LIFE HISTORY OF THE BLUE CRAB. 407 



during the whole season pome of them are spa\Yning. 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 industry as dredg- 

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

 after they ai-e 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. 



AVe 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 

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

 get earlier in the season, and is a much bluer crab. We can not 8ay whether this 

 crab comes from the north or south to us. 



Mr. Isaac H. Tawes, of Cristield, Mel,, reports as follows: 



From what I can learn, the cral^s spawn in the spring. I have l)een 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. 



METAMORPHOSIS AND SUBSEQUENT GROWTH. 



The youDg crab when it tirst escapes from the egg is almost micro- 

 scopic in size and of a veiy different appearance from the adult. It is 

 known as a zoiea larva.^' It has a swollen, 

 globose body and a long, slender, segmented 

 tail. The eyes are especially large and 

 prominent and are borne on short, thick 

 stalks. The shell which covers the head and 

 body is prolonged downward between the 

 eyes 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, /.) 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 



, 11, 1-1 j_i ^i 1 T 1 Cut 1. — Zorea form of Callinectes 



the adult crab, is longer than the oody and sapidns or some closely related 

 is composed of six cylindrical segments; it ^o-ab. (After Brooks.) 

 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 body, in the neighborhood of the mouth, there are 



«The following account of the metamorphosis of the crab 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. 



