80 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
on the other hand, the number of lobsters which have recently shed jumps suddenly 
to 58. These observations may be summed up for the whole period as follows: 
Total catch. 
Shell 
hard and 
dull. 
Shell 
soft. 
Total. 
33 
44 
77 
2, 657 < 
26 
33 
Of the entire catch, 110 have either recently molted or are preparing to molt; 77 
of them are males, 33 females. The total number of males is smaller, yet the number 
of soft shells among them is nearly twice as great as in the other sex. This fact implies 
that the males molt oftener than the females, which would be an a priori deduction 
from the greater size which the male attains (see p. 34), or that they molt more frequently 
during those months. It is interesting to recall in this connection the observation of 
Chantran (37) that the male crayfish molts twice in the year, while the female molts 
but once. Females molt, as a rule, shortly after the young are hatched, and very 
rarely just before the eggs are laid (see p. 35). 
When I was in Portland, Maine, on the 24th of August, 1893, soft-shelled lobsters 
were being caught in that region, while fishing smacks were bringing hard-shelled 
lobsters from Jonesport, near the eastern border of the State. Soft-shelled lobsters 
are still taken in the Portland district, as I was informed by Mr. 1ST. F. Trefethen, for 
four or five weeks before they are received in large numbers from Jonesport. 
Mr. F. W. Collins, of Rockland, thinks that lobsters shed earlier in the shoal mud 
coves, which are full of eelgrass, than on rocky bottoms. The shedding commonly 
occurs there on muddy bottoms in the latter part of July and the first part of August. 
Shedders in small numbers are occasionally taken in Rockland in January and 
February, and sometimes shed in cars at this time. In deep water outside, as at Seal 
Island, Matinicus, Green, and Ragged islands, where lobsters are caught in winter in 
40 to 50 fathoms, and in shoal places in summer in 3 to 10 fathoms, very few soft-shell 
lobsters or shedders were taken in the summer of 1893, up to the 26th of August, not 
more than a dozen among thousands examined each week. The majority of the soft- 
shell lobsters from these localities come later in the season, from the last of September 
to the middle of October. 
Mr. A. P. Greenleaf said he had rarely seen soft-shell lobsters at Southport, Maine, 
but that in the winter of 1893 (in January and February) he had taken dozens of them. 
At West Jonesport, Maine, on September 4, 1893, I was told by a fisherman at 
Beal Island that hard-shell lobsters had prevailed up to that time, but that soft-shells 
were becoming common. He thought that the shedding was rather later than usual. 
This confirms the reports made at Rockland and Portland. 
Molting lobsters were very common at Woods Hole in October and November, 
1890, particularly in the latter month, when Mr. Yinal N. Edwards says that more were 
caught than during the earlier part of the season. In December, 1891, Mr. Edwards 
found lobsters in all stages of shedding, some that appeared as if they would be ready 
to molt in a few weeks, and others as if they might shed in a few days. Thus it was 
probable that the lobsters continued to molt to some extent in winter, which is shown 
by table 23 to be the case. 
The abundance of shedders which was noticed in the late fall of 1890 at Woods 
Hole has not since been observed, and it seems clear that there is considerable varia- 
tion in the molting of lobsters in a single locality at this season of the year. 
