TRANSPLANTING OF LOBSTERS TO THE PACIFIC COAST. 
461 
THIRD TRIAL— JUNE, 1879. 
j The third attempt was also made under the direction and personal supervision of Mr. 
Stone, and was more successful than either of the preceding ones. A special car was 
I not provided, but the specimens were carried in the ordinary baggage cars, making it 
! necessary to transfer the lobsters at the termination of each railroad. The expedition 
[ left Albany, New York, which had been made the point of rendezvous for the differ- 
ent kinds of fishes, at midnight of June 12, 1879, with twenty-two female lobsters car- 
rying about 400,000 eggs nearly ready to hatch. In 'fact, about 40,000 eggs hatched 
on the road between Boston and Albany, giving that number of embryos to be cared 
for on the way. In order to test the efficacy of the methods that were followed, before 
beginning the trip a number of lobsters were subjected, during about a fortnight pre- 
vious, to practically the same conditions which they would encounter on the journey. 
The salt water taken along was also obtained sometime in advance, and allowed to 
stand until the microscopic organisms it contained had died and they and all the other 
impurities had settled to the bottom. The clear water was then decanted and remained 
pure during the entire journey. 
The lobsters were carried in three large open tanks of water, and every effort was 
made to keep the water clear and cold in the manner described below. This was a rad- 
ical departure from the methods followed in 1873 and 1874, and although the shipment 
was attended with much greater proportionate success, there was this disadvantage 
that comparatively few lobsters could be carried in the same or in even a much greater 
space. Frequent changes of water were also required, necessitating the taking of a 
large reserve stock, the expedition starting with nearly a thousand gallons, some of 
which, however, was early spoiled, due to its having been stored in unclean casks. 
For reducing the temperature of the water three methods were employed,as follows : 
(1) Putting ice and salt in large stone jugs and hanging the jugs in the tanks ; (2) Put- 
ting the freezing mixture in a vessel surrounding another vessel containing the water 
to be cooled, this water being afterwards transferred to the tanks; (3) Filling a large 
earthen drain-tile with the freezing mixture and keeping it in a reserve tank of water 
from which the water, when sufficiently cool, could be exchanged for the warmer water 
in the lobster tanks. The second method described was found to work best in actual 
practice. Aeration was produced by dipping up the water and allowing it to fall back 
into the tank, this operation having to be kept up without intermission. 
Eespecting the temperature in the lobster tanks, Mr. Stone wrote as follows : “It 
was easy enough to manage the temperatures of all the tanks except those containing 
the lobsters ; but these gave us a good deal of trouble, because they could only be 
cooled by exchanging the water on the lobsters with the water in the coolers, and by 
using the stone jugs containing the freezing mixture. On very warm days it was ex- 
tremely difficult to reduce the temperature in the lobster tanks as fast as the heat of 
the day raised it. With great pains, however, we succeeded in preventing it from ris- 
ing high enough to do any mischief.” The temperature in the lobster tanks was main- 
tained during the entire journey at between 45° and 56° Fahr., never rising above 49° 
on the last three days. 
Only one lobster died during the trip. It was taken out at Omaha, and was found 
to be the same whose spawn had hatched between Boston and Albany. It was evi- 
dently not in good condition at the start. The remaining twenty-one reached the west 
