THE AMERICAN LOBSTER 
13 
off of more than 7,000,000 pounds, or over 23 per cent, but an increase in the market 
value of the output of over $200,000, or nearly 25 per cent. These figures illustrate 
very forcibly the decline which, unless speedily checked, threatens to destroy this 
valuable fishery. 
Five attempts to transport lobsters alive across the continent and plant them in 
the Pacific Ocean have been made by the United States Fish Commission (757), in 
1875-1889, and all but the first have proved successful. No evidence has, however, 
yet appeared to show that the lobster has multiplied and thriven in its new environ 
ment. More recently attempts have been made, with some degree of success, to ship 
lobsters across the Atlantic, and deliver them alive in the markets of London and 
Paris. 
England, France, and Germany are the principal markets for the export trade 
outside of the United States, but, like other preserved meats, the canned lobster is 
shipped to all parts of the world. 
VIII. 
Civilized man is sweeping off the face of the earth one after another some of its 
most interesting and valuable animals, by a lack of foresight and selfish zeal unworthy 
of the savage. If mau had as ready access to the submarine fields as to the forests 
and plains, it is easy to imagine how much havoc he would spread. The ocean indeed 
seems to be as inexhaustible in its animal life as it is apparently limitless in extent 
and fathomless in depth, but we are apt to forget that marine animals may be as 
restricted in their distribution as terrestrial forms, and as nicely adjusted to their 
environment. Thus, as we shall see, the American lobster occupies only a narrow 
strip along a part of the North Atlantic coast, and while it is probably not possible 
to exterminate such an animal, it is possible to so reduce its numbers that its fishing 
becomes unprofitable, as has already been done in many places. 
The only ways open to secure an increase in the lobster are to protect the spawn- 
lobsters, or to protect the immature until they are able to reproduce, or to take the 
eggs from the lobsters themselves and hatch them artificially. The latter is the 
method which has been adopted and is now in use in the British Maritime Provinces, 
and less extensively in the United States. 
In an earlier paper, published in the United States Fish Commission Bulletin for 
1893 (pin 75-86), I have discussed the question of the artificial propagation of the 
lobster, and have called attention to what seem to me the weakest points in the 
present method and what the most promising field for future experiments. 
Adelbert College, Cleveland, Ohio, 
June , 1895. 
