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of lobsters and crabs, but 1 do not propose reporting upon them 
until next year. I should be glad to send books to fishermen who 
may be willing to thus give us most useful statistical information. 
Lobsters. — A berried hen which was caught a half mile off 
Cullercoats was brought into the laboratory on April 10. She 
started hatching about 24th June, and the process continued for 
some days. She was found dead on 4th July, and the abdomen 
was then entirely free from the embryos. The embryos themselves 
were all found to be dead in the tank. 
Another female lobster was brought in evidently after hatching, 
and she cast her shell in the tank during the night 17-18 
August. This is, of course, the time that a large number are 
found soft. The laboratory fisherman told me that this year in 
August he found a soft lobster in a hole in the rocks, so soft that he 
dared not lift it ; when he went back a fortnight after she was gone. 
The lobster referred to above as having cast her shell, was found 
to be apparently quite hard on the 26th August, so that the 
hardening appears to be a relatively quick process in the lobster. 
In a second bully at Beadnel, Mr. Douglas showed me two 
berried lobsters on 1st April. These died like the crabs in August, 
but one was nearly hatched out in the end of July. 
