Department of Commerce 
BnRE^XtX5F;mSHEHIES: 
Fish and Wildlife Service 
To c hno 1 o v i c al Lab or at or v 
2735 ant lake Boulevard 
Seattle , Washington 
Waldo L. Schmitt, Curator, 
Division of Warine Invertebrates, 
Sm ithsoni an Institution, 
States national 
United 
Washington , D . C 
US 911 , 
Dear Dr. Schiitt: 
It certainly was a pleasure to have a letter from, vou again* 
We hone vou had a good trio south but are sorry you missed out on 
our second expedition, because as near as I can determine, the 
southern trip just couldn’t have been as interesting* The re- 
ports I receive from Pat, Wallace, and Art Evatura would indicate 
this second expedition has been a biologist’s dream* They have 
been able to make extensive observations on shedding, spawning, 
mating, and all aspects of the inshore movements, and they are 
finding crabs in all stages of development. "Hand shakin couples 
have been a very common occurrence. Of course, I can gather only 
a hazy picture from the meager reports, but it would seen they 
are getting enough data to formulate a quite definite story o: 
the habits of the king crab. 
They have definite proof that some of the males do not shed 
The mating season is apparently during Harch and April and seems 
to be progressively later toward the westward and the boats have 
aore or less been following their development. 
The crabs are beginning to uove out now and apparently they 
spread in deeper water, ,/hen the boats first went into Bering 
Sea their largest catches were in about 20 fathoms of water. 
'.Then these productive areas were examined last week, the crabs 
were in 40 fathoms. During the week ending way 24, the " orothy 
and ’’Champion" could work but three days — their total for the 
reek was about 3000 crabs . 
Art Hvatum has written me some very interesting letters and 
keens me right ut> to date with tabulations of the "Dorothy’s" 
catches. I have a whole jacket of letters and reports from the 
boys. If you would have the time to read them I’d be glad to 
send them back to you for a while. Art says it really was a 
sight when they made the haul netting 3138 crabs . The drag 
was 
