38o BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



The writers quoted above further add : 



To surprise nature with the accomplishment, to see life develop down to the smallest details, to 

 possess a world of the sea in miniature in a transparent house, where nothing could escape investiga- 

 tion, such are really the promises of the establishment at Concameau. These promises, gentlemen, 

 are to-day realized. 



It is pleasant to read of this enthusiasm at the dawn of the period of marine labo- 

 ratories, and so far as the lobster is concerned we can only regret that the difficult prob- 

 lems of its successful culture, which were then hardly appreciated, should have had to 

 wait nearly 40 years for their solution. 



According to Roche {237), Mr. S. H. Ditten, a pharmacist to the court at Chris- 

 tiania, proposed to collect the egg-bearing lobsters in large floating cars and keep them 

 until the young hatched out and were set at liberty naturally. 



In the years 1873 to 1875 experiments in the hatching and rearing of lobsters were 

 again undertaken by several gentlemen at Stavanger, Norway (227), both independ- 

 ently and with the aid of the Kongeligt Selskab for Norges Vel. According to the 

 reports of Professors Rasch and G. O. Sars they were eminently successful; many 

 young lobsters were carried to the ambulatory or bottom-seeking stage, the necessity 

 of which was duly emphasized, and incidentally important facts on the natural history 

 of the lobster were brought to light. Again, whatever progress was made at the time, 

 the work was not systematically continued. 



In 1883 Saville Kent (243) contributed a paper on "The Artificial Culture of 

 Lobsters," which later appeared in the proceedings of the International Fisheries Exhi- 

 bition at London for that year. He stated that in 1877 1,000,000 lobsters, valued at 

 £22,500, were imported from Norway into Great Britain; that the catch in both coun- 

 tries was falling off; and that the decadence of the fisheries was due to three main causes, 

 as follows: (i) Overfishing of the inshore districts; (2) destruction of undersized lob- 

 sters, and (3) destruction of the spawn for culinary purposes; the destruction of the 

 eggs being the chief cause, which should be combated by artificial propagation. 



By feeding lobsters hatched in aquaria on minced fish he reared them to the i-inch 

 length, when they would go to the bottom and hide. As a result of his experience he 

 made the following significant remarks : 



The rearing of lobsters in thousands instead of in tens or units would, it is needless to assert, be 

 but a matter of augmented apparatus, and what the results would be upon our depopulated lobster 

 grounds if several thousands, or rather millions, of such young animals could be turned out upon them 

 annually, those are best qualified to record a verdict who have already had practical experience in the 

 cultivation of the Salmonidse. 



He would pay a bounty for the egg lobster in order to divert the supply of eggs, 

 "at present only flowing to the saucepans of the cooks," into the hatcheries of the 

 cultivator, advises the use of hatching jars, feeding upon minced fish and mussels, 

 rearing to the ambulatory stage, and liberating on rocky ground. 



Still later, in 1885, Captain Dannevig (69) also succeeded in hatching the eggs of 

 the lobster and in rearing the young through the first three earliest stages, at Flodevig, 

 Norway. He did not consider it of much service to hatch the eggs and set free the 



