128 KANSAS UNIVERSITY SCIENCE BULLETIN. 



adults taken in the same place. In digging a well in the old 

 spring, eight adult specimens were secured, two males and six 

 females. They had burrowed down through the loose surface 

 soil for from six to thirty-six inches, depending upon whether 

 the burrows were in the center or upon the edge of the old 

 basin of the spring. The burrows, about two inches in diame- 

 ter and provided with chimneys above, went down almost per- 

 pendicularly until they came to the surface of a stratum of 

 Wellington shale. Here they were enlarged into almost round 

 chambers, about ten inches in diameter, and not more than 

 three inches in height. The crayfish had burrowed down a 

 little ways into the rather disintegrated shale. The excava- 

 tions of the shale were conical, about four inches in diameter 

 at the top and four inches deep. In these chambers the cray- 

 fish, not very active or pugnacious when found, were taken. 

 Mr. Kinnear, who collected the material, thought that as the 

 shale was softened by the water the crayfish had removed it bit 

 by bit. There were about three or four of the main burrows 

 coming from the upper surface, terminating in the large cham- 

 bers as described above. These chambers were then connected 

 by passageways running from one to another. Two of the 

 specimens were taken August 1 and the other six August 25-27. 



All the females were, with one exception, loaded with eggs, 

 which appear, on examination with a hand lens, to be in a 

 very early stage of development, and have probably been only 

 comparatively recently laid. 



Prof. T. D. A. Cockerell, the author of C. gallinus, writes me 

 as follows, November 5, 1902: "I have found remains of 

 C. gallinus in the upper layer of our Pleistocene alluvium at Las 

 Vegas, but as the creature burrows so much, I do not feel 

 any assurance that the remains are really of the age of the de- 

 posit. They may very well be only a few hundred years old. 

 The locality where they were found is not far from Green's 

 lake, where the species still lives, and one has only to suppose 

 that the lakes were formerly of larger size. At the same time, 

 the creature may really have existed in the region when the de- 

 posits were formed." 



In the same letter, Mrs. Cockerell, who is more familiar with 

 the living animal, says : "These crayfish burrow in the muddy 

 banks of the lakes and rivers where they live. We have col- 



