ASTAOUS. 147 



Under the name of Axtm-us Jltir/nli/ix, CmiDmirux, or Gammarus, the older 

 authors included not only the " Edelkrebs," or the species to which the 

 name A. JhtriaUlis is now restricted, but also the " Steinkrebs," or " Thul- 

 krebs," a smaller form now known as A. torrcnl/inn. Indeed, it is probable that 

 these authors confounded A. lormilinm and A. jxitlipcs under the one name 

 "Steinkrebs."* As early as 1558 Gesner wrote : " Abundant Astaci fluvia- 

 tiles in Helvcticis et alpinis regionibus, in rivis, fluviis, torrentibus, lacubus. 

 Surit autem duorum generum : alii nobiles cognominantur (Edelkrebs), ma- 

 jores nigrioresque : alii Steinkrebs (id est saxatiles) et Thulkrebs (nescio 

 uncle dicuntur) reperiuntur in rivis saxosis, minores, parte supina albiores, 

 prona nigriores ; elixi non undiquaque rubescunt, sed partim albicant."t 



Herbst (1796), in his account of Cancer asfacus, not only discriminates 

 between the Edelkrebs and the Steinkrebs, but mentions the large crayfish 

 from the Volga and the Jaik, afterwards described as a distinct species by 

 Eschscholtz under the name of A. leptodaetyhis.$ 



In 1802 Schrank first separated the Steinkrebs and Edelkrebs as two 

 distinct species, Cancer torrentium and C. nolilis (Fauna Boica, p. 246). The 

 Russian A. Icptodadylus was first named and described as a distinct species in 

 1823, by Eschscholtz (Mem. Soc. Imper. Nat. Moscou, Tom. V. p. 109, Tab. 

 XVIII.). Fourteen years later, Milne Edwards, in the second volume of his 

 classical " Histoire Naturelle des Crustaces," describes but one species of 

 European Astacus (A. JJuviatilis). He says, however: "II existe deux vari- 

 etes de cette ecrevisse : dans Tune, le rostre se retrecit graduellement des sa 

 base, et ses dents laterales sont situees pres de son extremite ; dans 1'autre, 

 les bords lateraux du rostre sont paralleles dans leur moitie posterieure, et 

 les dents laterales sont plus fortes et plus eloignees de son extremite." 

 The second so-called "variety" \sA.fluviatilis. The first might be either 

 A. torrentium or A. pattipes, for anything in the description, but the figure 

 given by him in the Disciples' edition of Cuvier's Regne Animal is A. pal- 

 /ijics, which seems to be commoner in France than A. torrentium. 



* The figures of the European crayfish in the older writers down to Pennant, as far as they can be 

 determined, seem to represent A. Jlitriatitis sfxu strictiori. Pennant's " Crawfish " is apparently A. pal- 

 lipi's. Of the figures published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, those of Gesuer and Mattioli, 

 and Jonston's Tab. III. figs. 2, 3, 4, are tolerably good representations of the species. 



f Op. supra fit,., p. 122. Cf. Aldrovandi, Schonevelde, Rosel, II. c., etc. 



J So also Bosc, op cit., p. 38 (3d ed.) : " Dans les grands fieuves de la Russie asiatiqne, tels que le 

 Don, le Volga, etc., il y a des ecrevisses d'une prodigieuse grandeur, qu'ou ne peche que pour avoir leurs 

 pierres " ; and on p. 40, under Astacus Jluviatilis, " Se trouve dans les rivieres en Europe et en Asie." So 

 also Desmarest, op. cit., p. 211, 1825. 



