Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Natural History of the American Lobster
The present work when originally undertaken in 1903 was designed to form the zoological part of a history of the lobster in both America and Europe, but subsequent events led to a modification of this plan, and when it was decided to issue this section separately, its character and scope were somewhat changed.
Dr. Hugh M. Smith, of the United States Bureau of Fisheries, had planned to deal with the lobster fishery and the economic questions which this great industry has raised, in a comprehensive manner, and hope is entertained that this design may still be carried out.
Though essentially a distinct work, this is in a measure both a revision and an extension of my earlier report upon The American Lobster, published by the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries in its bulletin for 1895. But little from the latter, however, has been incorporated directly, and this only when newer or better research has failed to give us more light upon the subject. Six drawings of the young lobsters, three of which are in colors, have been reproduced, after slight revisions, from my former report; all of the rest are new and deal chie?y with the anatomy of the body and appendages, especially with torsion, re?ex amputation, and the developmental history of the toothed and cracker claws, the sexual organs, and the germ cells. I have depended mainly upon the store of materials collected in former years, but have received accessions from the United States Bureau of Fisheries, for which as well as for many courtesies, now extending over a long period, I wish to o?er my sincere thanks. The Bureau has generously given me the privilege of a free lance, and all critical sections of this paper should be read in the light of individual opinion only, directed, it is true, in a friendly spirit, and as we believe from the standpoint of science.
Our knowledge of the lobster has increased to such an extent during the past fifteen years that in all probability there is no marine invertebrate in the world which is now better. Known. This result is due to the suggestive ideas or elaborate researches of a large body of naturalists in both America and Europe, and to their labors the reader will find abundant reference in the pages which follow. As a result of this advance in the biological field, a signal success has been achieved in the artificial propagation or culture of the lobster, and particularly in rearing the delicate young to the bottom seeking stage, a success from which this fishery should not be slow to profit, and which it owes to experiments begun under the auspices of the United States Fish Commission at Woods Hole, Mass, and afterwards carried to a high degree of perfection by the Commission of Inland Fisheries of Rhode Island, under the direction of Prof. Albert D. Mead, at Wickford. Through the aid of such a practical method there is ground for hope, not only of restoring our depleted fisheries on the Atlantic coast, but of estab lishing new ones on the Pacific, as well as in other parts of the world.
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