THE CRUSTACEA OF BEAUFORT. NORTH CAROLINA 



Bv WALDO L. SCHAIITT, 



Curator, Division of Marine hrrrrtcbrafcs. U. S. Auuioual Museum 



AND 



CLARENCE R. SHOEMAKER, 



.Issislauf Curator of the Division 



One rare AniericcUi species of Crustacea (Callicliinis major Say) 

 is known only through an incomi)lete specimen in the National 

 Museum and two " arms " in the British ^Museum of Natural History. 

 The Washinj^ton si)ecinien came to the Museum from Beaufort. North 

 Carolina, and in an effort to add to the information regardins:^" it, 

 and also to study the other Crustacea of the region including the 

 wholly undescrihed am])hii)ods. we undertdok a short trip in Septeni- 

 her, 1928, to the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries Lal)oratory at Beaufort, 

 in company with Mr. lloon C. Indramharya of Siam, who was at that 

 time studying the Museum's crustacean collections. 



The type locality of Callichinis major was given hy Say as " the 

 hay shore of the river St. John in East Florida," and it was said l)y 

 him to he common along- the coast of the Southern States. Unfortu- 

 nately, however, a thorough search at Beaufort failed to reveal any 

 specimens of this greatly desired species. We were ahle though to 

 dig out a number of I'pogcbia afHiiis Say, a related form, and to ob- 

 serve the nature of the flats occupied by them, and to trace at least 

 one burrow more or less completely. Two specimens were found in 

 this burrow, the low^er of these being found in the blind end of a 

 more or less perpendicular diverticulum of the tunnel system, about 

 18 inches below the surface. Otherwise the greater part of the burrow, 

 which was apparently not very extensive, seemed to lie in a i)lane 

 about five inches below the surface. One upper terminus was dug 

 out and saved. As the tunnel approached this opening at the surface 

 it became constricted, in a sjiace of about two inches, from a usual 

 diameter throughout of about f of an inch to one of about -^% of an 

 inch at the point of egress. This remarkably narrow opening Dr. 

 Schmitt has found also in the burrow of another species of the same 

 genus. In view of the consistency of the compacted sandy mud, the 

 burrow must have been begun while the animals were yet small, 

 and then enlarged from within as the occupants grew. The original 

 point of ingress, or the opening placing the tunnel system in com- 

 munication with the outer world, is not large enough to permit the 



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