LIFE HISTORY OF THE BLUE CRAB. 



407 



during the whole season gome of them are spawning. Our experience is that we 

 find more of the small crabs al>out March and April, although, as we stated above, 

 some of them are found during the entire season. From the best information, nearly- 

 all the crabs, if not all, spawn in the rivers and afterwards come into salt water. We 

 do not think they travel from this section northward, but, on the contrary, we think 

 they generally come southward. 



Our opinion is that there is nothing so detrimental to the crab industrj- as dredg- 

 ing for crabs in winter time, and what makes us feel so sure of it is the fact that 

 after they are dredged in a certain location in the winter, the next season none or 

 scarcely any of them are to be found there. They will not bed in the same place 

 the succeeding winter. 



"We are borne out in the opinion by our .oldest and best crabbers, that generally 

 about June and July we have a little different crab reach us here in Hampton 

 Roads, which is generally called the ocean crab. It is larger than the one which we 

 get ^rlier in the season, and is a much bluer crab- We can not say whether this 

 crab comes from the north or south to us. 



Mr. Isaac H. Tawes, of Crisfield, Md. , reports as follows: 



From what I can learn, the crabs spawn in the spring. I have been noticing them 

 for several years. I always see the small baby crabs in May and June. X think the 

 females mature during the winter and spawn in the spring. 



METAMOSrHOSIS AND SUBSEQUENT GROWTH. 



The young crab when it first escapes from the egg is almost micro- 

 scopic in size and of a ver}' different appearance from the adult. It is 

 known as a zosea larva." It has a swollen, 

 globose bod}' and a long, slender, segmented 

 tail. The e>'es are especiall}" large and 

 prominent and are borne on short, thick 

 stalks. The shell which covers the head and 

 body is prolonged downward between the 

 ^yes to form a long, slender, pointed ros- 

 trum (cuts 1 and 2, r.). On each side, near 

 the middle of the shell, there is a smaller 

 lateral spine (cut 1, I.) and near the middle 

 of the back there is a long, slender, curved 

 spine (cut 1, d.). The tail or abdomen, 

 which afterward becomes the "apron" of 

 the adult crab, is longer than the body and 

 is composed of six cylindrical segments; it 

 bears no appendages and ends in a large, forked telson (cuts 1 and 

 2, t.). The tail is movable and assists the animal in swimming. At 

 the front of the bod}', in the neighborhood of the mouth, there are 



Cut 1.— Zosa form o£ Callinectcs 

 sapidus or some closely related 

 crab. (After Brooks.) 



«The following account of the metamorphosis of the era)? and the figures which 

 accompany it have been taken from Dr. W. K. Brooks' Handbook of Invertebrate 

 Zoology (S. E. Casino, Boston, 1882), with such revisions as have been necessary to 

 adapt it for popular reading. 



