CONFERENCE OF GOVERNORS. 51 



the statistics of the fisheries and by experiments conducted on a 

 large scale by Appelof ^ at the fisheries station at Stavanger, Nor- 

 way, in 1899. 



(e) The eggs are not deposited on sand or trusted to the mercy 

 of the sea, but are carried attached to the under side of the tail, 

 and admirably guarded by parental instinct for nearly a year, or 

 until they are hatched ten or eleven months later. 



It may be also added that lobsters move from deeper water 

 towards the shores in spring, and return to deeper water in fall. 

 The laying of the new eggs and hatching of the old, followed by 

 a molt or casting o3 of the shell, takes place, as a rule, in warming, 

 but not necessarily in very shallow, water. There is no general 

 coastwise migration, nor do all execute the same movements to and 

 from the shore. 



Ignorance of the fact that there is a definite spawning period, 

 that the eggs are laid but once in two years, and that they are 

 subsequently carried for ten months, to hatch in June or July 

 following the summer when laid, is responsible, in considerable 

 measure, for erroneous ideas regarding the efiicaey of closed sea- 

 sons, laws protecting the berried lobster, and other matters of 

 legislation, the effects of which have not yet worn away. 



(/) The fry or young, when hatched, rise to the surface or towards 

 it, and lead a free-swimming life for three weeks, hardly larger 

 than a mosquito (being a little over one-third of an inch long), 

 and infinitely more harmless, translucent, brilliant in reds and 

 blues, and quite helpless in the presence of all but the minute 

 animals upon which they prey. They perish by the thousands 

 quickly before the storm and the countless fish and other enemies 

 which they meet in their varied movements, and which do not 

 disdain small fry. 



At the third molt, or the fourth, counting that passed at the 

 time of hatching, with what seems like a sudden leap and bound, 

 they are transformed into the fourth or the lobsterling stage, 

 which really looks like a little lobster. The six pairs of flexible 

 oars at the sides of the body have been cast off, and permanent 

 swimming feet have appeared under the tail. There is a new armor 

 or shell, resplendent in reds, greens and browns, and a brand new 

 equipment of instincts and other powers. For the first time it 

 knows fear, and in either this or in the fifth stage which follows 

 it goes to the bottom, hides under stones, burrows in the sand and 

 shows an ability to protect itself. The most critical period of 



' AppelSf, A.: " Mittheilungen aus der Lebensweise des Hummers." Mittheil. des 

 Deutschen Seefischerei-Vereins. Bd. 15, ». 99. Berlin, 1899. 



