THE AMERICAN LOBSTER 
19 
enemy makes his appearance or if the animal is surprised, as wlieu it is suddenly 
touched with the blade of an oar or cornered, it will immediately strike an attitude 
of defense. It now raises itself on the tips of its walking legs, and lifts its powerful 
claws over the head after the manner of a boxer, and strikes with one of its claws at 
the offending object, trying to crush it or tear it in pieces. I have several times pulled 
lobsters partially or completely out of their burrows with an oar. You have only to 
thrust the oar-blade into their holes, when, if a lobster is present, it will immediately 
seize it with a firm grip; but it often shows its intelligence by relaxing its hold before 
becoming completely exposed. By far tbe most powerful organ of locomotion in the 
lobster is its “tail.” By the flexion of this, aided by the extended tail-fan, the animal 
is able to shoot backward through the water with astonishing rapidity, sometimes 
going, according to one observer, 25 feet iu less than a second. If tossed into the water 
back or head first, the animal, uuless exhausted, immediately rights itself and, with 
one or two vigorous flexions of the tail, shoots off obliquely toward the bottom, as if 
sliding down an inclined plane. 
The lobster, though less active and keen-witted than the higher crabs, can not be 
regarded as a sluggish animal in any sense. Iu the water its movements are graceful ; 
it is wary, resourceful, pugnacious, capable of defending itself against enemies which 
are often larger than itself, and, if the occasion requires it, of running about with the 
greatest agility and speed. 
On calm evenings in summer at about sundown I have seen lobsters very close to 
shore lying on little patches of sand, surrounded by eelgrass, probably waiting their 
opportunity to seize a passing fish or crab. If approached in a boat ou such an occa- 
sion, they soon become aware of your presence and put themselves in an attitude 
of defense, but press them too close, or attempt to pin them down with an oar, they 
immediately dart backward into deeper water among the seaweed. If still pursued, 
the lobster rises and flies in another direction, thus zigzagging its way over the bottom 
until it finds safety in some denser tangle or rocky crevice. 
Of the English lobster, Travis remarks: 
In the water they can run nimbly upon their legs or small claws and, if alarmed, can spring tail 
forward to a surprising distance as swift as a bird can fly. The fishermen see them pass about 30 feet, 
and by the swiftness of their motion suppose that they go much farther. Athenseus remarks this 
circumstance, and says that incurvated lobsters will spring with the activity of dolphins. When 
frightened they will spring from a considerable distance to their hole in the rock, and, what is not less 
surprising than true, will throw themselves into their hole in that manner, through an entrance barely 
sufficient for their bodies to pass; as is frequently seen by the people who endeavor to take them at 
Filey-bridge ( 191 ). 
When a lobster is surprised it seems to disappear with a single leap or bound as a 
locust or grasshopper might do. This habit, added to their appearance, explains why 
lobsters were called by Pliny and the ancient writers locustw , or “locusts of the sea.” 
The lobster, however, never rises more than a few inches or at most a few feet above 
the bottom, and it is evident that swimming at the surface would be impossible on 
account of the great weight of the body. The “traveling lobsters,” or fcerd-hummer, 
which Norwegian fishermen, as Sars tells us {176), have described as swimming at 
the surface of the ocean in large schools, often many miles from the coast, were, 
without doubt, some large species of surface-feeding shrimp. 
Lobsters kept in an aquarium often thrive well, and will live for a long period if 
they are properly cared for. In the hatchery of the United States Fish Commission 
