108 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Patrick Browne's " History of Jamaica,"' regarding the 

 spawning of the land crab Gecarcinus. " The eggs are 

 discharged from the body through two small round holes 

 situated at the sides and about the middle of the under 

 shell; these are only large enough to admit one at a time, 

 and as they pass they are entangled in the branched 

 capillaments .... to which they stick by means of their 

 proper gluten, until the creatures reach the surf, where 

 they wash 'em all off, and then tkev return back again to 

 the mountains. 1 ' 



At the end of the lobster hatching and rearing experi- 

 ments which were carried on during the past summer, the 

 adult lobsters were retained and kept under observation. 

 On October 9th one of a batch of five in one tank was 

 seen to be in a restless condition and shortly afterwards 

 it turned on to its back and remained perfectly still. 

 Thinking the animal to be dead or dying we proceeded to 

 remove it, when it was discovered to be shedding eggs. 

 The process is as follows: — The lobster turns on to its 

 back and by the aid of the two large claws and ridge of 

 the abdomen makes a tripod of itself, the head being 

 considerably higher than the posterior portion. The 

 abdomen is then strongly flexed, forming a pocket, and 

 the seta? on the edge of the abdominal segments make the 

 space along the sides perfectly tight. A f\ shaped opening 

 into the pocket is formed by the telson and the sixth 

 abdominal segment. This opening, when the abdomen is 

 flexed, is slightly posterior to the first pair of swimmerets. 

 The eggs then flow from the two genital openings in a 

 continuous stream, one at a time, and pass along at the 

 bases of the last walking legs and into the opening of the 

 '" pocket." The course of the eggs into the ''pocket'' is 

 further assisted by a constant pulsation of the first pair 

 oi swimmerets, causing an indraught, which carries them 



