THE AMERICAN LOBSTER. 
15 
Lawrence. I have inquired of Gasp6 whalers who are in the habit of going as far as Cape Harrison, 
on the coast of Labrador, but they all tell nie that they have never taken a lobster below St. Charles — 
that is, a few miles north of Chateau Bay. West of Chateau Bay, as I have said, they are found all 
along the coast, but not in paying quantities. Several attempts have been made to operate canneries on 
this coast, but they have one after another been abandoned. The lobsters seem to give out suddenly. 
They are all caught up when the traps are first set. Of course the water is too deep for any general 
fishery, and it is only in shoal bays and harbors that traps can be used. 
In reply to a letter of inquiry from Dr. Wakeliam, Mr. P. M. McKenzie, one of 
the chief factors of the Hudson Bay Company, says that he has been on the Labrador 
coast and entrance of Hudson Straits for fourteen years, and has “never seen a 
lobster or heard of any being caught between Grady Harbor (longitude W. 56° 25'. 
latitude 53° 40') and Cape Cliudleigh.” He says further, that he does not think they 
occur between Grady Harbor and the straits of Belle Isle, but “all along the Gulf 
from Seven Islands to St. Augustine there are a great many at certain points.” 
Mr. W. H. Whitely, overseer of .fisheries at the straits, writes to the same effect: 
Lobsters are not found below [i. e., east of] the narrows of the straits of Belle Isle [the lowest 
point, a place called Brodore Bay] . Some are found on the southern or Newfoundland side of the 
straits. They are not plenty at any place within 100 miles west of the north side of the straits of 
Belle Isle, but a few are found in places sheltered from rough water and drifting ice. I have never 
heard of any lobsters being seen at any point on the Labrador east of the straits. 
Prom the character and abundance of this testimony we may safely conclude that 
the lobster is not found on the coast of Labrador very far beyond the straits of Belle 
Isle, or not many miles north of Henley Harbor (about 52° north latitude). Prom the 
straits northward the temperature is said to fall rapidly, owing to the arctic current 
which flows south, and the presence of ice, which is carried along with it close to the 
land. We should not, therefore, expect to meet with the lobster, except as a very rare 
straggler, north of the straits. 
It is interesting to find, on the other hand, that Fabricius (63) includes the lobster 
(Cancer gammar us L.) in his Fauna Groenlandica. He is particular to state, however, 
that he does so upon the authority of others, as he had never seen the lobster in 
Greenland himself. He says that the lobster is found under the name of Pekkuk in 
the Greenlandish dictionary. He had heard the natives distinguish the smaller 
Squillas by the name of Pekkungoit, from a much larger form ( Cancris ), called Pek- 
kuit or Pekkurksoit, and very similar to the “Gammari.” This name may have been 
derived from the Esquimaux of the southern Labrador coast or from Iceland, where, 
according to Mohr’s “Islandske Katurhistorie,” the European lobster “has been found 
by Dr. Poulsen in Grondevig, but it does not extend to Greenland or Spitzbergen” (20). 
De Kay, writing in 1844, remarks that while the lobster was taken in compara- 
tively small quantities on the Kew Jersey coast, “ two years after building the break- 
water in Delaware Bay, lobsters made their appearance there in great quantities.” 
He also says that in about the year 1814 General Pinckney “caused a car full of 
lobsters to be emptied into the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. A few of their 
survivors, or their descendants, were captured about ten years since, but, as I am 
informed, they were the last.” (51, p. 25.) 
The stonework of Delaware Breakwater, says Rathbun (155), may be considered 
the southern boundary of the lobster, although he has recorded several instances of 
its occurrence south of this point. Thus it has been said that lobsters have been seen 
along the beach in the surf near Indian River Inlet, Delaware. Two or three have 
