352 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



Virginia, westward to Ohio, southern Michigan, Indiana^ 

 IlHnois, Wisconsin and southern Minnesota and Iowa. It also 

 occupies localities south of the drift in Indiana, Kentucky^ 

 Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, 

 extending west to Colorado. 



This crawfish is the typical burrowing species and the one 

 most noted for its habit of constructing "chimneys" at t-he 

 aperture of its burrow. It usually lives in swamps formed by 

 spring heads, though not in the soft mud, but along the edges 

 of such places. Such locations allow a better opportunity to 

 dig more permanent burrows. It does not seem to ascend 

 streams so far as related species which live in cold clear 

 spring-water, and is not even averse to foul of stagnant water. 

 The burrows, which are very variable in size, shape and depth, 

 and extend down in the latter case at times to three feet, or even 

 more. The object of the burrows is evidently to seek a habitat 

 with moisture. Except when mating or the young are associ- 

 ated with the female, each burrow contains but a single animal. 

 The burrow is usually simple with somewhat of an excavation at 

 the end. and in diameter the burrow is the proper width to ad- 

 mit its occupant. The chimneys are usually constructed at night. 

 According to Ortmann the cravdish, in building the chimney, 

 moves to the top and deposits the mud pellet upon the rim, 

 finally pushing it into the proper position with the upper (outer) 

 surface of the claws. He adds that the mud is not brought up 

 upon the back of the claw, but held between the folded claws 

 and front part of the body. Many opinions have been given as 

 to the purpose of the chimneys, though Ortmann thinks with 

 Harris, that they are only "the result of the easiest method of 

 disposing of the material removed in excavating the burrow." 



I have examined but few New Jersey examples, and these 

 from near Trenton, and two dried females from Schooley 

 Mountain. Other material before me is from Piney Creek, in 

 Cecil County, Fannel's Branch at Chestertown, and a tributary 

 of the Choptank River near Denton, in Maryland. Also a male 

 from Baden, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. 



