apparently the first to rear lobsters in Europe in 

 considerable numbers, and an account of their experiments, which were conducted at 

 the laboratory of Concameau on the coast of France, was published in 1865 by Moquin- 

 Tandon and Soubeiron {202). 



How sanguine were these pioneers of the success of their experiments is shown by 

 the following extracts : 



The ease with, which young lobsters are reproduced and developed in the basins of Concameau is 

 a sure token that upon our coasts suitable places should be readily found for establishing vivaria where 

 one may obtain myriads of the young, but these should not be permitted to enter the sea until they are 

 suiBciently advanced to resist most of the causes of destruction which constantly menace them. What 

 we have seen since our first visit to Concameau, namely, basins literally black with little lobsters 

 hatched in a vivarium, and from what we know of the habits of a great number of fishes in coming in 

 immense numbers to stock particular regions of the coast, we may hope that it will be possible to regen- 

 erate the fishery on parts of our shores. By means of reservoirs we should be able to create an abundant 

 food supply. 



It was also stated that at the island of Tudy, M. de Cresoles had designed aquaria 

 for preserving, hatching, and feeding lobsters and the Palinurus or langouste, some of 

 the compartments being shaded or otherwise adapted to the animals in different stages 

 of growth. 



