Fishery Board for Scotland. 
xxxvii 
importance. In that district now, however, the supply of lobsters 
has greatly fallen off, and the number of ' berried hens,' or females 
carrying ova, obtaiued is very small. The Board are therefore 
making arrangements for the establishment of a lobster-hatching 
Lobster- 
enclosure at Brodick, Arran, on the West Coast, which will enable Ji*^ n ^ t En " 
them to obtain an abundant supply of ova for the replenishment Brodick? 
of the exhausted grounds on the East Coast, while at the same time Arran. 
permitting of the restocking of grounds on the West Coast. 
At the Dildo hatchery 4,039,000 lobsters' eggs were hatched last 
year, and the young set free ; and it is calculated that if 25 per 
cent, of these survived antl reached maturity, the value of the 
whole would be 27,768 dollars. 
The importance of a thorough study of the life history of the importance of 
lobster is shown by the fact that Mr Nielsen has discovered that in *£® j»*£ (,y6f 
Newfoundland waters the lobster has two distinct periods of spawn- history of tbti 
ing ; this fact, as Mr Nielsen, points out, has a very important Lobster, 
bearing on the legislative enactmeuts which may be found necessary 
for the protection of the lobster fishery. In Newfoundland lobsters 
carrying ova are seldom found below the size of eight inches ; more 
frequently they are rather over than below ten inches, and Mr 
Nielsen therefore proposes that the Legislature should prohibit the 
capture of lobsters under a certain size before they have had time 
to exercise the function of reproduction, and also to establish a 
close time from July to September. The standard size, he says, 
should be fixed at nine inches in length in certain parts of the 
island, and at ten inches in other parts, reckoning from the tip of 
the rostrum to the end of the tail. Any lobsters caught by fisher- 
men below this size should be put back into the water without 
injuring them. 
The value of the practical application of scientific principles to The value of 
the development of our fisheries is very distinctly shown by certain ofsS!t^fic 10n 
facts which were mentioned by Colonel Marshall M'Donald, m COll- PrinciiVcs in 
nection with the artificial hatching of the shad in the Delaware, Flsheilt; »- 
Susquehanna, and Potomac. The U.S. Fish Commission turns out 
from 100,000,000 to 150,000,000 of shad per year. The work was The hatching 
experimental up to 1880, but since then it has been continued on a of shad - 
large scale and on a definite plan. The statistics which have been 
collected since 1885 show year after year a progressive increase 
in the catch. In 1889 the number of fish taken was 84 per The success of 
cent, over the estimated quantity in 1880, equal to upwards of Shad hatchin §- 
700,000 dollars in money — nearly three times the entire appropria- 
sion which the department receives from the Government for all 
their work of every description and in every direction. Another 
striking fact may be mentioned. Formerly the shad on the west 
coast of America was practically unknown. In 1880 the Commis- 
sion placed 500,000 of shad in a single river in California. These 
have since multiplied in such numbers that the shad is now a 
common fish on the Pacific coast, being found in the rivers of 
California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and even as far 
north as the Sitka in Alaska. 
