Homarus (LOBSTER)

It has the general characters of the Crayfish, differing mainly in the number and arrangement of the gills. When ab. 10 in. long it lays ab. 10,000 eggs of a dark color, which become attached to the swimmerets. The eggs develop slowly, and a year may elapse before the lobster leaves deep water and succeeds in hatching a brood, near shore. This usually occurs in June, though (like oysters, of IMG:content-0629.png:[graphic] which some may spawn late in August) the hatching may be delayed. After hatching a brood, the lobster moults its shell and comes out as a "paper-shell": a month elapses before the new shell is firm. The mo moulting is sometimes delayed until the following summer, when a new batch of eggs are laid, the male having first deposited the sperm on the abdomen of the female. In 1880 the lobster fishery from Maine to New Jersey yielded a return of nearly $500,000.