Tae a 
q 
172 RANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
come across it accidentally, and occasionally eat it. It was 
found that when light was entirely excluded the larve 
kept more on the bottom, and advantage was taken of 
this to keep a good supply of food there for them, the 
stale pieces being removed each day and a fresh supply 
added. Other forms of food were also tried, such as 
minute Crustacea, chiefly young Copepoda, which were 
collected amongst the Zostera, and the larve of shore 
crabs that were occasionally sent off in swarms from a 
stock of berried shore crabs kept in one of the tanks. 
The young lobsters swam amongst these little Crusta- 
ceans where they had gathered on the lighted side of the 
jars, and sometimes even appeared to pursue them, but 
the most careful observations failed to show that they 
were capturing them. Fragments of freshly-killed mussels, 
shrimps, and fish were tried, and although sometimes 
eaten, at other times such food would be refused, so that 
no particular kind of food could finally be adopted with 
success. The larve were also kept in both filtered and : 
unfiltered sea-water, but with no definite results. On the t 
whole, it was found that the larve kept entirely in the 
dark and supplied with a mixture of crab liver and crushed 
shrimps lived longer than those treated in any other way ; 
but the moulting process always proved fatal in the end. 
‘There is thus apparently considerable difficulty in rear- 
ing the larvee of lobsters in confinement. Unless future 
experiments bring out some satisfactory method of dealing 
with them, it will be necessary to set them free almost as 
soon as hatched.* Berried lobsters have occasionally been 
found on the rocky scars in the Barrow Channel, so that 
these places would, no doubt, be suitable ground on which 
to set our larvee free. 
* Professor Herdman has discussed this matter both in regard to young fish 
and lobsters in the introduction (see page 7). 
