The west and north-west coasts of Ireland abound with fine lobsters, and welled vessels bring thence supplies for the London market, and it is said that a supply of 10,000 a week can easily be obtained. Immense quantities are also procured on the west coast of Scotland. A year or two ago I saw on board the _Islesman_ steamboat at Greenock a cargo of 30,000 lobsters, obtained chiefly on the coasts of Lewis and Skye. The value of these to the captors would be upwards of £1000, and in the English fishmarkets the lot would bring at least four times that sum. As showing how enormous the food wealth of the sea still is, notwithstanding the quantity taken out of it, I may cite here a few brief particulars of a little experiment of a charitable nature which was tried by a gentleman who took a warm interest in the Highland fishermen, and the results of which he himself lately made public. Commiserating the wretchedness which he had witnessed among many, who, although anxious to labour, were unable to procure work, and at the same time feeling that the usual method of assisting them was based on a mistaken principle, this gentleman undertook the establishment of a fishery upon a small scale at his own expense. He therefore expended a sum of £600, with which he procured eight boats, completely equipped, and a small smack of sixteen tons. The crews, consisting of thirty men, he furnished with all the necessary fishing materials, paying the men weekly wages ranging from nine to thirteen shillings, part of the sum being in meal. The result of this experiment was, that these eight boats sent to the London market in a few months as many lobsters as reimbursed the original cost of the fishing plant. The men and their families were thus rescued from a state of semi-starvation, and are now living in comfort, with plenty surrounding their dwellings; and have, besides, the satisfaction of knowing that their present independent condition has been achieved principally by means of their own well-sustained industry. A very large share of our lobsters is derived from Norway, as many as 30,000 sometimes arriving from the fjords in a single day. The Norway lobsters are much esteemed, and we pay the Norwegians something like £20,000 a year for this one article of commerce. They are brought over in welled steam-vessels, and are kept in the wooden reservoirs already alluded to, some of which may be seen at Hole Haven, on the Essex side of the Thames. Once upon a time, some forty years ago, one of these wooden lobster-stores was run into by a Russian frigate, whereby some 20,000 lobsters were set adrift to sprawl in the muddy waters of the Thames. In order that the great mass of animals confined in these places may be kept upon their best behaviour, a species of cruelty has to be perpetrated to prevent their tearing each other to pieces: the great claw is, therefore, rendered paralytic by means of a wooden peg being driven into a lower joint.