3?o 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
* (4) To increase the supply of lobsters in the sea by fry or larvae artificially hatched 
and immediately liberated, and as practiced chiefly in Canada, by holding the berried 
lobsters in large inclosures, called lobster pounds, ponds, preserves, or parks, and 
later setting them free when the young are ready to hatch. 
(5) By the rearing method later introduced of holding the fry artificially hatched 
and rearing them until the fourth or fifth stages, when they go to the bottom and are 
able to take care of themselves. We need not enter here into other legislative channels, 
such as laws prohibiting the sale of broken or picked-out lobster meat, the operation 
of canneries, and the construction of gear, however necessary they may be for this 
fishery. We shall devote our attention mainly to those questions of most vital con- 
cern to the fishery as a whole. 
CLOSED SEASONS. 
A closed season for any animal, during which it is made illegal to hunt or fish for 
it, can only be completely justified and placed upon a scientific basis when it is made to 
correspond to the breeding season of the species as a whole, and when this season is 
limited to a relatively small part of the year. Neither of these things is possible in 
the lobster, since the question is complicated by the fact that this animal spawns but 
once in two years, so that not more than one-half of the adult females reproduce 
annually, and the eggs when laid are carried about by the lobsters through nearly an 
entire year. Closed seasons of this character are therefore not to be recommended, 
since they serve merely to restrict the total amount of fishing done in the year, and 
do not touch the root of the difficulty. 
There is a closed season in the maritime provinces from June 30 to January 14, 
and in 1889 the Norwegian fisheries laws prohibited the taking and sale of lobsters 
from July to November. The apparent aim in these cases is to protect the lobsters 
during the spawning season and for a longer or shorter period after it, but the females 
only can receive much benefit, and then only provided the law against the destruction 
of their eggs is observed. Closed seasons set a limit to the period of destruction and 
may help to preserve the females by taking them into the protected class, after they 
have emitted their eggs. 
As we have already shown, the lobster is a very sedentary animal, so far as any 
extended coastwise migration is concerned, and many which escape the traps in the 
fall will undoubtedly enter them again in the spring and upon the very same grounds. 
PROTECTION OF BERRIED LOBSTERS. 
A certain percentage of lobsters captured at all times of the year bear spawn, and 
how best to save these animals and their eggs is a serious question. The Maine laws 
impose a fine of $10 for every berried lobster destroyed or offered for sale. It is an 
easy matter to brush or comb off the eggs, however, and thus evade the law, which it 
is impossible to enforce completely; but however difficult of enforcement it is not wise 
to invite the destruction of the seed, upon which we depend for every future crop. 
