THE AMERICAN LOBSTER. 
Ill 
In speaking of tlie size attained by the European lobster, Sars says: 
It is a remarkable fact that the lobsters on our southern coast never get as large as those farther 
north. I have never seen an unusually large specimen among the many lobsters which I examined at 
the different, fishing stations. The lobsters which are occasionally caught farther north are generally 
much larger, and to judge from their appearance much older. At Floro I once saw a lobster which 
was not much smaller than the immense specimen in the Bergen Museum. This specimen, as far as I 
remember, comes from a still more northerly point of our western coast. ( 176 .) 
I am able to give some comparative measurements of the “immense specimen” 
to which Sars refers in the passage just quoted, through the kindness of my friend, 
I)r. Einar Lonuberg, of the University of Upsala. If the length of this lobster and 
the measurements of its large claws (No. 2 a, table 29) are compared with the other 
specimen (No. 1 a), and with lobster No. 7, table 30, we shall see that m all prob- 
ability the Bergen specimen did not weigh above 10 pounds. It is nearly an inch 
longer than lobster No. 7, which weighed after preservation in alcohol a little less 
than 10 pounds. On the other hand, the claws of this American lobster are larger 
than those of the Norwegian specimen, and the claws constitute in old lobsters more 
than one-half the weight of the entire animal. (See table 31 a.) The latter probably 
weighed when alive not over 10 pounds. 
In reference to my questions about the Bergen lobster, Dr. Bonn berg writes: 
The specimen is now dry, and, as we never weigh any lobsters in our country, the weight is not 
recorded. 
He says the date of capture is doubtful, but it was probably between 1850 and 1865. 
It has been an accepted belief that the American lobster attains a greater size 
than its European counterpart, but it seems to be a fact that the maximum size of 
each species is nearly the same. The lobster fishery is much older in Europe than in 
this country, and the average size has there been long reduced to a minimum by 
overfishing. At the time when Sars’s paper was written (about twenty years ago) 
it would not have occurred to one familiar Avitli the American species to look upon a 
10-pound lobster as an “ immense specimen,” though at present there are comparatively 
few of this size which find their way to markets. In fact the same gradual falling off 
in size, due to the same cause, has been experienced in recent years on the coast of 
Maine and in the Maritime Provinces. It is probable, however, that the American 
lobster is stockier than the European, and that length for length the American species 
will weigh the more. 
Buckland (29) speaks of a “breed” of lobsters caught at Bognor which are always 
small. They are called “chicken lobsters,” and it takes II to 20 to Aveigli a pound. 
This merely illustrates how the size may be kept down by the persistency of fishermen. 
Ratlibun (155), in speaking of the occurrence of large lobsters in American 
waters, says: 
A dealer at New Haven states that twenty years ago 12 to 16 pound lobsters were common, but 
during the past ten years a lobster weighing 10 pounds has been rarely seen. A Boston dealer writes 
that during the past season (1880) he had received and sold lobsters weighing from 12 to 15 pounds 
each. * * * A specimen taken at Boothbay, Maine, arid said to weigh between 30 and 40 pounds, 
had such claws that the meat from one of them was equal to that of an ordinary-sized lobster. 
I have examined and carefully measured a lobster taken at Boothbay which is 
probably the one here referred to, and Avill describe it presently. The actual weight 
of this lobster was probably not OA r er 22 pounds. 
A lobster “shipped from Eastport in 1875” is said to have weighed 19 pounds 
and to have “measured 3 feet 5 inches in length (measurement from tips of extended 
