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BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
allied decapod crustaceans prove the greater frequency of spawning. (4) The rapid 
growth of ovarian eggs so familiar to embryologists is unfavorable to the biennial 
theory.” 
The last two clauses (3 and 1) may be ruled out because this is a matter of fact 
concerning a specific animal, not a question of analogy with what may or may not 
occur with other species. 
The first clause (1) is somewhat obscure. So far as my observations at Woods 
Hole have gone, the proportion of berried to adult females without berries is fairly 
uniform— that is, about one-half the adult females captured in winter and spring 
are without eggs. Whether this is what Professor Prince means or not, the fact is 
fatal to the theory of annual spawning. For, upon this hypothesis, during late 
winter or spring every female of breeding age should carry eggs, excepting here and 
there a solitary individual which had postponed egg-laying to an extraordinarily late 
period, or which had met with an accident and lost her cargo. I have never found a 
single instance of egg-laying in spring. On the other hand, the records of the catches 
made under my directions by the United States Fish Commission at Woods Hole 
confirm the statement just made and support the biennial theory of spawning, the 
proof of which has been given. Thus, in the month of March, 1894, 71 female lobsters 
10 inches or more in length were captured in Woods Hole Harbor. Of these, only 
9 bore external eggs. How are facts of which this is a sample to be explained on 
the theory of annual spawning, according to which all such animals should have borne 
eggs, or, at least, all but a very few which may not have reached maturity? The 
second statement -“the occurrence of the berried conditions in all sizes of females, 
from 7 inches to 18 inches,” has no bearing on the question of frequency of spawning, 
since there is no fixed limit at which lobsters mature.* Again, the remark “it might 
be expected that females of certain specified sizes would never or rarely be found 
with eggs were biennial spawning a fact,” is open to the same objection. New female 
recruits, of all sizes from 8 inches up, come to their first spawning period every year, 
and would do so whatever the length of the reproductive cycle. 
In conclusion I wish to quote the brief summary which was placed under the 
description of a drawing of the ovary, which I believe gives a true picture of the 
growth of the ovarian eggs: “We thus see that a generation of ovarian ova grow 
very rapidly during the first summer following the last ovulation. They then enter 
upon a period of quiescence, growing but slowly, like the external embryos during 
the succeeding winter. At the beginning of the third summer after ovulation this 
generation of eggs is ready for extrusion. That the spawning periods are thus two 
years apart is a valid inference drawn from the study of the anatomy of the repro- 
ductive organs.” f 
*Ibid, p. 68. 
f Ibid, p. 246. 
