THE CRUSTACEANS 87 



Alplieiis minus lives under dead shells, and is found on the 

 North Carolina coast. It is about one inch long, and is quite trans- 

 lucent and uniformly dull green with dots of brown pigment. 



Alplieus heteroclielis ranges from the West Indies to North 

 Carolina. In the north it is translucent green with the tail flappers 

 tipped with blue and orange, while the upper surface of the great 

 claw is very dark brownish-olive and blue. In the Bahamas, how- 

 ever, it is more transparent, and dotted with brown pigment. On 

 the Carolina coast it lives in the beds of oyster shells, while in the 

 Bahamas it is found under loose stones. 



CRAYFISHES 



The Crayfishes, or Crawfishes, resemble small lobsters, to which 

 they are closely related, but they have never more than eighteen 

 pairs of gills, while the lobsters have twenty. 



Our crayfishes are abundant in fresh-water streams, ponds and 

 rivers; none, hoAvever, are found iu the eastern parts of New 

 England. 



The crayfishes east of the Rocky mountains have seventeen 

 pairs of gills and belong to the genus Camharus, while those of the 

 Pacific slope, west of the Sierra Nevadas, have eighteen paii's of 

 gills and are members of the genus Afitacns. Curiously enough 

 the European crayfishes also belong to the genus Aslacm^. 



In Europe crayfishes are highly esteemed as food and are care- 

 fully cultivated, but in our country they are rarely eaten excepting 

 iu New York and New Orleans \\\ view of the increasing rarity 

 and high price of the lobster, it might now be found profitable to 

 cultivate our crayfishes for the market. Their habits are closely simi- 

 lar to those of the lobsters. Some species live under stones, others 

 prefer weedy streams while others burrow fully two feet into the 

 mud, and will even live in swampy soil where the water is only to 

 be found beneath the surface. Some of the mud-burrowing species 

 construct chimney-like tubes above the entrance to the burrow, 

 while at the bottom of the burrow there is a flask-shaped cavity 

 filled with water. In common with the great majority of crusta- 

 ceans, crayfishes are natural scavengers, and will eat almost any 

 dead animal. They also capture living creatures, and will feed 

 sparingly upon water plants. It is probable that under proper 



