222 MARINE FISHERIES OF NORTH CAROLINA 



words, and in good Elizabethan and original coastal English, he spent his 

 life "perusing the creeks and progging the marshes." In earlier times in 

 North Carolina the "drag-net" was employed in taking terrapin. In South 

 Carolina I have been told of dogs trained to hunt terrapin in the marshes. 

 Another method was to sail small boats through "creeks" or sloughs in the 

 marshes, knocking occasionally on the bottom of the boat and looking for 

 any nearby terrapin to raise its head above the surface of the water, pre- 

 sumably to look for the source of the sound. According to local informants 

 terrapin are now fairly numerous in the Beaufort area, being taken fre- 

 quently in shrimp nets used in inside waters. They are usually liberated for 

 lack of local markets. 



Terrapin caught by chance or as the result of search were taken to a 

 dealer. Paid for at small prices, these were kept alive in boxes or barrels 

 or, rarely, in pens, until shipping time in the fall. Even undersized terrapin, 

 including the males, called "bulls," and the small females, known as "hens," 

 were not excluded from shipment to bring profitable if not fancy prices, say 

 $12 to $15 a dozen. So far as I could tell, the unrealistic legal restrictions 

 with respect to sizes and to holding in confinement during the breeding 

 season (April 15 to August 15) were not observed. 



In the conditions under which terrapin were generally kept, feeding was 

 hardly practicable. Since terrapin can live without food for long periods of 

 time, the lack of food probably caused little if any harm other than to 

 prevent the slight increase in size and value which the very slow-growing 

 animals might have gained if kept under proper conditions. It would have 

 been better, however, if the law had sanctioned and the dealers been in- 

 cHned, to keep, feed, and water the terrapin in open ranges, used in other 

 states and known as pens, pounds or, more commonly, "crawls." There were 

 then extensive "crawls" at Crisfield, Md., and at Savannah, Ga. Sub- 

 sequently, in 19 13, State authorization was received for the establishment 

 of the Beaufort Terrapin Farm at Beaufort, N. C, under the leadership of 

 Dr. Charles Duncan. This company, to quote Dr. Hildebrand (1929, pp. 

 26,27): 



" built concrete pounds and a terrapin nursery house and provided 



itself with all the facilities necessary for raising terrapins. A large brood 

 stock was obtained, and within a few years from 15,000 to 20,000 terrapins 

 per annum were being hatched. This farm progressed nicely until the begin- 

 ning of the World War and the adoption of the eighteenth amendment to 

 the Constitution. The cost of labor was more than tripled locally, the 

 market value of terrapins dropped, owing to the general curtailment of the 

 use of luxuries during the war, and it seems to have been believed by the 

 manager that under prohibition terrapins never again would be in demand 

 or command the fancy prices paid for them prior to prohibition and the war. 



