14 Alvin L. Braswell and Ray E. Ashton, Jr. 



November to May in the years 1894 to 1920. Four years later he de- 

 scribed Necturus lewisi as a subspecies of N. maculosus (Brimley 1924), 

 based on over 40 specimens collected in the Raleigh area between 1894 

 and 1924. The type specimen (CSB 6868), taken from the Neuse River 

 near Raleigh on 25 February 1921 by F. B. Lewis, was deposited in the 

 National Museum of Natural History (USNM 73848). Brimley indicated 

 specimens had been taken in the Neuse River by dipnetting "in trash, 

 often in backwaters, but near swift current". Viosca (1937:138), in his 

 paper elevating N. m. lewisi to species rank, stated "further north in the 

 Coastal Plain of North Carolina, the southeastern waterdog, lewisi, and 

 the least waterdog [Necturus punctatus], are known to occur together in 

 Little River, a tributary of the Neuse River system." (Little River heads 

 in the Piedmont Plateau of western Franklin County, crosses the Fall 

 Line Zone in eastern Wake County and western Johnston County, and 

 continues into the Coastal Plain of Johnston and Wayne counties. The 

 collecting site, near Wendell, Wake County, is at the western edge of the 

 Fall Line Zone.) Viosca erroneously concluded that the probable ranges 

 of N. lewisi and N. punctatus were "Atlantic Coastal Plain, exclusive of 

 Florida...." Neither Viosca (1937) nor Bishop (1943) added new locality 

 or habitat information. 



Brimley (1944) described collecting sites along the Neuse River 

 "where the stream was rapid and usually among clusters of dead leaves 

 or other rubbish caught in the stream by some obstruction close to the 

 bank or in a similar mass in a backwater eddy". Hecht (1953:26) con- 

 cluded that N. lewisi was "a salamander of the larger rivers and deeper 

 waters" of the Neuse and Tar River drainages of North Carolina. He 

 expressed doubt (p. 27) about a specimen from the Eno River, Durham 

 County, which Brimley obtained from a fisherman, saying that it was 

 "the only one located so far above the Fall Line." He added, "An exam- 

 ination of the locality revealed it to be very different from any other 

 localities previously recorded for N. lewisi. The stream is rocky, shallow 

 and parts of it are temporary during part of the year." As reported 

 herein, both Fedak (1971) and our field team found N. lewisi in the Eno 

 River, and other upper tributaries of the Neuse, in both Durham and 

 Orange counties. Fedak's (1971) unpublished thesis listed collections of 

 N. lewisi from four localities in the Tar River drainage and nine in the 

 Neuse River drainage. On the basis of this material he stated that the 

 primary habitat for N. lewisi, especially in the Piedmont Plateau, was 

 leaf beds amassed behind obstructions or in backwaters. This echoed 

 Brimley's (1944) observation. Fedak further indicated a singular lack of 

 success in collecting N. lewisi under rocks, in riffles, or in fast water. He 

 also reported collecting N. lewisi and N. punctatus together along the 

 Fall Line, and showed that a specimen in the collection at Duke Univer- 

 sity (DU A 1997), from the Lumber River of the Pee Dee drainage and 



