5b 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
The last lobsters with light eggs were taken by the Gay Head lobstermen in 1890, 
July 7. This was also the date of the capture, at that point, of the first lobster with 
new eggs. 
The time occupied by the hatching of a single brood was upward of a week, in 
the following case: On June 30, 1891, a lobster with old eggs, taken in Woods Hole 
Harbor, was stripped, and the spawn was placed in a “ McDonald ” jar. On J uly 3 one 
larva had appeared; by July 5 a dozen larvae had been hatched; ou the 13th of the 
month hatching was still progressing slowly, and some of the young had molted and 
were in the second stage. 
In another lobster taken at Menemsha, July 11, 1891, with young just hatching- 
out, the eggs, treated in the same way, were nearly all hatched in one week’s time. 
On July 12 a large number of the first larvae were swimming about the jar, and on 
July 18 the eggs were mostly hatched and many of the young were in the second 
larval stage. 
In July and August, 1892, Mr. A. P. Greenleaf placed 300 egg-lobsters from Nova 
Scotia with newly laid eggs in one of the lobster pounds at Southport, Maine. In 
April, 1893, he seined, and found the females still bearing eggs. He seined the pond 
again in June, when it was evident that the larger part of the eggs had hatched. 
Mr. Thomas Garrett, who began to fish for lobsters in the Vinal Haven Islands 
over forty years ago, caught in July a large, old egg-lobster, which weighed about 
0 pounds, in the “ Basin” near the present lobster park. He returned it to the water, 
caught it a second time, liberated it again, and about the 1st of August caught it for 
the third time, when the eggs had all hatched out 
THE DISPERSAL OF THE YOUNG. 
With the hatching of the young the period of fosterage comes to an end. 1 By the 
fanning movements of her swimmerets the young are driven away from the body of 
the mother as soon as the egg-membranes have burst and are immediately dispersed; 
thenceforth they lead a free and independent existence. 
The hatching of the eggs of the lobster has been often witnessed by smackmen 
and keepers of lobster pounds. In May, June, and July “the surface of the water in 
the wells of the smacks often becomes perfectly alive with the young, and they may be 
1 Nothing very definite seems to he known about the ovulation and hatching of the young in 
the European lobster, Astacus gammarus. Rathke’s observations in 1840 did not settle the question 
(see p. 167), and Sars’s paper (175), published over thirty years later, left it still in doubt. Sars 
says that “the reproduction of the lobster does not appear, as is generally held, to be confined to any 
definite period of the year, yet the young are mostly hatched in summer. It is not unusual, however, 
to find the lobster with external eggs at other times of the year.” Mayer (138) remarks that there is no 
definite breeding season, but that Homarus ( Astacus gammarus) and Palinurus extrude their eggs mostly 
in November and December. These conflicting statements show that the European lobster carries her 
external eggs for a long period, and I have no doubt that when this subject is carefully investigated 
it will be found that the breeding habits of Astacus gammarus are very similar to those of the American 
species. 
When this work was in press and after the preceding note was written I received Dr. Ehren- 
baum’s paper, to which I have already referred (61). He says that the eggs are laid and the young- 
are hatched from about the middle of July to the middle of September. In one of two cases observed 
the eggs were laid August 1, 1893, and the first larvae hatched July 20, 1894; in the other, the eggs 
were extruded August 28, 1893, and the larvae hatched July 21, 1894. The period of incubation is thus 
about 11 months, as in the American form, and the times of the laying and hatching of the eggs in the 
two species very nearly agree. 
