LOBSTER, the name of certain large crustaceans of the crab group, and especially of the genera Honiara:, Nephrops and Pali nurus. To the first belong the common Euro pean and American lobsters (Homarus gam ',tants and americana:). Nephrops differ chiefly in possessing 19, instead of 20, pairs of gills, and its most important species is the Nor wegian lobster (N. norvegicus). To Palinuras belongs the rock-lobster or marine crayfish (P. vulgara) of Europe, as well as some trop ical species, all of which differ from the com mon lobster in the absence of the large claws, while they possess long rigid antennaeand spiny shells. A large and handsome species of this group is abundant in West Indian waters.
The American lobster is found along the western Atlantic Coast from Delaware to Lab rador; from the shore to a depth of 100 fath oms. It is most abundant on the shores of Maine and Nova Scotia and less common on the New Jersey coast. Though living amid a variety of surroundings, the lobster prefers rocky bottoms, on which it reaches the greatest size and abundance, probably a direct result of a more plentiful food supply. Like many fishes, but to a much less degree, the lobster is migratory, moving into shallow water in the spring and returninit to greater depths as the water grows colder in the fall. This habit, however, is very far from being universal, and many lobsters remain in shallow waters throughout the year. The food of the lobster consists of all kinds of animals, both living and dead, and to a less extent of vegetable matter, the indigestible parts of which are regurgitated. At times they are cannibalistic. Although so well protected by their hard shells, powerful claws and burrowing habits, lobsters have many enemies besides man. The most important of these are bottom-feeding fishes, such as the cod, tautog, skate and dogfish, which destroy great numbers of young lob sters when two to six inches long, as well as the egg-bearing females and moulting adults. During the free-swimming larval stages great numbers probably fall a prey to surface-feeding fishes like the menhaden and herring, though little direct proof of this exists. The num ber of eggs produced by a female lobster varies from 3,000 to nearly 100,000, according to the size and age of the animal, maturity being attained at an age of three or four years and a length of about 8 to 12 inches. The great
majority (about four-fifths) lay their eggs during the summer, the remainder during the fall and winter, and it is probable that each female lays once in two years. After extru sion the eggs are borne on the appendages attached to the lower side of the abdomen or tail of the female, where they remain under going a slow development for 10 to 11 months, most of those laid during the summer hatch ing in June of the following year. After hatching, the young passes a period of six to eight weeks as a free-swimming pelagic larva, which moults five or six times, .with corresponding changes in form and color. By this time it has assumed the form of the adult and is about three-fourths of an inch long. It now sinks to the bottom and burrows into the gravel or hides in rock crevices near shore. At the end of the first year it is about four or five inches long and has moulted from 14 to 17 times, after which growth is much less rapid and moulting less frequent. The rate of growth varies greatly according to the food supply and other conditions, but a lobster of 10 or 12 inches is about five years old. A great age and size are sometimes attained, individuals weighing upward of 40 pounds be ing recorded, though even 25 pounds is very rarely reached.
The toothsomeness of the American lobster was early recognized and a regular fishery has existed on the Massachusetts coast for nearly a century. Owing to a rapidly extending de pletion of the fishing grounds and a consequent diminution in the size and number of lobsters, the centre of the fishery has shifted northward, first to Maine and then to the British provinces. The lobster fisheries of the United States in 1913 employed 4,508 persons with a capital in, vestment of $2,460,898. The catch numbered 8,832,017 lobsters, weighing 12,067,017 pounds, of a value of $2,394,822. Between the years 1889 and 1913 there was a decrease of 18, 504,556 pounds, or 60 per cent, while the re ceipts of 1913, compared with those of 1889, increased 178 per cent. The price of fish in Maine rose from 1.8 cents per pound in 1880 to 19.8 cents in 1913, or 11 times greater.