52 
3. — Hatching Season. — Both Ehrenbaum and Fullarton have 
given July to September as the hatching season of the lobster. 
I have found the lobsters on this coast to hatch principally about 
the end of June, in July, and up to the end of August, and the 
season on this coast may be said to be therefore J une to August or 
September. 
The hatching season of the crab is from July to the beginning 
of October. A December spawner hatched during the first week of 
August, and a November spawner early in July at Beadnell. 
The incubation period of the crab is therefore one of about 
8 months, that of the lobster, as Fullarton showed, about 11 montlis. 
4. — Young Stages. — The larva of the lobster is pelagic immedi- 
ately it leaves the egg and continues so for about three weeks, during 
which time it moults four times, loses the swimming branches of 
the ^ pereiopods, gains its abdominal appendages, and becomes 
distinctly lobster-like. At the end of this period it becomes demersal 
in habit. 
The early life oflhe crab is not so definitely known, but there is 
about a month of the stage called the Zoea, and during this time 
the cuticle is cast evidently four times. It changes next to the 
megalopa which leads at another moult to the more distinctly 
crab-like and demersal stage. 
In both cases, the currents will bring some of the young stages 
into favourable and others into unfavourable situations, thus affect- 
ing the rate of growth and the degree of survival. 
5. — Growth. — The cuticle is cast many times during the first 
year, and thereafter at gradually increasing intervals of time, sub- 
ject however to seasonal variation, until the growth is completed. 
(il). — L obster. — The American lobster according to the experi- 
ments of recent years'^' grows to about 1 J inches in 3 months from 
hatching ; it reaches 2 inches on an average in 10 months, and at 
i year is about 2J- inches ; at 17 months it measures about 3J inches ; 
at 2 years, 4J inches ; and in 3 months more, 4f inches. There is 
much variation in the size reached at a given age, but the averages 
are based on a good number of examples. Another year’s experi- 
ments showed that American lobsters may grow to 2| inches in a 
year, and to 4J inches in 16 months. 
With' regard to our lobster I have to record an interesting 
specimen which was caught at sea this year in the surface net. 
This was at Alnmouth Bay, at one of the trawling experiments, on 
* 32nd and 33rd Ann. Reps. Com. of Inland Fish., 1902, 1903. 
