NOTE ON A LOBSTER HATCHERY. 95 



to Liverpool, or by the fisheries steamer from Port Erin 

 to any required spot. 



I would propose that if this suggestion is carried out 

 and a vivarium is formed at Port Erin, the operations 

 should not be restricted to the mere breeding of lobsters and 

 the protection of the parents and spawn till hatching, but 

 that an attempt be made to retain the young larvae and 

 rear them, either (1) through their early stages and then 

 set them free as young lobsters in suitable localities 

 throughout the district, or (2), if it is possible, to rear 

 them up till they are adult. 



I would set about this in the following manner : — 

 Starting with a vivarium like that at Brodick I would 

 stock it with breeding lobsters, or with females having 

 spawn on the abdomen. I would examine the spawn 

 at intervals when feeding the lobsters, and when any 

 spawn was seen to assume the characteristic appearance 

 which it has for a day or so before hatching I would 

 transfer that mother lobster into a separate box or com- 

 partment of the vivarium walled in with wire gauze 

 sufficiently fine to prevent the hatched larvae from pass- 

 ing through. Here she would have to be fed for a few 

 days, until all her spawn was hatched out, then she could 

 be removed and put back in the vivarium, and the wire 

 gauze box, or "nursery cage," would now contain all the 

 young free swimming larvae and could be lifted out of the 

 vivarium and examined from time to time, while suitable 

 food (possibly Copepoda, which can readily be obtained in 

 quantity, would do) could be added, and if necessary some 

 of the young lobsters could be taken out from time to 

 time and distributed into other nursery cages or placed in 

 tanks. 



No doubt the greater part of the rearing work would be 

 at first experimental until the most suitable food and the 



