Year: 1879

Of all the crustaceans, Holsters are the
most important and the most in demand.


w hen alive, their general color is q
blulsh-black, beautifully variegated with
paler spots and clouds. Without any
warmth in their bodies, and even with
out red blood circulating through their
veins, they are wonderfully voracious.
They even devour each other, and NAV
be said to eat themselves; for changing
their shell and stomach every year, these
remains are generally the first morsel to
glut their new system. They are always
in harness, heavily armed to the teeth !;
seven, n,iointed is the cunningly forged
mail of their back. Beneath this protect
ing roof move eight sprawling feet, four
on each side, pushing forward the un-
wieldy war engine, like the Roman legion
under the shelter Of the battering-ram.
The two great claws of the lobster form
its instruments of provision and weapons
OF defense, and by opening like pair of
scissors they have great strength, and
take firm hold. Between the two
claws lies the animals head, very small,
with two eyes like two black, horny
specks on each side, which are proiectile
or retractile at will. The mouth, like
that of insects, opens lengthwise of the
body, not crOsswise, as with men and the
higher races of animals. It has two teeth
for the mastication of its food, but three
more in the stomach. Before the point
ed nose the long, wire-like feeders or
horns are stretched out. that seem to aid
the dimness of its sight. The tail, a six
Jolnted instrument, is the great locomo


tive by which it is raised and propelled
through the water. Beneath this we see
lodged the spawn in great abundance.
fho 1rlo / -
it seeks refuge in small clefts of the rocks
or crevices at the bottom of the sea,
where it passes the earliest days of its
existence in a vagabond state, for period
of from thirty to forty days. During this
time it undergoes four different changes
of the shell, but on the fourth it loses its
matatory organs, and is, therefore, no
longer able to swim on the surface of the
water, but falls to the bottom, lying tor
pid and motionless, where it remains for
the future; according, however, to its
increase in size it gains courage to ap-
proach the shore, which it had left at its
birth. The number of enemies which
assail the young embryos in the deep sea
is enormous. Thousands of all kinds of
fish, mollusks and crustacea are pursuing
it continually to destroy it. The very
changing of the shell causes great raw
ayes aG IneSe peIlOuS, as Une young lob
sters have to undergo crisis which ap-
pears to be a necessary condition to their
rapid growth. In fact, every young lob
ster loses and remakes its crusty shell
from eight to ten times the first year, five
to seven the second, three to four the
third and from two to three the fourth
year. After the fifth year the change is
only annual. For some days before the
change the animal losses its usual
strength and vigor, lying torpid and
motiOnless; and just before casting its
shell, striking its claws against each
other, every limb seems to tremble.
Then the body swells in an unusual man
ner, and the shell begins to divide-it
seems turned inside out, the stomach
coming away with its she'll In like man.
ner the claws are disengaged, the lobster
casting them off much as a person would
kick off IA boot too big for him. For
several hours it now continues enfeebled
and motiOnless, but in two days the new
skin becomes hardened, and within forty
eight hours the shell is perfectly formed
and hard, like the one castoff. Below in
his native element the lobster reaches the
age of twenty years, and loses a foot or
claw without feeling the loss, for he well
knows it will grow again.