Both crabs and lobsters are amazingly prolific, and lay an enormous number of eggs: it is computed that each female produces from 12,000 to 20,000 in a season; and yet these shell-fish are always dear in London! In France, Figuier tells us, the size of the marketable lobster is regulated by law, and fixed at a minimum of eight inches in length: all under that length are contraband. The London market is supplied from every part of our coasts, and very largely from Norway. At Kamble, near Southampton, one owner has storing-ponds, or tanks, for 50,000 at a time; and he has his own smacks constantly running to the coasts of France, Scotland, and Ireland.
The Lobster (Homarus vulgaris) is found in great abundance all round our coasts. Who that has frequented our seaside watering-places has not either gone out to assist in hauling up the lobster-pots, or, at all events, seen the fishermen returning with their spoils? And what can be finer than a lobster boiled, say not more than half an hour after his capture from the briny? He tastes very unlike the poor creature which has been conveyed by boat [pg 155]or train to London, and knocked about in barrows, carts, markets, and shops, until he wishes they would boil him, and have done with it at once. Lobster-pots are, practically, wicker-basket traps. The hole at the bottom allows free ingress, but makes it difficult for the victim to get out. They are baited with garbage, and the position of each on the rocks or sand below is marked by a buoy. Each fisherman has his own private mark on them; and woe to the lobster-thief, as to the crab-thief! Sometimes nets are used for catching lobsters.
Mr. Pennant says that large lobsters are in their best season from the middle of October to the beginning of May. The smaller ones are good all the summer. If they are four-and-a-half inches long from the top of the head to the end of the back shell they are called “sizable” lobsters; if under four inches, “half-size,” and two are reckoned as one of size. Under four inches, they are called “pawks.”
There is little doubt that up to a certain age lobsters shed their shells annually, but the mode of performance is not quite understood to-day. “It is supposed that the old shell is cast, and that the animal retires to some lurking-place till the new covering acquires consistence to contend with his armour-clad congeners.... The most probable conjecture is that the shell sloughs off piecemeal, as it does in the cray-fish. The greatest mystery of all, perhaps, is the process by which the lobster withdraws the fleshy part of its claws from their calcareous covering. Fishermen say the lobster pines before casting its shell, and thus gets thin, so as to permit of its withdrawing its members from it.” He sheds tears first, and shell second.
The common English lobster, as seen in the fishmonger’s shop, is very unlike his relatives beneath the waves. “The curled-up form,” says Major Lord, “in which he is seen when so exposed is not that usually assumed in his own element, except in the act of exerting its immense powers of retrograde motion. These are so great that one sudden downward sweep of its curiously-constructed oar-like tail is sufficient to send it like an arrow, three or four and twenty feet, with the most extraordinary precision, thereby enabling our friend to retreat with the greatest rapidity into nooks, corners, and crevices among the rocks, where pursuit would be hopeless. His eyes being arranged on foot-stalks, or stems, are free from the inconvenient trammels of sockets, and possess a radius of vision commanding both front and rear, and from their compound form (being made up of a number of square lenses) are extremely penetrating and powerful. The slightest shadow passing over the pool in which the lobster may chance to be crawling or swimming will frequently cause one of these backward shoots to be made, and the lobster vanishes into some cleft or cavity with a rapidity of motion which no harlequin could ever, in his wildest dreams, hope to achieve. Down among the deep channels, between the crags at the sea’s bottom, alarms, except from the sea-robbers themselves, are not to be dreaded. Here the lobsters are at home, and in such spots the wicker trap, or the trunk net, may be laid down for them: nets of this kind are in general use. They are made by fastening a number of stout wooden hoops to longitudinal bars, and covering them with network. Their internal construction is much like that of the crab-pot, only there are two entrances instead of one, and twine is used instead of willows or twigs to prevent the prisoners from escaping. Heavy stones are attached to them as sinkers. Fish offal is used as bait, and corks at the end of lines serve to point out their position and haul them up by. [pg 156]Lobsters are prolific creatures, and it is well that they are so, considering the enormous quantities consumed every day in England alone.
“It has been computed that each fully-matured female will produce from 18,000 to 20,000 eggs, and there is little doubt but that with proper management and the expenditure of a very small capital artificial fecundation of the ova might be most successfully and profitably conducted in this country. Much attention has of late been paid to this subject in France, and many most interesting experiments in connection with it have been tried. The number of lobsters brought every season to Billingsgate Market will serve to give some idea of the importance of lobster fishing, and the sums of money which must change hands in connection with it. Calculations show that from the coasts of England, Ireland, Scotland, and the Channel Islands 150,000 lobsters per season reach Billingsgate, exclusive of the supply of Norway lobsters, which are even more abundantly supplied, over 600,000 per season being imported. It not unfrequently happens that one day’s supply for that great emporium of sea dainties reaches as high as 25,000, and here at early morning, long before mighty London is fairly up for the day, a scene of bustle and activity may be witnessed which well repays the early riser. Steam in clouds floats above the vast loads of newly-boiled crustaceans and molluscs; and carts of every size and pattern block the way.”
The regular lobster season lasts from the month of March to August. About the middle or latter end of the last-mentioned month the shifting of shells takes place, and the fish is unfit for human food; but, like the silkworms after a change of skin, they commence feeding in the most voracious manner directly the new garment is durable enough to admit of their taking their walks abroad, and their temporary seclusion and compulsory abstinence are amply made up by a course of heavy feeding. The lost plumpness and condition soon return. Unlike some crustaceans who are coldly indifferent to the welfare of their offspring, the mamma lobster keeps her little brood about her until the youthful lobsterkins are big enough to start in life for themselves.
The coasts of British North America, as well as many portions of the seaboard of the United States, abound in mail-clad inhabitants of many kinds. In some localities great amusement is at times afforded by their capture—a sort of picnic, or lobster frolic, being organised. A boat, with plenty of eatables and drinkables, and a capacious pot, are provided, and long poles with their ends split prepared. On the boat being propelled slowly through the shallow water, a sharp look-out is kept on the regions below, and on the lobster being discovered, the split end of the pole is lowered quietly, and with the greatest caution, until just over the unsuspecting victim’s back, when by a sudden downward thrust the forceps-like instrument securely nips him, and he is brought to the surface in spite of his claws and the pinches he inflicts on the tough, unyielding wood. Some overhanging rock or pleasant nook on the shore is usually selected as a place in which to dine and cook the proceeds of the lobster hunt.
LOBSTER (Homarus vulgaris) AND PRAWNS (Palæmon serratus).