60 
1 
8.— EEGULATION AND IMPROVEMENT.— The larv* of 
both the species are very efficiently protected during the months of 
hatching, but immediately after hatching there succeeds a period 
of loss, very intense at first, but gradually becoming less severe. 
The retiring habits of the lobster bring about finally a practical 
immunity from natural enemies, but the crab continues to be 
subject to some degree of danger from its own species and other 
animals when in the soft condition. The proportion of losses 
from this cause will also however gradually decrease with the 
attainment of size. 
The resources are very great, but a heavy toll is exacted. It is 
not at all unlikely also that the death-rate will be directly pro- 
portional to the number of the larvae and the young stages. If it 
be, therefore, impossible by the act of man to exterminate such 
forms, it has to be admitted that the fishing will locally decline 
if the feeding grounds should from any cause become restricted, 
which it may be suggested has resulted by the deposition by the 
hoppers of mud in great quantities from the rivers of maritime 
importance. It will decline if more of the adults are removed than 
are being naturally contributed, and possibly also if the catching 
of the marketable brings about a great destruction of the un- 
marketable and the smaller stages, or if a heavy proportion of 
spawning females be caught. 
These are the points of importance with reference to the present 
enquiry, and they are the considerations which have had weight 
in guiding attempts to regulate the crab and lobster fisheries by 
legislation. 
An Act, applying to Scotland only (9, Geo. ii., 33), was passed to 
give a close time for lobsters during the months June, July, and 
August, but it has evidently been allowed to lapse. I am indebted 
to Mr. Wilkinson, Clerk to the Northumberland Committee, for 
the following excerpt : — 
Section IV. And Whereas the destroying the fry or spawn of any fish is 
highly prejudicial especially such fish as do not wander but keep about the 
coasts And Whereas the principal time for the spawn of lobsters is from 
beginning of June to 1st September in which three months the lobsters crawl 
close to the shore to leave their spawn in the cninks of the Rocks and as much 
under the influence of the sea as possible Be it Therefore Enacted by the 
Authority aforesaid that from and after 1st June 1736 no fishermen etc. shall 
take kill or destroy any lobsters on the sea coast of that part of Great Britain 
called Scotland from 1st June to 1st September under penalty of £5 
sterling for each offence 
