"What did you throw him away for?" asked Percy. "Isn't he good to eat?"
"Nothing better! But it's the State law. Everything that comes short of four and three-fourths inches, solid bone measure, from the tip of the nose to the end of the back, has to be thrown over where it's caught."
"Why's that?"
"To keep 'em from being exterminated. It's based on the same principle as the law on trout or any other game-fish. Lobsters are growing scarcer every year, and something has to be done to preserve 'em."
"Does everybody throw the little ones away?"
"No! If they did there'd be more of legal size. The Massachusetts law allows the sale there of lobsters an inch and a half shorter than the length specified here; so their smacks come down, lie outside the three-mile limit, and buy 'shorts' of every fisherman who's willing to break the Maine law to sell 'em. Besides that, most of the summer cottagers along the coast buy and catch all the 'shorts' they can. So it's no wonder the lobster's running out."
While Jim talked he was emptying the trap. Another "counter" went into the tub, and two more "shorts" splashed overboard. The financial side of the question interested Percy.
"How many 'shorts' will you probably get a week?"
"Five hundred or more."
"And how much would a Massachusetts smack pay you for 'em?"