I860.] 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



523 



excavations made in wet low-ground, or 

 other ground having spring water at the 

 depth of a few feet below the surface, and 

 rarely on high, and never in dry soils. 

 With us they are harmless — (except to new- 

 ly constructed covered drains, which they 

 endanger, for a short time, by opening en- 

 trances for rain water from the surface — ) 

 and their borings, with the elevated dome- 

 like coverings to their habitations, are very 

 useful indications to the drainer, as they are 

 certain evidences that injurious water is be- 

 low, and usually at no great depth, and that 

 the ground needs under-draining, no matter 

 how steep it may be, or how dry at the sur- 

 face it may appear.* In Marengo, these ani- 

 mals are numerous almost everywhere, and 

 even- on parts of the highest and dryest sur- 

 faces of the black or calcareous lands. They 

 cause much annoyance, and sometimes much 

 loss on small spaces, by cutting down the 

 young plants, especially of cotton. But, al- 

 together, their workings and depredations 

 are not of much importance. Their great 

 number, and their inaccessible positions ren- 

 der their destruction hopeless, on ground 

 suitable to their habits. The crayfish digs 

 a cylindrical and nearly perpendicular hole, 

 of such diameter as best suits the then size 

 of the constructor, and for easy passage — 

 and brings up all the excavated earth to the 

 surface, where it is dropped around the ori- 

 fice of the hole. Here, where the surface 

 is high, and not liable to be overflowed by 

 rain water, or otherwise, the excavated earth 

 would be of no use, and it is scattered 

 around in the numerous pellets which were 

 separately brought up. Bat in Virginia, on 

 all such localities, as I have before seen, 

 these structures, liable to temporary over- 

 flow, the instinct of the cray fish directs 

 it to build up the excavated mud around the 

 orifice of its dwelling, in the shape of an 

 elevated hollow cone t the passage through 

 which is afterwards closed at the top by the 

 solitary occupant, when it no longer needs to 

 go out. These coverings are very close and 

 hard after drying, perfectly impervious to 

 rain, and would even keep out overflowing 



* There are some rare cases, however, in Vir- 

 ginia, where, on the eminences of high and even 

 hilly land, and where there is below only rain 

 water, that crayfishes dig and live. But such 

 places are of very close and stiff subsoil, with 

 an impervious under-bed, and in which the 

 physical conditions of earth and water are like 

 those common in the lime lands of Alabama. 



water, if it did not find easier entrance 

 through the natural earth below 7 . Different 

 as might seem to be the habits of these ani- 

 ! mals, and their preferred places of residence, 

 in the different and distant localities named, 

 they are directed by the same wants and 

 j instincts. The amphibious nature of the 

 crayfish enables it to live for considerable 

 | lengths of time either under or above and 

 out of water. But it needs a dwelling that 

 always affords the choice. Here, the cray- 

 ( fish digs down to, and a little into, the com- 

 pact lime-rock ; and at the lowest depth, the 

 excavation is enlarged to a spherical cavity 

 jof a few inches in diameter. This cavity 

 'receives and retains a little " seeping " rain 

 i water, which conies in laterally from the 

 surrounding earth, or loose marl, immediate- 

 ly above the firmer blue rock. That .supply 

 of* water, and the reservoir containing it, 

 are necessary to the existence of the cray- 

 fish; and should the water fail, the animal 

 must soon perish, if unable to move to some 

 . other more suitable locality. But even when 

 'the earth at the surface is parched with 

 drought, the bottoms of the cray-fish holes 

 j therein contain water, though it is sometimes 

 !at 10 feet or more of depth to the firm rock. 

 This fact is well known, and may be easily 

 tested, by any observer, by dropping in a 

 small pebble, and then, with the ear applied 

 | to the orifice, hearing the splash in the wa- 

 | ter at the bottom. As the borings of cray- 

 j fishes in Virginia indicate where under- 

 draining is necessary — and their long con- 

 tinuance on ditched ground will inform the 

 drainer that his work has been imperfectly 

 executed, and is not effective — so in these 

 cane-brake lands these animals offered other 

 instructions in regard to water, which 

 was still more important to the early set- 

 tlers. Before cisterns (for rain water) were 

 in common use, and when artesian wells 

 were as yet unknown, the early residents 

 found in any unusually great number of cray- 

 fish holes, in particular spaces, true indica- 

 tions of the surest places to excavate " seep- 

 wells, ,, and to obtain the most permanent 

 supplies of water. The tillage of the land, 

 though continually interrupting or frustra- 

 ting the labors of these industrious little 

 animals, does not seem to lessen their num- 

 bers materially. Though they are 'greatly 

 complained of by the planters, I did not 

 learn that they commit any considerable de- 

 predations, except on very limited spaces, 

 and where they are most numerous — and 



