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 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.