82 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
Before the molt takes place the lobster has been for a long time preparing for it, 
while growth has been going on. After molting, it is several weeks before the new 
shell is as hard as the old one, so that the lobster is, for a large part of its life, either 
preparing for a molt or recovering from one. It is therefore not remarkable that 
lobsters have acquired many popular names among fishermen, such as “hard shell” or 
“old shell” lobster; “shedder,” “black shell,” or “crack back” (lobsters preparing to 
molt); “soft shell,” “new shell,” “shadow,” “rubber shell,” “paper shell,” “buckle 
shell” lobster, etc. (lobsters which have recently molted). 
HABITS OF MOLTING LOBSTERS. 
Shedders can be readily distinguished by the dark, dull colors of the old shell 
hence the common name of “ black lobster,” and by the deep reddish tint of the 
membranes at the joints, where the flesh is now seen through the old and new cuticle. 
The lobster is now naturally sluggish, though not too inactive to enter a trap. When in 
this condition they very commonly haunt shallow water with a sandy, muddy, or weedy 
bottom, and at low tide have been taken out of bunches of eelgrass in a few inches of 
water. When in this condition they frequently dig a shallow hole in the mud under 
stones, where they can await the coming change with greater security from enemies. 
Fishermen frequently see a shed shell lying on the bottom and a soft lobster close by 
under a rock or bunch of kelp. 
It is well known that many prawns habitually molt in the early morning while it 
is yet dark. The lobster when kept in an aquarium molts either by day or night, and 
it probably does the same in nature. In those which Brook observed { 26 ) the shells 
were cast off in the night and partially buried. 
Shedders and soft lobsters used to be a favorite bait with fishermen who knew 
where to look for them and could then find them in abundance. The shell of the black 
lobster was peeled off, and the soft, pulpy flesh formed a tempting bait which fish 
found difficult to resist. Mr. Vinal 1ST. Edwards says that in 1809 or 1870 he used to 
take molting lobsters for bait at Menemsha, in Vineyard Sound, in October, sometimes 
a barrel of them at a time. He says that he never found a molting lobster buried in 
the sand, but they were usually under bunches of seaweed, such as the common kelp 
{Fuchs vesiculosus) with their bodies only partially surrounded by the sand, and in 5 to 
9 feet of water. It was not uncommon formerly to catch shedders in fyke nets, but he 
has taken none in recent years. He used to take them occasionally with hook and line. 
The lobster probably requires greater freedom in getting free from its old shell than 
could be found in the most carefully constructed burrow. 
While at the Vinal Haven Islands, August 26, 1893, 1 saw in the pound at that place 
a number of soft lobsters which had molted but a few hours before. One wap found 
lying in the eelgrass; another, a male, was exposed on the mud bottom in 2 feet of 
water. A shedder, weighing upward of 10 pounds, was caught by Mr. M. B. Spinney 
in Seal Cove, Small Point, Maine, in the month of August, in very shallow water; and 
in Sagadahoc Bay, near the month of the Kennebec Biver, a large soft lobster was once 
found and close beside it its cast-off shell. The lobster lay buried under roots of 
eelgrass and was out of water, when discovered, at low tide. 
In the Peabody Academy of Science, at Salem, Massachusetts, there is a crushing- 
claw of a lobster said to have come from Gloucester and to have weighed 39 pounds. 
A.u outline drawing of this claw is given in plate 15 (see p. 115). This lobster probably 
