400 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OP FISHERIES. 



flagellum a little longer than body. Chelipeds large and heavy, imequal in size, and with dissimilar 

 chelEE, the broader and heavier one having lobate teeth on the opposable margins of the fingers, while 

 the more slender one has small, sharp teeth and numerous stiff setae; both chelse witli strong spiniform 

 tubercles on the inner margin in two rows and the base of the movable finger with a tubercle. Walking 

 legs, with pencils of setse, on the terminal articles. 



Color, above dark bluish-green, mottled and speckled with darker spots, merging into dusky yellow 

 or orange on the sides of the carapace and the blades of the tail fin; spines of chelipeds and rostrum, 

 margins of chelse, and the antennulary and antennal flagella red; walking legs clear bluish-green. 



The only record of the occurrence of the lobster in the Beaufort region is by Coues, who stated that 

 a small individual was captured near the town, by fishermen, in the summer of 1870. His surmise, 

 that it might have been thrown overboard from some vessel from the north, may have been correct, 

 but there is good reason to believe that in former years the range of this crustacean extended consider- 

 ably farther to the south than it does at present. According to Herrick (op. cit., p. 15), " It has been 

 said that lobsters have been seen along the beach in the surf near Indian River Inlet, Delaware. Two 

 or three have been recorded at Johnstown, in the northeastern comer of Virginia, and in October, 1884, 

 the United States Fish Commission steamer A Ibatross obtained a single specimen of good size off Cape 

 Hatteras, North Carolina, from a depth of about 30 fathoms, by means of the beam trawl." De Kay 

 (op. cit., p. 25) stated that in 1814 Gen. Pinckney liberated a car full of lobsters in the harbor of Charles- 

 ton, S. C, and that survivors of these or their offspring were captured as late as 1830. 



At the present time the lobster is not known to occur south of the Delaware breakwater. 



Family ASTACIDAE ( = POTOMOBIIDAE, of most authors). The fresh-water crawfishes. 



Fresh water Astacura, having the last thoracic segment free from the one in front 

 of it, the pleurobranchs wanting or reduced to one on each side, and with sexual ap- 

 pendages present in the male. 



Two or three genera are included in this family. Of these, only one is represented 

 in the Beaufort region. 



Genus CAMBARUS Erichson. 



Cambarus Erichson, 1846. p. 88. 



KEY TO THE SPECIES OF THE BEAUFORT REGION. 



a. Rostrum long and slender, wdth lateral teeth near the tip blandingii. 



aa. Rostrum short and broad, without lateral teeth. 



6. Rostrum rather deeply concave above diogenes. 



bb. Rostrum nearly flat above, with a low carina uhleri. 



Cambarus blandingii (Harlan). Blanding's cra\vfish. PI. xxviii, fig. 5. 



Aslccus btandinsii, Harlan, 1S30. p. 464; De Kay, 1844. p. 23. 



Cambarus blandingii, Hagen, 1S70, p. 43; Faxon, 1885. p. 19; Fowler, 1912, p. 357. 



Carapace subcylindrical, smooth above, but with numerous small tubercles on the sides; rostrum 

 elongate, with sharp, raised margins and short lateral spines. Chelipeds slender and thickly tuber- 

 culate; chelae cylindrical and with slender fingers. Walking legs weak, pubescent at the tips, the third 

 and foiuth pairs of the male with a hook on the third article. First abdominal appendages of the male 

 club-shaped, with two small, incurved, homy teeth on the distal end of the outer branch and a single 

 backwardly directed spine on the inner branch. 



Length, 75 to 80 ram. 



Color, dull greenish-brown, whitish beneath and on lower part of carapace, often with a dark green- 

 ish longitudinal stripe on the sides; tubercles of chelae black; sometimes entirely black. 



This species is said by Faxon to have been collected at Beaufort, but when and by whom is not 

 stated. Recent collecting has failed to bring it to light in what might fairly be termed the Beaufort 

 region. It has been taken at Lake Matamuskeet and at Wilmington, however, and undoubtedly occurs 

 in the intermediate countrj'. It is an inhabitant of ponds and ditches near the seacoast from New York 

 to Georgia. 



