NATURAL HISTORY OF AMERICAN LOBSTER. 
373 
the young than of the adults. If man’s almost unlimited power of destruction is allowed 
to supplement the destructive forces of nature, will the depleted stream of young be 
adequate to maintain a steady current of adults? We think that it would, since under 
Dr. Field’s plan the number of breeding animals should tend to increase year by year. 
Our lobster-fishery laws, which date in the main from 1873, are in principle like 
those which prevail elsewhere, and taken as a whole they illustrate the force of exam- 
ple and tradition, which were established long before the biology of this animal was 
even approximately understood. The past literature of this crustacean bristles every- 
where with these false notions, which are more or less directly and mainly responsible 
for the enactment and maintenance of the present laws and practices of this fishery. 
The legal length limits of 9 and 10^2 ifiches, which sanction the destruction of the 
big egg-producers, but for these supporting causes would probably never have been 
retained, for these causes have led to a diversion of energy in various directions, such as 
the enactment of closed seasons and the practice of hatching and immediate liberation 
of the fry. 
The reasoning which has led to the establishment of the gauge limit has been 
somewhat as follows: Lobsters come to breeding age when 9, 10, or 10 L2 inches long, and 
when they spawn they spawn many thousands at a time, which is true. Therefore, by 
placing the legal gauge at 9 or 10L inches we allow this animal to breed at least once 
before it is sacrificed, which is also true in the main. Ten-inch lobsters lay on an 
average 10,000 eggs; the lobster, being a good mother to her unhatched progeny, and 
the best incubator known, will bring most of these eggs to term, and will emit to the 
sea her young by the tens of thousands. What more is needed to maintain this fishery? 
The answer is, Vastly more. This race needs eggs not by the tens of thousands merely, 
but by the tens of billions, and it must have them or perish. Moreover, it can get 
them only or mainly through the big producers, the destruction of which the present 
gauge laws have legalized. If the lobster is a good “incubator,” the sea is a very poor 
nursery. We have put a false value upon the egg. 
Before proceeding farther in this analysis, we shall review some of the most pertinent 
facts in the biology of the lobster, most of which have been fully discussed in earlier 
chapters. These facts concern chiefly (a) the period of maturity of adult lobsters; ( b ) 
the number of eggs borne by the females, or the size of the broods; (c) the frequency of 
spawning; (d) the treatment which these eggs receive, or the habits of spawning lob- 
sters; (e) the habits of the fry or larvae; and (/) possibly more important than all else, 
the death rate or the law of survival in the young. 
(a) Lobsters do not mature at a uniform age or size, but females produce their first 
broods when from 7 to 1 1 inches long, approximately, the difference between these 
limits representing a period of from 4 to 5 years (age of female lobsters at these limits 
about 3 and 8 years, according to Hadley). Very rarely are eggs laid before the 8-inch 
stage is reached, and the majority are mature at 10 or 10% inches, when some have reared 
more than one brood. Accordingly, by merely reducing the ioK-inch gauge to 9 or 8 
inches we rob the animal of the very meager protection which it now enjoys. 
