296 Modern Fishculiure in Presh and Salt WateV. 



they will hatch, and I have reared them in fresh water ; 

 but if the salt water failed and we changed to fresh 

 after several days, the fish often hatched, but died. This 

 would be a good fish for large lakes, because it has soft 

 fins, and is therefore better food for big trout than any 

 sharp-finned fishes. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 



LOBSTERS {Homarus). 



In the latter part of the winter of 1885-86 the late 

 Prof. Baird caused experiments to be made at Wood's 

 Hole, Mass., with lobster eggs. At that time it was the 

 belief that lobsters spawned all the year round, because 

 eggs were found on some females at all seasons. We 

 now know that an individual spawns but once in two 

 years. She can only grow when she sheds her shell, 

 which she does not do while eggs are attached to her 

 abdomen. This is the routine : Say she has shed and 

 spawned in the late summer of 1890; the eggs hatch in 

 the summer of '91, after which she makes growth and 

 moults, not spawning again until the next summer. 



LOBSTERS ARE BIENNIAL SPAWNERS. 



In the "Scientific American Supplement," No. 945, 

 February 10, 1894, was published an article of mine, 

 entitled, "What We Know of the Lobster," which that 

 paper had held unpublished since September, 1892, six- 

 teen months, as is shown by the letter of Prof. Samuel 

 Garman, given below. In the meantime Dr. Francis H. 



