THE AMERICAN LOBSTER. 
69 
Culling from table 20 all lobsters 9 inches long and upward which are immature 
or have not as yet spawned, the record is as follows : 
Number in table 20. 
Length in 
inches. 
47 
9tg 
83 
9/ c 
59 
9Jf 
20, 06, 07 
10 
58, 84 
10i 
74, 82 
log- 
28, 36 
10£ 
80 
73 
log 
10£ 
80 
u 
72 
iii 
22 
iii 
Total number, 17. 
The following would have laid eggs during the current season — that is, they were 
within a few days or a few weeks of their first spawning: 
Number in table 20. 
Length in 
inches. 
34,94 
06 
Of 
log 
25 .. 
10i 
78 
11 
27 
Hi 
23 
12 
Total number, 8. 
We thus find that 26 females, a large number out of the entire list, varying from 
9-^g- to 12 inches in length, had either never reached maturity or were mature for the 
first time. Of the 17 immature females, G are 10J inches or upward in length, and 
the ovaries in most cases would not have matured for at least two years. In order to 
be on the safe side I have purposely omitted from the enumeration all doubtful cases. 
It may be asked, How can you be certain that a lobster has never spawned? The 
answer to this question is easily found by examining the ovary. If the surface or 
interior of the ovaries or their ducts are flecked with small yellow or yellowish orange 
spots, in however slight a degree (see tig. 136), it is an infallible sign that external 
eggs have already been carried. If these specks are examined under the microscope 
(fig. 150, plate 41), it will be seen that they are the remnants of old eggs which failed of 
extrusion at the last sexual period. At every such season of egg-laying there are 
always, as we have already seen, a few residual eggs, out of the thousands which are 
laid, which stick fast in the ovary or in its ducts, or for some cause are not driven 
outside of the body. These remain in the organs and undergo degeneration in situ. 
It is, perhaps, not surprising that traces of these eggs persist in the ovary for upward 
of two years without being completely absorbed, when it is remembered that the semi- 
fluid contents of the egg are surrounded by a tough bag of cliitin, the primary egg 
membrane. 
Another means of determining the sexual condition of the female, which, I consider 
to be also infallible, is the color of the ovaries. The ovary immediately after egg-laying 
