The gristly
formations at these seasons increase in size and become receptive of
the eggs; for the animal lays its eggs into these formations, just
as the sepia lays its eggs among twigs and driftwood.
It lays its eggs, then, in this manner, and after hatching
them for about twenty days it rids itself of them all in one solid
lump, as is quite plain from outside. And out of these eggs crawfish
form in about fifteen days, and these crawfish are caught at times
less then a finger's breadth, or seven-tenths of an inch, in length.
The animal, then, lays its eggs before the middle of September, and
after the middle of that month throws off its eggs in a lump. With the
humped carids or prawns the time for gestation is four months or
thereabouts.
Crawfish are found in rough and rocky places, lobsters in smooth
places, and neither crawfish nor lobsters are found in muddy ones; and
this accounts for the fact that lobsters are found in the Hellespont
and on the coast of Thasos, and crawfish in the neighbourhood of
Sigeum and Mount Athos. Fishermen, accordingly, when they want to
catch these various creatures out at sea, take bearings on the beach
and elsewhere that tell them where the ground at the bottom is stony
and where soft with slime.
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