ASTACUS. 147 



Under the name of Astaciis fluviatilis, Caimuariif!, or Gammarus, the older 

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

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

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

 these authors confounded A. torreniium and A. paUipes under the one name 

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

 tiles in Helveticis et alpinis regionibus, in rivis, tluviis, torrentibus, lacubus. 

 Sunt autera duorum generum : alii nobiles cognominantur (Edelkrebs), ma- 

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

 unde 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 adacus, 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. Irptoddcti/lus.t 



In 1802 Schrank first separated the Steinkrebs and Edelkrebs as two 

 distinct species, Cancer torrentinm and C. nohilis (Fauna Boica, p. 246). The 

 Russian A. leptodaciijlus 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 Ecjwards, in the second volume of his 

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

 European Astac us {A. fluviatilis). He says, however: "II existe deux vari- 

 etes de cette ecrevisse : dans I'une, le rostre se reti'ecit graduellement des- sa 

 base, et ses dents laterales .sont situ^es pres de son extremite ; dans I'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" m A. fluviatilis. The first might be either 

 A. torreniiuiu or A. pullipcs, for anything in the description, but the figure 

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

 lipes, which seems to be commoner in France than A. torreniium. 



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

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

 lipes. Of the figures published in the sixteenth and sevcuteentli centuries, those of Gesucr and Mattioli, 

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



f Op. supra cit., p. 122. Cf. Aldrovandi, Sehonevelde, Rosel, II. c, etc. 



X So also Bosc, op cit., p. 38 (2d ed.) : " Dans les grands iieuves de la Russie asiatique, tels que le 

 Don, le Volga, etc., il y a des ^crevisses d'une prodigieuse grandeur, qu'on ne peclie que pour avoir leurs 

 pierres " ; aud on p. 40, under A.ilacus fluviatilis, " Se trouve dans les rivieres en Europe et en Asie." So 

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



