168 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



you are! A well-disposed critic once told me I was 

 too fond of generalizations. Well, it is true, so far as 

 these crustaceans are concerned ; but I know now that 

 I have gotten them straightened out. There are two 

 species loving the ditch and haunting weedy creeks ; 

 there is one that prefers rapid water, and is found in the 

 river above tide-water ; and a fourth, whicli twelve years 

 ago I knew nothing about, is more interesting than all 

 the others. This is the burrowing crayfish, a semi-ter- 

 restrial species. I found none of them in the refuse from 

 the seine, it is true; but having had so much to say of 

 Buch as I did gather, it is well to complete the crayfish- 

 survey of the region. 



The burrowing crayfish dififers from the others, in 

 that it is not strictly an aquatic species, and is a prom- 

 inent feature of the fauna of the meadows, from the 

 fact that it has a subterranean retreat, and marks its site 

 by an elaborate mud structure, popularly known as a 

 "chimney." The creature itself, in general appearance, 

 is much like the others, and is distinguished by a pecu- 

 liarity in the wrinkles on its back, more easily pointed 

 out than intelligibly described; but the reader can rest 

 assured that if he digs down in the stiff loam of the 

 meadows, to a depth of two feet, and finds there, often 

 hundreds of yards from open water, a pretty little red- 

 ish- brown crayfish, that it is the chimney builder to 

 which I have referred. 



The burrowing crayfish commence as early as May 1 to 

 erect their mud chimneys, or towers, as they are often 

 called. Some of these are large, some insignificant, and a 

 few, tall, slender, and synmietrically cylindrical. The 



