HERP

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IS LA N II

Edward H, Taylor:

Recollections of an

Her petolo gist

Edward H. Taylor
A. Byron Leonard
Hobart M. Smith

Qeorge R. Pisani

\ I) A N A ON

N C

I

The University of Kansas Museum of Natural History

\ S I \

EDWARD H. TAYLOR: RECOLLECTIONS OF
AN HERPETOLOGIST

NOTE: The map depicting part of the Philip-
pine region, reproduced on the cover, was used
by Edward H. Taylor in the course of field work
in 1912-1913.

Edward H. Taylor

EDWARD H. TAYLOR: RECOLLECTIONS OF
AN HERPETOLOGIST

EDWARD H. TAYLOR

Professor and Curator Emeritus

Department of Systematics and Ecology and

Museum of Natural History

The University of Kansas

Lawrence, Kansas 66045

A. BYRON LEONARD

Professor Emeritus

Department of Systematics and Ecology

The University of Kansas

Lawrence, Kansas 66045

HOBART M. SMITH

Professor
Department of Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology

University of Colorado
Boulder, Colorado 80302

GEORGE R. PISANI

Visiting Instructor

Department of Biology

The University of Kansas

Lawrence, Kansas 66045

Monograph

of THE

Museum of Natural History, The University of Kansas

Number 4
1975

University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History

Editor: Richard F. Johnston

Monograph Series, Publication No. 4

pp. 1-160; 6 figures; 1 plate

Published December 15, 1975

WW 1 6 1999

Museum of Natural History

The University of Kansas

Lawrence, Kansas 66045

U.S.A.

Copyright 1975, Museum of Natural History
The University of Kansas

Printed by

University of Kansas Printing Service

Lawrence, Kansas

PREFACE

The charge to anyone doing a volume like this is complex and
best met by artists, not scientists. Professor E. H. Taylor is now
86 years old and has been busy for all that time. How, short of a
full biography, can we recreate in our minds the sense of and
feeling for this energetic, creative, sometimes irascible man who
has had an extraordinary career as naturalist, explorer, teacher,
friend (especially of children), scientist, spy, consort of royalty
and "father" of modern herpetology? This book senses the man
only fractionally and certainly less than we expect for average
persons. But this is as Professor Taylor wishes it, and his full story
may never be told.

This volume about Professor Taylor has had a mixed ancestry.
In part, it began two or three years ago as a devoted effort to
honor Professor Taylor. The original thought was that some kind
of festschrift would be appropriate, pulling together a number of
separate and independent scientific contributions in a traditional
tribute to this great man. While this idea lurked restlessly in the
backs of our minds, Professor Taylor's own efforts came to our
attention and resulted in the creation of an autobiographical frag-
ment, which has become the heart of the present volume. This
section had its inception in a delightful series of radio programs
presented by KFKU, K.U.'s own radio station, some 43 years ago.
For the most part, these programs dealt with Professor Taylor's
experiences in the Philippine Islands and were directed toward
young people.

Professor Taylor's many friends in the Museum of Natural His-
tory (and elsewhere) have encouraged him in his autobiographical
efforts — and these continue. Professor Taylor has agreed to let us
publish the memoir concerning the Philippines, and we are grateful
to him for the opportunity. Thus, instead of a festschrift, we have
a work about Professor Taylor. Other parts of the volume concern
Professor Taylor's contributions as a teacher, his publications, and
a summary or appreciation of his career as a scientist.

We are indebted to many for making this book possible.
Obviously, without Professor Taylor's own contribution the book
would have been entirely different. Many persons assisted in a
wide variety of ways in the preparation of the various contributions;
in addition to the authors, these include Professor and Mrs. Kraig
Adler, Ms. Marlene Orr, Professor William E. Duellman, Professor
Howard K. Gloyd, Mr. Joseph T. Collins, and Dr. Stephen R.
Edwards. To all of these we are grateful for their devoted tribute
to Ed Taylor.

Philip S. Humphrey
Richard F. Johnston
19 June 1975

CONTENTS

I. Philippine Adventures: An Autobiographical Memoir

By Edward H. Taylor 1

1. I Arrive On Stage 1

2. Growing Up 5

3. Dreams Do Materialize 8

4. Along Crocodile Road 12

5. My New Neighborhood 21

6. Plow And Carabao 27

7. Drafting Students 33

8. Strife With Mandalingan - — 36

9. Mandalingan's Revenge 43

10. Big Blue Ribbon 50

11. Fired For Inefficiency 54

12. My Life on Negros Island .... 57

13. Conquest of Canlaon ..... 62

14. Zamboanga ... . 70

15. The Island of Sinbad 75

16. Lednicky And The Mercury Hunt 82

17. Many Little Fishes 85

18. The Southern Philippines 90

19. Cholera and A Typhoon 96

20. The Graveyard On Tablas 100

21. Polillo — . 105

II. Edward Harrison Taylor: The Teacher

By A. Byron Leonard „ 109

III. The Blazing of a Trail: The Scientific Career of
Edward Harrison Taylor

ByHobartM. Smith 115

IV. The Published Contributions of Edward H. Taylor

By George R. Pisani 145

List of Figures

Fig. 1. (E. H. Taylor, about 1912-1913) 20

Fig. 2. (E. H. Taylor, about 1922-1923) . 103

Fig. 3. (Kansas field crew, about 1933) ... 112

Fig. 4. (E. H. Taylor, about 1936) - 130

Fig. 5. (E. H. Taylor, about 1936) _ 140

I

PHILIPPINE ADVENTURES:
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR

By
Edward H. Taylor

1. I Arrpve On Stage

It may be more scientific to begin a story at its beginning, but
one can be literary even if one begins at the end. I shall choose
a course somewhere in between and begin at my arrival rather
than at the start of my journey.

There was little remarkable about my arrival since it followed
the usual pattern of occurring at a very early age. Both my parents
apparently were aware of my intent to come, on or about April 23
in 1889, since both were on hand to give me a cordial welcome on
that date. But alas, planned parenthood carries no guarantee of
satisfaction, and I was not the invited girl. I refused to be any-
thing but a boy. I recognized them as my lawful parents and
began communications with a squall at one end fostered by un-
certainty at the other. Although it is quite possible my parents
regretted the result of their planning, I felt perfectly contented
with the outcome. They certainly were not bad parents, a fact
that becomes so evident at this late moment when, on the authority
of many youths and maidens of the 1970's, parents have deteriorated
terrifically; in fact, many children can't even be certain who
fathered them.

The household into which I arrived was of mixed composition
and consisted of brother Eugene, six years old; a cousin Anna,
twelve; a grandmother, eighty; and an uncle, Alex (whose fiancee
had recently died). And of course, my father and mother, George
and Loretta.

Our household was a distillation of the larger Taylor clan that,
apparently, had all migrated from Ohio shortly after the unpleasant-
ness of the 1860s. The family then consisted of two married
daughters, Phoebe E. Beatty and Sophia Jane Faucett — along with
their families — and sons Robert, George (my father), Thomas R.,
and Alexander. They left behind the graves of six other children:
Edward H. and William, who were lost in the Civil War; Silvania,
the firstborn, Fletcher, David, and Martha.

If this was planned parenthood, Grandfather evidently was
superstitious since Alex was, as far as we know, number twelve
and he lived to see his eightieth year. (One might remark that

2 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

the theory of zero population growth was not prevalent from the
1830s to the 1850s.)

Perhaps to accompany this bit of family history, I should present
some idea of the local environment. The house in Maysville,
Missouri had very ample surroundings, perhaps a block square,
with garden space, a croquet ground, an icehouse, a smokehouse,
and what are, perhaps, now called comfort stations. Directly across
the street were buildings, stables, grain bins and the like. And
immediately west of the house and its environs were fields and a
splendid orchard. Occupying a lot to the north was our nearest
neighbor Zack Savage, and across the street from him was a Mr.
Ransome. This area might be regarded as my early home range.

The house had been built by Grandfather and it incorporated
part of an old semi-log house that contained a large fireplace in
which 6-foot logs could be accommodated and where a great
copper kettle might spread the rich aroma of boiling apple butter.
This was our living room. A kitchen and a parlor and various and
sundry other rooms completed the first level, while most of the
sleeping rooms were on an upper floor. There was no refrigeration
in the kitchen, but a cave served to keep milk and butter. I do not
remember much of my impressions of these surroundings as I was
growing up. I do, however, remember a splendid rug in my
sleeping room, a Navaho blanket, rose and white, that Uncle Alex
had brought back from Las Animas Valley when he was on a
hunting adventure in New Mexico in the late 1870s. And I might
remark that even though it is nearly 100 years old it now serves
the same purpose. It followed me to college and to my fraternity
house to enhance the surroundings, and from there it went with
me to the Philippines.

I had occasion to remember the great fireplace too, and the
incident is perhaps one of my earliest memories. I was running
and laughing when I stumbled headlong on a rug and slid close
enough to the fireplace to burn my hand on the live coals, from
which predicament I was snatched by Anna who solaced me by
placing my hand in a jar of lard. I have no scars now to show
from the burn.

It is hard to say whether I loved Anna or my mother more, and
this indecision has lasted nearly a lifetime. My mother died when
I was in India, during World War II; she was in her late eighties;
but only a short while ago Anna took the same course at ninety-
three, ending a long and useful life by managing her own household
to within a few weeks of her departure. She had acquired a college
education, a husband, and a family, and was what might be called
a model citizen and a grand person.

Father had horses. One was a magnificent black Percheron
Norman stallion by the name of Bonhomme Richard (Bon for

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 3

short), whose wooing techniques taught me my first lessons in the
continuity of species. There were three Shetland ponies: Jessie,
the mother; Dot, Jessie's son, who was not broken to ride; and a
young colt. Dot was later a present to me. Once when I was still
young enough to be wearing petticoats, I was astride Jessie, holding
the reins, when she, being in one of her more than mischievous
moods, started rapidly and ran under a swinging piece of barbed
wire which dragged me from her back and ripped open a cut on
my belly. That much I remmember, but no more. Help was at
hand, the bleeding was stopped. (Certain doctors today still re-
mark upon examining me, "See you have your appendicitis scar!")
Father had another horse that he hitched to a sulky and raced at
the nearby county fairs. Then, of course, we had the less glamorous
teams of work horses.

Living next door was my first girl friend, Virginia Savage, and in
the house beyond hers was Ralph Ransome. We might play with
her on certain days, but the two of us never saw her on the same
day after experiences warranted otherwise, and wisdom forbade it.
We boys were usually good friends when we found occasion to
be together, though. Toward the back of the lot, Father kept
several hives of honey bees. One day, to show her my bravery, I,
with a croquet mallet, went bravely up and pounded on a beehive.
The clever insects objected to the noise and I had my first serious
lesson in entomology. My family despaired, but I recovered. The
experience was not an incentive to become a bee fancier or. for
that matter, to enter the field of entomology. True, I have hob-
nobbed in many parts of the world with various species of bees,
mosquitoes, bedbugs, wasps, ants, fleas, and lice (which would
head the list), to say naught of others of lesser importance. But
the fevers and general discomforts these creatures brought are
some things I have never learned wholly to disregard.

There was another memorable person in the environment, Jack
Draden, a former slave who had come to the town with his family.
He worked for Father, who gave him a small lot and helped him
build a house for his wife and two boys. Jack used to tote me
around and had a special nickname for me — Chuffy. Jack's wife
did much of our family's washing, ironing, and cleaning. The
Draden boys came over to play and would occasionally ride the
ponies. Once Bud tore a wound in his hand on barbed wire, and
I was surprised to see that his blood was red. Jack accompanied
Father on coon hunts with our hounds, as well as helping with the
stock, and working in the fields.

When my father died at eighty-six (he had worked until the
day before his death), he was taken back to Maysville, to the old
home town for burial. It was not exactly a sad affair, but as I left the
grave I looked back and saw an ancient white-haired Negro stand-

4 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

ing on the mound of earth weeping and saying, "They've buried
my best friend." Only then did I become aware of tears and become
conscious of the sadness of my father's death!

Yes, my mother's family was there too, living on a farm about
two miles from Maysville. Her own father, Aaron B. Mills, a
musician, had died at twenty-nine, leaving his widow Jane with
two daughters, Virginia and Loretta. Some years later my Grand-
mother remarried Richard Wilson from West Virginia, and they
migrated to Missouri, where mother's half-sisters Emma, Louvina,
Bertha, and Grace, and her half-brother Benjamin, were born.

They were frequent visitors at our Maysville house, especially
on Sunday when they came to town to attend religious services
and afterwards partook of food from our plentiful board. The ad-
justable walnut dining table could seat eight or sixteen with equal
ease merely by inserting three more table leaves between the
sliding ends.

Thus, it is more than obvious that I suffered no lack of relatives,
relatives for whom I have never ceased to have high regard. There
were no parasites, no freaks, no criminals. And practically all out-
lived the normal quota of seventy years! Tough stuff they were
made of — tough and very frequently of fine materials. Several
younger family members had good educations. Mother had at-
tended a ladies seminary in Wheeling, Virginia; Father, however,
had only the equivalent of a fifth grade education, but he read a
great deal and kept up with the news.

My earliest journey on a train took place when I was about four.
Mother was going "shopping" and she took me along. ( Mother
occasionally made shopping trips by train to St. Joseph, which was
some thirty miles west of Maysville.) I don't recall much of the
trip other than that we stopped to call on an acquaintance of
Mother's; but I do remember a red velvet hat with a narrow, high
crown that Mother had purchased, because I kept wondering how
could she get her head in the top of the crown.

The previous year Mother had gone to Chicago to the World's
Fair and had brought back a stereopticon with numerous "slides,"
some highly desirable toys, and a large book of engravings de-
picting the art display at Chicago. I began to think that the rest
of the world was wonderful and that Maysville must be dull by
comparison.

When I was five Mother and I really did some traveling. We
spent a vacation in Colorado, stopping first at Fort Lupton (we
actually stayed at the exact site of the old fort, which was on a
relative's ranch). Margery, a young second-cousin who was near
my age, and I had a glorious time hunting Indian stones (arrow-
heads, etc.) about the old adobe walls. There was also the excite-

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 5

ment of a "runaway" horse and wagon; the ranch hand driving the
wagon had to be taken to a doctor for repairs.

Next, we went to Denver where Dr. Beatty, Margery's father,
lived in a comfortable home. Mother and I did some sightseeing.
We ascended Pike's Peak by the recently built funicular railway,
which took us to Silver Plume, near the summit of the peak. Moun-
tains, gorges, rivers, forests — what an unbelievable wonderland!
How much finer to be able to live in such a place than in Maysville!
At each rail stop, children with boxes of handsome stones and
crystals came offering them for sale and these objects were part
of the loot I carried home.

Alas, the time came to return to my own environment. Once
home, I was enveloped by all the pleasures of familiar things — the
taste of homemade ice cream cured in the icehouse, the odor of
hickory wood from the smokehouse, the coolness of the cave where
we stored milk and butter. I decided Maysville was a very good
place after all. But I could never forget that journey; even then I
was certain that I would see as much of the world as possible when
I grew up!

2. Growing Up

I should pass over the next years rather quickly and avoid
describing those commonplaces that we have all experienced in
growing up.

I went to school. I had little difficulty learning to read. In fact,
reading became a most pleasurable pastime. My passion for ad-
venture was aroused by books of the George Henty — H. Rider
Haggard vintage, and these I read and reread when others were
not available. I remember that one volume in particular, Among
Malay Pirates, which was very well-illustrated, stirred my imagina-
tion and I resolved then that one day I would see these people in
their dugout canoes. Years later, the dream materialized. Even
the more serious lesson books were of great interest and I was
more than fortunate in having instruction that I liked.

High school, too, seemed interesting and here again the high
school faculty all seemed to be superior people. I believe that
with one exception all were university graduates. They had the
ability to obtain the best efforts from their students, and they
seemed determined that their students should look forward to
university life.

University life began at the University of Kansas at Lawrence
in September, 1908. My first year there, 1908-09, found me living
in the home of then-Governor Stubbs, since someone was needed
there while the governor and his family were at the state capitol
at Topeka. They would return to Lawrence most weekends.
Occasionally, I was invited to Topeka for special affairs at the

6 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

governor's mansion. Paul and Rosco, the two sons, would sometimes
spend a weekend at Lawrence without the family. Once Rosco
and I went possum hunting and caught one two blocks from the
house. Their cook, who was adept at cooking possum, prepared it
for us. I did not find it too glorious, but Rosco consumed perhaps
more than his rightful share and suffered a refund.

I had a very small snake (Storeria dekayi) which I kept in a
small glass case in the conservatory of the governor's home. The
snake later produced five offspring. It was not unusual for me to
have a menage of this sort around; one of my early boyhood collec-
tions consisted of a number of harmless water snakes (Natrix
sipedon) obtained at a nearby pond, which I kept alive in a
vivarium. After they had been in the vivarium a while, some,
when allowed their freedom, would crawl across the floor and
take a small minnow from my hand. My long-suffering family soon
realized that the snakes really were not happy, despite my frequent
and comforting presence, and the ruling member of the household
suggested, quite firmly, that they be disposed of. This decree was
not carried out at once, so one morning I found that someone had
provided a way out for the serpents. Mrs. Stubbs was not aware
of my predilection to foster parenthood; although she did not for-
bid my keeping the snakes, she was not pleased.

Some time later Theodore Roosevelt was their houseguest. At
breakfast one morning, Mr. Roosevelt, having recently returned
from Africa, was regaling us with stories of his travels and of his
experiences with certain African serpents. Mrs. Stubbs told the
visitor that I had a serpent in the conservatory. At once he sug-
gested that it be examined. They left the breakfast table for the
snake exhibit. Ever after Mrs. Stubbs was delighted to display the
tiny family to visitors, remarking on the former president's com-
ments.

During the summer after my first year in the University, three
other students and I accompanied one of the zoology instructors
on a biological survey of southeastern Kansas; we were looking
primarily for fish. I was also assigned to collect a barrel of water
snakes for another zoological instructor who wanted to use them
for dissection in a comparative anatomy class. The barrel was a
very large one and I must confess my inadequacy in that at the end
of our work I had the barrel only about two-thirds full. Its con-
tents included three species. There were no "water moccasins,"
however; in fact, in the entire summer's collections, there was not
a single poisonous water moccasin found despite the fact that they
are not uncommon in northern Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Our leader was a veritable slave driver. My job, since I was
a relatively good swimmer, was to follow our seine and remove
logs, brush, and debris from it. It would be exaggerating only a

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 7

bit to say the job was continuous, and I practically learned to
breathe under water. One morning, while trying to detach the seine
from some object, I complained of illness; but our "leader" said
"unloosen the seine." I tried, but I had to be taken out of the
water. I was indeed ill, from what I later learned was malaria!
In Kansas!

We started back at once for Lawrence but the movement of
our covered wagon was too much for me, so we stopped at a farm,
and I was bedded down in a manger in the bam. A doctor was
sent for. After he diagnosed the illness as malaria, he assured my
companions that I wouldn't shuffle off, and prescribed medicine
for me. After three days we again started for Lawrence, this time
with interruptions of only an hour or two at a time when I needed
relief from the eternal shaking of the old wagon.

This case of malaria lasted about a month. Seemingly, once
was enough; for despite some twenty-two years spent outside of
the U.S.A. — twenty-one of them in the subtropics or tropics — I have
escaped contracting malaria again, even though its presence was
almost universal wherever I journeyed.

My second winter in the university I began fraternity life.
Although my funds were small I eked them out by working in the
library under the supervision of Carrie Watson and Mary Maud
Smeltzer. I even waited tables at the old Hiawatha Restaurant
for a time.

The following summer I joined the paleontological group from
the Museum of Natural History in exploring the chalk beds of
Kansas. These beds are lying at the bottom of what was an ancient
Cretaceous sea in central Kansas. One of my professors, Dr.
Clarence McClung, accompanied the group and I had my first
experience in looking for fossils — not that I found many. I did,
however, get a fair variety of the live reptiles and amphibians that
inhabited Trego and Gove counties.

We had a bit of excitement when Dr. McClung, after finding a
likely looking gully filled to the top with "tumbling tumble weeds,"
set fire to them. The blaze destroyed the weeds but, to our dismay,
it escaped the confines of the gully walls (twenty-five feet high)
and started prairie fires in the short buffalo grass on both sides of the
gully. We finally were able to put them out after getting assistance
from the other members of the party. It was the most strenuous
task of our summer, the sun giving no respite and the clouds
offering no shade.

One day while we were in the field, a rainstorm threatened
and Dr. McClung suggested we return to camp with our team
and cart. The storm broke; the team balked and, frightened by
the ubiquitous thunder and lightning, refused to go on. So much
rain fell that Dr. McClung knew the tiny waterway at the edge of

8 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

our tent would be filled to overflowing and thus could destroy
much of the summer's work. He urged me to run to camp a mile-
and-a-half away; I got there in time to move our prize finds back
from the encroaching stream which later covered the area.

That evening, after supper, we heard a great chorus of toads
which the downpour had brought up out of the prairie. It was a
large species, Bufo cognatus. I collected fifty specimens but could
have tripled this number had it been desirable. None of us had
seen any of this species in the preceding weeks. The fact was
that I had devoted more time to collecting reptiles and amphibians
than fossils. This was good training for my work in foreign coun-
tries. When we returned to the university, my specimens were
identified, catalogued, and placed in the collection in the museum.

Trips such as these afforded opportunities for closer associations
with Dr. McClung, one of America's greatest geneticists, and with
Dr. Roy Moody, who became America's greatest paleopathologist.
In this way, I became especially fitted for my future endeavors.

3. Dreams Do Materialize

By taking field courses during the summers, I had completed
my four years work for an A.B. degree in three and a half years.
Someone asked me what I intended to do, now that I was leaving
school at the end of the first semester. At first, I thought of saying,
"Hunting a job," but, after a moment, said instead, with no little
bombast, "I think I shall go abroad and hunt adventure!"

A few days later (believe in coincidence or not) a notice ap-
peared in the post office; examinations were being held by the
Civil Service for appointments to the Philippine Islands. The
United States had taken over their governing from Spain. I passed
the examination.

Reservations were made at once and about the first of February,
1912, I started for the Philippines, via San Francisco. On boarding
ship, I discovered that I was not the only Civil Service appointee
and that fourteen others were also Manila-bound, destined to work
for the government there. Social life on board ship was excellent
and we found a number of college-age girls who were "touring the
Far East." Unfortunately, most were accompanied by their parents.
A bridge tournament was held and partners were chosen by lot.
Luckily, I was paired with a Japanese gentleman who was return-
ing to the Far East after having toured the United States. Largely
because of his astute bidding and card sense, and with some aid
from me, we got the first prize: two handsomely carved ivory
cribbage boards!

Hawaii was a delight. When we came into port, a band was
playing on the dock, people were coming with leis to welcome us,
swimmers beside the boat were diving under water for coins tossed

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 9

by passengers, and voices were singing "Aloha." It was a thrill
that will probably never be surpassed. (It was an experience that
was repeated eight times in succeeding years.) The following day
in my freshwater bathing suit I appeared at Waikiki, the famous
beach, for my first saltwater swim. It was a new experience to
find saltwater much more buoyant than fresh, but of course I should
have known that. Out beyond the surf riders I noted some in-
teresting-looking rollers. I swam for some distance and suddenly
found myself lifted up and set down against sharp corals. I got
away as quickly as possible but only after receiving a number of
open cuts on my feet which gave me reason for staying off the
dance floor for several days.

One of the girls with whom I had danced frequently belonged
to one of the old missionary families who knew the elderly Queen
Lil. She took me on a tour of the city; one of its highlights was
stopping by the queen's home, which was scarcely royal, and finding
her seated in the yard. We went also to the Pali, with its rain
clouds, and to the old palace.

We left the next day and received a farewell almost as thrilling
as our welcome, with the sights and sounds much the same. The
ocean voyage from Hawaii to Japan was uneventful except for
seeing an occasional ship, or a whale blowing in the distance, or
schools of flying fish. Below deck there were a number of gambling
devices available, some of which I sampled at not too great a cost.

Nagasaki was our first stop. We sampled the saki; learned of
the usefulness of the temple teahouses; and of the famous No. 9.
(The recent movie "Teahouse of the August Moon" resurrected
memories. )

In the Japanese equivalent of a drugstore, I found the charred
remains of an oriental copperhead snake (Agkistrodon) offered for
sale as a panacea for various ailments. Other serpents were pre-
served in bottles with an ample supply of alcohol, which also served
as a strong medicine. Some years later while passing through Naga-
saki on a honeymoon journey, I visited a shop in which an elapine
serpent occupied a large glass jar perhaps two-and-one-half feet
high. I suspected that the animal, from Okinawa, was at that time
an undescribed form. I offered to purchase it.

"No sell," the druggist replied.

"I give five yen."

"No sell."

I offered ten yen.

"No sell."

"Perhaps you would sell for twenty-five yen."

"No sell."

"Fifty yen?"

"No sell. One man, Stejneger, he offer seventy-five yen, no sell.

10 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

One year the alcohol from the bottles sell seventy-five yen. No sell
snake." So I gathered from the conversation that the serpent was
not on the market.

Japan was different from Honolulu. This was certainly true of
the dress of the people, with the women in kimonos and the men
in similar costumes. Of course, even then many men, and occa-
sionally women, wore Western-style apparel. Only infrequently
would a small auto be seen, but there were many horses as well
as the ubiquitous jinrickshas and carts pulled by either men or
women. At Kobe I saw for the first time a ship "coaled" by coal
passing. The coal was placed in small baskets and passed by hand
from one person to another along a chain to the ship's hold; per-
haps fifteen people handled each basket. Whether such a system
is still in use I do not know.

We finally reached Manila. On a Saturday afternoon we came
past Corregidor into Manila Bay and docked. It was a dull affair
after Honolulu. The Manila Hotel had rooms available and I
went there.

Sunday all offices were closed so I hired a small launch and
crossed the bay to the Bataan peninsula. I tied the boat to a tree
and entered the forest where I came upon a dim path. This I
followed several hundred yards to a small clearing where camotes
(sweet potatoes) were growing. Just then, I saw a native coming
toward me from beyond the clearing and I thought, "Wow! My
first wild man." He stood little more than four feet tall, had very
black skin, hair several inches long, and a beard. He boasted only
a G-string in the way of clothing and to complete his costume he
carried a long spear and a bolo knife. I stepped back from the
path and watched him. Presently he saw me and yelled, "Good
morning. I go St. Louis."

I learned later that he had really been to St. Louis for the 1906
World's Fair and had been exhibited by a showman as "The Wild
Man from Borneo;" he actually belonged to the tribe known as the
Negritos, or Atas. Before we separated he spoke more English:
"Gimme cigarette." What a comedown for me. Subsequently I
saw his "house," which consisted of a group of branches propped
up against a large fallen log five or six feet in diameter, with palm
leaves tied to the branches to shed rain. A young woman, perhaps
his wife or daughter, was near the house nursing a fire over which
she was boiling rice. Her height was a little less than my "wild
man's." Obviously she had been gardening, for she was dressed
in a series of camote vines wrapped around her middle. The
"garment" was a cure for "a sick" in her stomach.

On Monday the internship officially began with a meeting of
our group from the boat and the Civil Service committee. We were
sent to Baguio in the northern part of Luzon for a general indoctri-

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 11

nation which would place special emphasis on a study of the peo-
ples of the islands and their history. The Americans had been in
the islands for about fourteen years at that time and had established
a fairly stable government. But to be sure there was ill-feeling for
the Americans among the local politicians who had tried to take
over when the Spaniards had been ousted. For the first few years
there had been warfare; Aguinaldo had been the chief leader of
the Filipinos.

The positions available to my group of would-be civil servants
varied; there were jobs for secretaries, school supervisors, teachers,
etc. One assignment called for setting up a school and teaching
among the people known as Manobos, in central Mindanao, the
second largest island of the Philippines, located far to the south.
Nobody wanted this task, but I foresaw adventure waiting there,
since the people were designated as headhunters.

The Manobos lived in groups ruled by chieftains called datos.
There was much intertribal warfare, with war parties raiding each
others' villages and warriors taking their enemies' heads as trophies.

The constabulary had been unable to stop these battles merely
by punishing the raiders. So a more peaceful method was sought.
The plan was to establish a school and demand that each dato send
a boy, preferably a son or some other close relative, to attend the
school along with other youths from the various groups. It was
hoped that by bringing the young of the tribes together, they might
get acquainted and forget past wrongs.

The school was to be built in Bunawan and the curriculum
was to be chiefly baseball and corn-growing. Later we planned
to provide classes in elementary English (at this time Spanish was
the official language of the islands but English was also taught in
most of the schools).

Having finished the orientation, our group in Baguio split up
and we set out for various destinations. I traveled by interisland
boat, which had a regular run from Manila to Cebu. At Cebu I
waited several days for transportation to Butuan, the capital of
the province in which much of the Manobo population was to be
found. At Butuan, which is near the mouth of the Agusan River
on Mindanao, I was delayed some little time waiting for the high
tide that would permit the boat to pass the bar near the mouth
and go on up to the wharf.

I was met by a Mr. Scott, a school man, and the governor of the
province. That first evening there was a dinner with three other
government workers as guests. They had much to tell me of the
Manobos and of my prospects at Bunawan, which they said was
quite safe. We discussed the wisdom of my carrying a gun, but the
governor said, jokingly, "The natives would probably kill you quicker

12 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

for the gun than for your head!" And he ruled against my taking
any arms.

4. Along Crocodile Road

There were practically no roads through the province, so travel
was by river. We had hoped to make the journey up the river in
a launch which the governor of Agusan used for his inspection
journeys in the province, but this unfortunately was temporarily
out of order and other means of travel had to be devised. Conse-
quently, a bamboo raft was prepared.

This, of course, was my primary concern; putting up with Mr.
Scott while I was fabricating the raft was my second. Bamboo is
a gigantic member of the grass family; sometimes the stems are
forty or more feet high and three to five inches in diameter. The
stems are jointed and hollow. Each joint has a separate cavity two
to four inches in diameter, which accounts for bamboo's buoyancy
in water. The outer walls of the stems are very hard and perfectly
smooth save at the joints, where there may be small leaves and
tiny sharp spines that are easily brushed away; water cannot enter.
The cut stems are fastened together into a platform with strips of
rattan made from the outer part of the vinelike trunk of a climbing
palm. When two or three layers of such platforms are placed one
above the other and tied together, they may support a superstruc-
ture for protection from the sun and a surprising amount of cargo,
as well as a crew of oarsmen and passengers.

The material for this raft had been prepared the preceding day.
I had gone into the forest with the men who cut the bamboo with
their large bolo knives, tied it in bundles, and had it dragged out
by a carabao, a domestic buffalo the Filipinos use for a draft
animal.

I also accompanied the group as they looked for rattan, which
most of us know as the "cane" that we find woven into the seats
or backs of chairs. As stated this material is stripped from the
outer wall of a strange palm that grows like a vine from the
ground, climbing up a tree that supports it as long as the tree lives.
If the supporting tree should fall, the palm trunk grows along the
ground, moving much like a great serpent, until it contacts another
tree and climbs this. Sometimes the trunk is more than two hundred
feet long with the foliage and fruits found only at the growing end.
Since it does not increase in diameter, the entire trunk usually
grows to only one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half inches across! This
trunk also contains a clear sap that looks like water and is nearly
as tasteless. A piece six or eight feet long cut from the trunk will
hold enough liquid to fill a canteen. Having learned this I rarely
had to carry drinking water during my jungle travels.

My first impression of the jungle was not the best. We had to

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 13

follow game trails used by deer or by the fierce-looking wild boar
to find our way through the thick growth. There were a few
fallen trees covered with an amazing number of vines and plants
that were still alive. The living trees of the forest, unlike those
in our American woods, often looked unhealthy because of dead
leaves mingled with the green ones. In this land of eternal summer,
these trees did not have the long winter rest that trees from cooler
zones experience. Frequently the foliage of ferns, orchids, or other
plants formed unsightly masses, often becoming so heavy as to
break off the branch on which they grew. Vines — lianas — some
slender, some thicker, might swing from a branch or be attached
to a trunk and might be decorated with other plants.

I saw a few birds in the low trees or shrubs, but if there were
songbirds they were high in the trees, too far away to be heard.
Occasionally the great ugly callaos (hornbills) were heard as they
flapped noisily from tree to tree, squalling their unpleasant call in
voices that make the crow's seem musical by comparison.

The leaves of the palm furnishing the rattan had very elongate,
whiplike tips hanging several feet in length, each with numerous,
circular series of upward-directed short spines. On the extreme
tips of several one noted curious rounded masses of fine fibers and
tiny grass leaves with an opening on the underside. These proved
to be birds' nests with eggs, whose tiny owners were scarcely larger
than hummingbirds. Dressed in flashing iridescent purple, they
were perched in the nearby shrubs scolding, angry indeed at having
their homes destroyed. Apparently the birds chose these long
slender tips on which to hang their nests to discourage prowling
arboreal serpents from eating eggs and young. It seems that the
snakes are afraid to venture over the very slender thorny surface
of the tip.

They certainly weren't afraid to venture elsewhere — the snakes,
that is. One of the men leading the way suddenly rushed back
toward us yelling, "Sawa!" I ran forward and saw a beautifully
colored python disappearing into a heavy thicket of bamboo, a
thicket so dense that there was no hope of capturing the snake.

We returned to Butuan without further incident and prepared
the craft for the upriver journey. The local police found grumetes
(oarsmen) who would row the raft upriver for me and then
return to Butuan.

One morning before sunrise my bags and boxes were taken
down to the dock and I went aboard my craft. The sun came up
yielding its usual quota of light and heat on the earth as well as
on the passenger, cargo, and crew. As we started off, I could not
help thinking of what my recent American acquaintances had
jokingly said about losing my head. While I was not particularly
afraid, I had to confess that the beginning of the journey did oc-

14 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

casion a certain uneasiness as I contemplated living in the village
of Bunawan and moving about in the area, visiting the villages of
the Manobos. At first I studied my surroundings, watched the
river for logs and the bank for crocodiles. The light reflection
from the water is irritating to unaccustomed eyes, sometimes pro-
ducing temporary blindness in the same way as light reflections
from snow. Of this I was to learn later.

We made occasional short stops to give the grumetes a rest.
During lunch hour I entered the forest to search for specimens
while I consumed the small lunch brought from Butuan. Returning
to the river bank, I saw a sudden flash of colors come near as a
small gliding lizard alighted on a nearby tree trunk. It was a Draco,
of which I had read but had never seen. It clung to the tree bark,
folded its wings, which were supported by five elongate ribs along
the sides of the body, and then began to elevate a curious, highly
colored projection on the underside of its throat. This specimen
was joined shortly by the female, which lacks the projection on
the throat (all females lack these appendages). It appears that
members of the many Draco species mate for life. The male con-
tinually displayed this ornament, called a dewlap, and also raised
his body away from the tree surface as if trying to stand on tiptoes!
I tried to collect them, but both escaped.

I was so interested in watching the river banks that I failed
to find interest in the magazines, mostly ancient, I had acquired
in Butuan. We passed numerous clearings and could occasionally
see patches of yams, upland rice, millet, and eggplant ( an elongate
variety called berenjena). If there was a house at the clearing,
there was also a small bamboo pen at the edge of the river where
the Manobo could bathe in comparative safety from the crocodiles
or obtain water to carry to the clearing.

At this time of the year the river was relatively low and the
strength of the downstream current varied. Occasionally a current
might be encountered where the river narrowed. That would reverse
the craft; the grumetes would then have to right it and hug the
bank until the swift current was passed. Once while we were
moving very close to shore, I noticed a branch hanging low over
the water — on it was coiled a young python. As we went under
the tree I grabbed the serpent from the branch and pulled it onto
the raft. When the oarsmen saw this, two leaped into the water
with much splashing about, while the man next to the shore jumped
to the bank, holding the raft to keep it from being carried back
down the river. The two other men grabbed oars, thinking to
kill the snake with them. Now, I knew that the snake was not
poisonous and, although it was a little more than six feet long,
and not as thick as my wrist, it could do no serious injury. The men,
of course, thought it dangerous and were risking being eaten by a

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 15

crocodile rather than remain on the raft with this snake. I hastily
crammed it into an empty rice sack, the snake in the process
showing its resentment to this indignity by biting me. The bite was
not pleasant, for the sharp teeth punctured my arm, but it was no
more dangerous than punctures made by several small sharp thorns.
I had caught my first Mindanao specimen! Had the animal been
full grown (they grow to a length of from twenty-five to thirty
feet and become as thick as one's thigh), I would have had to
attempt a very different means of capture.

The men were finally coaxed back on the raft and we started
again. But I had become to them a person of more importance,
one who did not fear the snake and was not injured by its dreaded
bite. Surely I had great magic powers, perhaps as great as those
of their priestess who, they said, could talk to the gods and devils.

I spent the rest of the afternoon learning Manobo words. I
would point to an object or animal or to parts of the body, the
men would give me a name, and I would write down the word
and try to pronounce it. Thus I learned the buaya was crocodile;
isda, the fish; icahig, water. I knew that soon I had to be able to
speak, at least a little, to those people in their own tongue if I were
to become their friend, even though some of the older settlers of
the town might speak Spanish, a language I had already studied.

At sundown we stopped for the night. I watched the grumetes
as they set about to collect firewood, a pole of dead bamboo, to-
gether with dead branches from a fallen tree. Pairs of stones a
few inches apart were set up for stoves, and pieces of burning
limbs were placed between the stones. Supper preparations could
now be started. Several handfuls of unpolished rice were taken to
the river's edge and washed many times by rubbing the grains
together between the palms. This technique removed bits of loose
starch from the rice so that the cooked rice grains would not ad-
here to each other. Then the rice was put in one of the burned-clay
pots, covered with an inch-and-a-half of water, and set upon the
fire to boil. A few camotes were washed and laid in the ashes of
the main fire to roast. By sign language, I induced the men to boil
a pot of water for my instant coffee, made from the "George Wash-
ington Coffee" I had brought along. I would use the excess boiled
water to fill my canteens for the next day.

The rice and camotes were soon cooked, and we relieved our
hunger. The rice was eaten with the hand as if the grains were
so many bread crumbs; a bunch of bananas suspended from the
canopy on the raft was our dessert. Our plates were square sections
cut from the huge, glassy-smooth leaves of wild banana plants;
our cups were of bamboo.

Since we had seen crocodiles in the vicinity7 when we ap-
proached the shore, I had the men cut a small path back from the

16 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

river bank for fifty yards, where the vegetation was somewhat less
dense and where the mosquito swarms were probably smaller.
Sleeping there would lessen the chance of being disturbed by a
roving crocodile. It was getting dark so I lighted my Coleman
lantern, purchased in Manila, and had the men set up my army cot.
At each corner of the cot they placed a stake about six feet high,
to which my mosquito net could be fastened. They fetched a
heavy woolen blanket from the raft because the nights were usually
chill. I had also brought my python from the raft and had sus-
pended its sack by a strip of rattan on the underside of a limb, so
it would not serve as bait for other animals. For themselves, the
men placed four thick bamboo stakes in the ground, lashed cross-
pieces to them about two feet above the ground, and laid split
bamboo strips on the crosspieces. Thus they had a dry bed, two
feet wide and six feet long, raised above the wet forest floor. They
had no mosquito nets, and I felt sorry for their having to put up
with the mosquitoes feeding on them during the night.

As night fell I began hearing frog voices and other strange calls
that I suspected came from night birds or lizards. Once we were
prepared for the night, I decided to take my light and try to locate
the source of these sounds. When they saw I was going to leave
camp, my men became very agitated and tried to prevent me from
going, but I could not understand all that they were saying. I
learned later that, brave as they are, the Manobos are afraid of the
forest at night. They ascend to their houses and bar the doors,
for at night the forest belongs to the animals, the gods, and the
devils. If they must venture into the dark jungle at all, it is only
in armed parties.

Hacking at vines, shrubs, and branches with a bolo, I pushed
some distance from the river in the general direction of the sounds
and came upon a trunk of a huge, recently fallen tree, over which
clambered a profusion of living vines, ferns, orchids, and begonias.
(In this territory where there is little wind, many large trees have
no taproot, but only a series of small roots which, with buttresses,
hold them up; they may become unbalanced and fall.) When
such a tree is standing upright, it shelters the animals in which I
was interested — lizards, serpents, frogs, and toads — far out of reach
of a collector. But here was this one lying on the ground, ready
for me to begin my search for its inhabitants; I only hoped all the
animals hadn't been killed by the fall.

I approached the trunk with extreme caution, trying not to
disturb any creatures that might be present, and listened carefully.
Despite my silence the frogs had quit calling. I waited one minute,
two minutes, five, ten minutes when a feeble frog call rewarded
my patience. Then another, and another, each stronger than the
previous one. I moved forward and tried to see the frogs. Surely

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 17

the sound was coming from a leaf resting against the trunk just
above my head — but I saw no frog. At another point, where a
curly-leafed fern thrust up from a branch, I was sure I heard an-
other frog calling, but again, no frog. They must have been in-
visible, or else they could throw their voices.

I did find a small gecko, a lizard less than three inches long,
hidden between some leaves. As it ran across a leaf I grabbed it
and started to put it in my collecting bag; on opening my hand
I found that I held only its tail, which had broken off. The tail
was writhing and twisting, turning over and over as if it were
in fact a live animal, but the animal was gone. It was a demonstra-
tion of a curious trick that many kinds of lizards use when a
snake or other animal seeks to capture them. The lizard, seized
by the tail, merely detaches it and escapes, while the snake stops
to consume the twisting tidbit. Meanwhile the lizard has suffered
no serious ill effect, only the loss of a drop or two of blood. A new
tail begins growing soon, and after several months the lizard has
a fine new tail; it does, however, look different from the old one.
This tail, too, may have to be sacrificed to save the lizard's life.
If so, another will be grown!

The root mass of a large fern became a tempting distraction and I
began digging in it with my bolo. I unearthed a number of insects,
worms, and centipedes. Then to my surprise and delight there
appeared a small shiny-scaled snake (Typlrfops), no bigger around
than a pencil, and only a little longer. Its tail was no longer than
the width of the body and was tipped with a tiny spine. It made
no attempt to bite me as the python had. I suppose it just hadn't
learned that snakes were supposed to bite. The most extraordinary
thing was that the snake had no visible eyes; it was totally blind.
I wondered what strange sense organs this creature possessed to
enable it to find its way up trees in total darkness, to burrow into
root masses of air plants and find wonns and centipedes or frogs to
eat, to find places to hide its tiny eggs and bring its young into the
world, all this without eyes, or a voice, or arms and legs, without
any obvious way of protecting itself. Surely such a creature is a
marvel.

Subsequently, two small lizards were captured, and as I moved
silently forward toward the top of the tree I was suddenly startled
by a great commotion directly in front of me. I froze, stiff with
fright, as a wild boar — a massive sow — emerged from a mass of
shrubs. She had been asleep with her litter of pigs. For a moment
she was blinded by the light, moving round and round, snorting and
cavorting; then she saw me and started her charge. Coming to my
senses I quickly grabbed a branch and, still holding my light, pulled
myself onto the top of the fallen trunk. She now had become accus-
tomed to the light and was rearing up against the trunk in an attempt

18 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

to get at me, but I was quite out of reach of her tusks. After
some time she collected her squealing pigs and moved off into the
dark jungle, still grunting her obvious displeasure at having been
awakened from a sound sleep. My heart was pumping fast with
fright.

While recovering my composure, I solved the mystery of the
invisible frogs. I discovered atop the fallen trunk little pockets of
water; beside one was a handsome male frog (Rhacophorus), pre-
sumably calling for a mate. It was a vivid yellow with handsome
decorations of brown. Its great bulging eyes, blinded by my light,
blinked slowly. I picked it up without difficulty and examined it.
The hands and feet were large, their tips expanded and equipped
with sticky pads. Between the fingers and toes were ample webs of
skin, which were not for swimming because these were tree frogs
that even put their eggs high in the branches. The webs act as para-
chutes, of a sort. As the frogs hop from leaf to leaf, or branch to
branch trying to capture a night-flying moth, there is always the
chance of a fall. When this happens the frog spreads its hands and
feet, flattens its body, and lands as easily as a paratrooper. The
books call this creature the "flying frog."

Another frog call took me from my path, and I soon came across
a game trail and followed it a few yards. Some recently cut branches
caught my attention and I noticed a partly hidden cord crossing the
trail. Then I saw that a small sapling had been pulled laterally as
far as possible; its top was cut off and a sturdy bamboo spear at-
tached to its end. Had I not seen that small cord on the trail I would
have sprung the trap, and the bamboo spear might have penetrated
me instead of a passing deer, for which it had been intended. I had
discovered that devils were not the only dangers in the forest.

When I returned to camp I found that we had visitors. Several
local Manobos had seen us land and suspected that we intended to
rob their farms, located on our side of the river but farther down
than I had been. They came to investigate and my men had told
them that we were not robbers, that I was a "government Ameri-
cano." They must have been reassured, for when I arrived the
visitors were squatting in the dugout canoe with their spears, swat-
ting at mosquitoes and chewing betel nut. This nut grows on a tall
slender palm; the natives chew it with lime, buyo leaves, and a bit
of tobacco into a huge wad that is held between the lips. The juice
permanently stains their lips and tongues an orange-red and blackens
their teeth.

Finally the local Manobos left, and I went to my cot and crawled
in under the mosquito net. Sleep did not come at once as I thought
over the happenings of the day and wondered what the year held in
store for me. How would I fare with these people, with their gods
and devils, and with the jungle? I began to realize I was not as

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 19

brave as I had thought, but was also aware that I must make the
natives think I feared nothing. If anything I felt that I might do
well to make them afraid of me, and prove that I had strong magic
and could kill, even though I didn't have a gun.

The next morning, after a hasty breakfast, we placed the baggage
on the raft and were again slowly pushing upriver against our ever-
changing current. My specimens of frogs and lizards were preserved
in formaldehyde; in my notebooks I recorded the colors and the
behavior of the animals, as seen in daylight, as well as the manner
and place of their capture. My python had become quite content to
sleep in its sack in the shade, but the gru metes always avoided
coming near it. I wished that I could have understood the comments
they made about its capture and about the "Mericano" who braved
the jungle devils at night merely to find frogs and lizards, and who
had magic enough to escape unscathed from the bite of the saw a.

Once during the morning we stopped at a clearing and traded
some of our rice for ca motes, a few ears of green corn, and other
native vegetables and fruits together with a quantity of millet that,
when boiled, would serve as my breakfast cereal. I had indulged in
the luxury of bringing along cases of canned milk; cow's milk in this
country is unknown, and milk is rarely taken from the goat or the
carabao. Mothers furnished the milk for their babies.

Late in the afternoon we passed Talacogan, a large settlement
that had long been established. Its inhabitants were of varied origin:
Christian Visayans, who had emigrated from islands north of Min-
danao; Chinese, who were tradesmen or small merchants; but the
majority were Manobos, who had built houses in the town and used
their old jungle houses only while working their clearings in the
forest. Many had lived here for years and were fairly civilized.

Two more nights and days passed before we approached the
small village of Bunawan. We had left the great Agusan River
the previous day and were now ascending the Bunawan, one of the
larger branches of the Agusan, which had a stronger current. This
river really had many Manobo names, one for each stretch of river
between villages. I never learned them all.

Learning more of the Manobo language, though, had now be-
come something of a game. My men would call my attention to new
animals or birds as they came in sight, and we would try to talk
about them in Manobo. When I did not understand what they were
saying, the men would repeat their words in a louder voice, as if I
were deaf!

As we moved up the Bunawan, we saw wandering groups of
monkeys silently watching us from the trees along the river; they
would begin chattering only after we had passed. It seems they
were great pests to the farmers in the daytime, raiding cornfields and

20 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

stealing fruit when the watchful eye of the native was turned. The
men pointed out the strange nest of the callao, the loud-mouthed
bird with a huge bill ( it looks as if it were the great-grandfather of
the Kansas Jayhawk). The bird nests in the cavity of a tree trunk,
where the female lays the eggs. The male carries mud to plaster
up most of the opening so that the incubating female can only stick
out her head. Of course, the male has to feed her, which he seems to
do quite willingly, perhaps because he knows that the eggs will be
properly cared for and that the female won't be going to afternoon
bridge parties, or gossiping with the neighbors over the back fence,
letting the eggs get cold. And she is probably content to stay put

Fig. 1.— E. H. Taylor, 1912-13, at the age of about 23-24 years, in the
Philippines. Photo courtesy of Kraig Adler.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 21

because she loses her old feathers and grows a new lot while in
seclusion.

At last, as we rounded a bend in the river, the village of Bunawan
came into view. A crowd had already gathered on the bank, having
learned by jungle telegraph of our coming. The villagers had re-
ceived a report of our trip before we had been gone from the coast
half a day — "seven-man raft, one Mericano, government man, plenty
cargo, no soldier." The telegraph appeared to be a most efficient use
of the elements at hand. Many large forest trees had buttresses
growing out from the trunk near the ground; they usually were only
a few inches thick, but ten to fifteen feet high, and often extended
from the tree as much as twenty feet. The buttresses served to prop
up the tree and, together with the roots, held it erect. When the
buttresses were struck with a club they gave forth a very loud
booming sound that could be heard over a long distance. In this
manner, messages were relayed very rapidly from one farm or village
to the next. Unfortunately, I never learned this telegraph code or
how to send a message.

About noon we drew up to the pantalon, a small bamboo pier.
My bags and cargo were taken to the presidentia, a government
house where officials passing through might be temporarily quar-
tered. Several men seeking a job as a muchacho or houseboy waited
on the steps of the house for me to appear. I looked them over and
chose one who knew a little Spanish and set him the task of pre-
paring my lunch.

Our cooking arrangements were relatively primitive and promised
to remain that way. Our stove was a heavy platform on which earth
and stones were piled to hold up the clay pots when fires were built.
I had a few kitchen utensils and a few dishes. My houseboy knew
how to cook rice and to boil vegetables reasonably well, but, since I,
of course, knew nothing about cooking, there was little I could teach
him. There would be no bread, no apple pies, no ice cream — foods
I had considered necessary to support life. It was rather a dull
prospect.

5. My New Neighborhood

I took a short siesta after lunch, and when I awakened, refreshed,
I decided to walk about the town to see what I might discover.
There was a trading store or tienda where the natives brought in
products, chiefly abaca fibers, to trade for rice or corn imported by
the government from China or from other areas of the Philippines.
The Visayan and Chinese inhabitants who spoke some Spanish in-
terrupted what they were doing and greeted me with "Buenos dias
Senor." The men were dressed in ordinary undershirts and trousers.
The Manobos were somewhat more aloof and kept their distance.
They were dressed more colorfully in very short, decorated trousers.

22 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Most of the villagers went back to their tasks after they had finished
inspecting me, but a number stopped to lounge on the broad stair-
way of the presidentia.

Because of the dampness most houses were built off the ground
and seemed to follow the same general plan. Four great hardwood
posts were erected; and about ten or twelve feet from the ground,
four more slender poles were lashed between them with rattan. These
poles served to support a floor, made of long pieces of split bamboo
held in place with rattan. The framework for the roof was con-
structed by laying four heavy timbers on top of the four corner posts
and then fastening a series of slender bamboo poles to the heavier
ones. Woven, palm-leaf shingles were attached to the bamboo so
that water could not penetrate the roof. The walls were bamboo
slats covered with the same shingles; the door was made from strips
of bamboo. Frames of palm-leaf shingles, called media agnas, were
used as coverings for windows. These could be opened and raised
outward to let in light or closed against the rain. As a decorative
touch, air plants of the orchid family were brought in from the forest
and hung under the eaves.

Each house had a small yard and was usually surrounded by
fruit trees. I found that they bore an astounding variety — luscious
mangoes with a delicious flavor like no other fruit, russet globes
called chicos, breadfruit, filled with edible seeds the size of chest-
nuts, great arboreal jackfruits that were as large and almost as heavy
as watermelons but quite different in appearance, lanzones, baunas,
and even oranges. Outside the town where the land had been cleared
I found extensive plantings of bananas and of garden vegetables.
There was also a small cemetery.

I crossed the river to the site that had been acquired for the
proposed school and farm and again I almost despaired of the
project. The land had been partially cleared many years before, but
much of it had been covered with new forest growth and only a
small clearing remained. Piled about were boards sawed from a
tree known as the Philippine mahogany, and two Chinese workmen,
employed by the governor, were sawing more logs into boards.
When sufficient wood had been prepared, construction would be
started on a school-dormitory for the boys and on a house for me.
Corrugated iron for the roofs of both buildings was already at hand,
having been shipped in from Manila.

When I returned to the village there was much excitement. The
body of a fourteen-year-old Manobo girl had been found in one of
the clearings upriver. She had been sold by her father to an old,
one-eyed man for a wife, but she had refused to stay in her husband's
house since already she had a sweetheart. He was still too young to
be able to pay the bride price of grain, spears, and cloth that the
father demanded. So the girl had run away from the old man and

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 23

had presumably hidden on her father's clearing, but no one knows
what happened to her after that. Some thought she had been bitten
by the deadly haguason, the cobra, while others maintained that she
had eaten the poison berries, the juice of which is put in pools to kill
fish. Her clothes, of abaca cloth decorated and embroidered with
colored yarns, were muddied and bedraggled. Her body, badly
bloated, gave me no certain clues that would indicate the exact
cause of death. But this was not as important as the fact of her
death, that she must have felt dying was the only way to escape a
dreary and unwanted husband. Somehow I had not realized that
these people, too, experienced the tragedies common to all human-
kind, and that young love in Mindanao could be beset with the
same troubles as befell it elsewhere in the world.

She was buried in a crude coffin in a shallow grave. About thirty
women, a few men, and numerous children made up the funeral
procession that followed the pallbearers to the cemetery. The
women, by moaning, shrieking, and wailing at the tops of their
voices as the grave was filled, showed their great respect to the
dead and their sympathy for the parents. When the coffin was cov-
ered, the mourners went back to their own homes to pound the husks
from the rice for the evening meal, or to take up their weaving, or to
resume their other mundane duties.

One morning at breakfast my houseboy brought me some very
serious news. "Senor," he addressed me in Spanish, "was pangayao
in the village Saguhunto. Saccopies Dato Taoidi kill much people.
Think maybe come Bunawan for pangayao also maybe. I have
afraid." Translated that means that the followers of the old Dato
Taoidi, a notorious headhunter, had raided a distant town and
killed several people and that they might come to Bunawan to make
a raid, and that my houseboy was afraid.

After breakfast I walked down to the store to get more informa-
tion about this latest headhunt. A native of the village that had been
raided had fled to Bunawan and told us how a war party had come
by way of the river and had hidden in the forest near his village.
The first killings occurred about nightfall, when one or two men
living in the more isolated places were attacked as they were
ascending the notched bamboo poles to their tree houses. At another
house a raider, pretending to be a neighbor, called the dweller to
come out and then with a well-directed spear pinned his victim to
the door; his dying screams alarmed the residents of houses within
hearing distance. The visitor didn't know the details of all the kill-
ings, but he was certain that at least six persons had died before the
attackers left. He said he was sure the raiders were the subjects of
Dato Taoidi, the outlaw for whom the constabulary had been search-
ing ever since a group of eight soldiers had been waylaid and killed
by his people. I made a preliminary report of the affair for the

24 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

governor. He needed additional information and so had soldiers
return with the newsbearer to the raided village.

There was talk among the Manobos that perhaps they would
help the villagers of Saguhunto go against the villages of Taoidi.
They speculated whether a war party might attack our town, but
this idea was disabused by some of the Visayans who were sure that
Bunawan was safe. I, too, was dubious of such a prospect and went
about my daily work.

The pile of boards had greatly increased, and as soon as the
carpenters arrived from the coast they would begin work on our
buildings. In the interim, we began the planting. I had a man
prepare ground for a vegetable garden, and I put in the onion,
radish, tomato, and eggplant seeds I had brought with me. On part
of the cleared land, we planted more than a hundred banana suckers;
in a small swamp area, gabi, a root vegetable, with arumlike leaves;
and in another plot, manioc, the tapioca plant which produced large
tubers.

The carpenters finally arrived and the buildings went up rapidly.
A carabao had been purchased to help drag the heavy poles for
the corners of the buildings. The animal was afraid of me but not of
any of the natives. It assumed a threatening attitude if I came close
to it and would snort and stamp its feet in warning. It took several
weeks for it to become accustomed to me.

I began to take short jaunts into the great forest surrounding the
school farm. The forest spread out to the east and north for thirty
to forty kilometers in each direction, and in this territory there was
not a single known human inhabitant. Presumably the area was
taboo and no one could, or at least no one would, live there. When
I tried to find out why, nobody seemed quite certain. It may have
been that in the past the blackwater fever or smallpox had killed
any inhabitants, but the people at Bunawan just shrugged their
shoulders and said many gods and devils lived there. And it was
impossible for me to tell whether the forest had ever been cleared.
At any rate I foresaw being able to explore this region of three-
hundred square miles without the risk of a chance encounter with
a headhunter; and I had regained enough of my arrogance to think
I could easily outwit the gods and devils.

One or two of the local Manobo boys I had chosen for the school
were allowed to accompany me to carry my specimen sacks and a
bolo, to help me turn over logs, and what was more important, to
warn me of traps. They brought along the weapons, blowguns or a
bow and arrow or, perhaps, only a spear. At first they did not like
the idea of my catching serpents; they would run away each time I
caught one and I would have to coax and plead to get them back.
Later when they learned that the small shiny skinks ( lizards ) were
harmless they would try to get specimens for me. The day Tiburcio

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 25

shot a flying lizard on the wing with a blowgun, he became a most
enthusiastic helper. His feat earned deservedly high praise even if
it was the result of a happy accident! From then on, he would some-
times induce other boys to accompany him to hunt for specimens.

On these trips I would practice speaking their language and try
to teach them American words and phrases. Most of the boys had
two names, one given by their parents which might describe a
characteristic or quality — strong man, hunter, fisher, crooked eye,
tall reed, and so on. At a later time, when the priests came to their
villages, they had acquired "Christian" names, Spanish names such
as Antonio, Pedro, Eleoterio, or Juan. At least one of these priests
was reported to have been killed in Bunawan and no one knew how
many more had met such a fate.

The boys were naturally curious about me, wanting to know how
many men I had killed and how many heads I had taken. Did I
have a gun? They thought maybe I was a coward. But I assured
them I did not need a gun to kill and bragged that if I wanted to
kill somebody at Talacogan or even at Butuan I could do it without
going to either place. I established my magical powers by per-
forming a few ordinary sleight-of-hand tricks and by using a bit of
harmless subterfuge. I told the boys I could make a coin disappear
or put a snake in somebody's pocket. Sure enough, one boy or
another would find the small, harmless snake or the coin that I had
placed in his pocket a few minutes before. I convinced them I had
great power over snakes by means of a small green one I had found
at Bunawan. It could be placed in a certain position from which it
would not move for hours, and to the boys this was the most amazing
magic of all. I was even beginning to believe myself omnipotent and
discovered a way to reinforce that idea among my charges. While
reading about a forthcoming eclipse of the moon in my month-old
American newspaper from Manila, I remembered an incident from
one of my childhood books, Alan Quartermain by H. Rider Haggard,
in which the foretelling of such an event had awed the native Afri-
cans. So I told the boys that I would have the moon taken out of
the sky very soon. But that was going a little too far and, in disbelief,
they said that the great crab Tuda ate the moon and that I could
do no such thing. I told them to wait and see.

The rains, which up to this time had come in gentle showers
perhaps twice a week, now began to arrive daily and increased in
intensity, lasting from half-an-hour to as much as two hours. There
was no lightning and no thunder, and to the best of my remem-
brance, I did not see lightning nor hear thunder in my two years at
Bunawan. Only once was the wind stronger than what we would
call a heavy breeze.

One afternoon I crossed the river to go to the village and came
unexpectedly into a small new clearing. About seventy-five yards

26 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

from the edge of the clearing a house was in the process of construc-
tion. It was obviously being built by one of the forest men who had
been persuaded to come to town to learn about civilization. I had
scarcely entered the clearing when a carabao tethered to a tree be-
side her young calf saw me. She bellowed, got up, and prepared
to charge. I ran rapidly toward the house, the carabao following.
When she had run as far as the rope tied to a ring at the end of her
nose would allow, she was stopped at least temporarily while I
gained the shelter of the house. As I approached the house I called
out, "Laki aco, I am friend," then ascended the notched pole that
led to the entrance. Meanwhile the carabao returned to her calf.

In the single room of the house were two men, a woman, and a
small child approximately two years old. All were startled at my
arrival and seemed much afraid of me. The child began to cry
lustily because mothers there, as in many other places, try to disci-
pline their children by telling them the bad man will get them if
they are not good. Here the worst thing they could say was that the
Americano would get them! The frightened child probably thought
I had come to take him. While the mother sought to calm her baby,
I tried to talk to the men but they were reluctant to respond and I
did not understand them very well. The child, at last quiet, had left
its mother and was moving over to the father, but in so doing slipped
and fell through an opening in the unfinished floor to the muck
twelve feet below.

I swung from the side beam of the house to the ground and,
reaching the child first, picked him up, only to discover that his tiny
pipestem of an arm had been broken above the elbow. The bone
had pierced the flesh and had been driven into the muck by the fall.
The fall and the pain had rendered the child unconscious. The
parents, seeing the child motionless, thought him dead, and pande-
monium broke loose about me. The mother was screaming fren-
ziedly and was trying to take the child from my arms. The father
and the visitor had seized their bolos and were slashing the air, often
quite close to me, striking terrific blows against the walls and the
heavy poles that supported the house. They were yelling out their
most terrible curse, "Untie yawa" (may lightning strike you). I
expected them to turn on me with their knives, but maintained my
hold on the limp child. I remembered all too well the Manobo code
of a life for a life and knew I must save him.

The commotion had attracted the attention of neighbors who
came running with their knives, thinking that a raiding party was
attacking. One of the newcomers knew a little Spanish so I told
him to go to my lodgings and get the medicine kit from my house-
boy. The child had begun to whimper and the mother quieted
down, seeing that her baby was alive, but the two men kept up their
attack on the side of the house. When the disinfectants came I tried

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 27

to clean the protruding bone but the pain caused the child again to
lapse into unconsciousness, a fortunate anesthesia. I proceeded to
clean the wound as well as I knew how, then I set the bone and
splinted it with two pieces of bamboo. The child had recovered its
senses and for the first time I relinquished my hold on him. The
mother took it and offered it her breast.

I told the parents I would return with more medicine in the
morning and warned them not to touch the splints. I walked off but
soon found it necessary to stop and recover some degree of calm
before returning home. For the moment my morale was completely
shattered by the happenings. I was sick with regret at having been
the innocent cause of the accident, and at having seen the suffering
of the child and the anguish of the parents. And my fears for my
own life had left me weak.

In the morning I returned with my medical kit. I was sickened to
find that the splints had been removed and the bandage replaced by
a mass of dirty human hair tied around the wound. The child was
whimpering and moaning in a troubled sleep. Again I set the arm,
bound on the splints, and threatened that we would have to take the
child to the presidentia if the bandage and splints were not left in
place. But unfortunately, by my next visit, the family had dis-
appeared into the forest and it was many weeks before they returned.
When they did, the child had recovered, but he had a shamefully
crippled arm.

6. Plow and Carabao

My house of Philippine mahogany was completed, but there was
no evidence of the magnificent mahogany sheen one sees on fine
furniture. It was covered with paint. The rough-hewn boards might
have been of the cheapest wood known except for the fact that the
termites could not destroy it. The house was anything but a palace.
It had two reasonably-sized rooms, and a smaller one that would
serve as the kitchen. Windows were square openings with wooden
covers that could be propped up or lowered as the weather de-
manded, and were designed to carry away smoke from the open fire
used for cooking. Unlike the houses in the village, the floor of this
one was only three feet from the ground but this still allowed for
sufficient ventilation to keep it dry.

The dormitory, too, was completed. Supplies had arrived by
raft — necessities such as cots, blankets, and mosquito nets, and
luxuries such as tin plates, tin cups, and cutlery had been purchased.

My houseboy was afraid to sleep in proximity to the great forest
and its spirits, so each night he would go back across the river to
town, and he urged me to sleep in the village too. Since the house
was low and the windows open I did take the precaution of placing
under my pillow of kapok (tree cotton), a kris (knife) about two-

28 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

and-a-half feet long, with a sharp sinuous edge. Now many of these
knives have two sharp edges, but even with one it was a wicked
weapon. You see, I wasn't as brave as I wished everyone to think,
and I felt it wise to be prepared. I really was growing quite lonely
and found it difficult to sleep; moreover, I was awakened by very
slight noises, the python crawling in its box, a small forest rat forag-
ing, or even a barefoot step on the path coming up from the river.

When this happened one particular night, I first thought the
sound had come from within the room. I held my breath for some
moments, all the while feeling the presence of someone else in the
dark. My hand stole under the pillow until it encountered the hilt
of my kris; then I waited, feigning sleep. The moon was shining and
slowly there appeared against the open window the outline of the
head and naked shoulders of a Manobo. The individual stood still
watching my bed and my covered form. Since my cot was just inside
the window, he would have had to lean through it to deliver an
efficient blow. At that moment I might strike. I waited endless
minutes for some overt move, wondering whether he was alone.
Eventually the visitor turned and moved away from the window. I
raised up slowly to see the shadowy form disappearing down the
path. If curiosity was the sole reason for his coming, presumably it
had been satiated. If he had come hoping to take a head, he had
obviously decided to postpone the execution until a more propitious
time — maybe he had been distracted by the call of a limocon, the
dove of prophecy. At any rate he had given me a fright that would
keep me alert.

One morning I was again awakened unaccountably. I got up and
began walking down the path toward the river when the earth under
me began to wobble about a bit as if I were having an attack of
dizziness. I was experiencing my first Philippine earthquake, one of
a series that was to last for two months and would include more
than 200 shocks (by official tabulation). I might explain here that
the Agusan Valley is between two great volcanoes, Camaguin, lo-
cated on a small island that we passed as we approached Mindanao,
and Apo, which lay to the south about seventy-five miles as the crow
flies. Their intermittent activities probably triggered the frequent
earthquakes in this region. It must have been a preliminary shock
that had awakened me in the first place.

The movement stopped and I had started to return to the house
when another shock toppled me to the ground, and the house and
dormitory began to rock back and forth drunkenly. There was an
immediate commotion in the dormitory and boys began to spill out
through doors and windows yelling "temblor" and other things I did
not understand, while the rattling of the corrugated iron roof and
the screeching of wood made a considerable din. Several boys had
been thrown forcibly from their cots to the floor. And although all

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 29

had been through earthquakes none had experienced this, since they
were accustomed to sleeping on the floor. The houses in the village
swayed back and forth without incurring any distinct damage. I
kept thinking that if this had happened in an American city it would
probably have done great damage, for the brick and stone buildings
would have fallen, and ordinary structures would have been wrested
from their foundations.

The boys tried to explain the cause of the quake as best they
could; a giant devil lived in the earth and when he turned over or
had trouble with his wife, the earth trembled and moved. One of the
boys who doubted my story of taking the moon out of the sky sug-
gested that maybe I could keep the giant quiet as I was such a
powerful man. I fear he was laughing at me.

During the morning I set the boys to clearing grass and weeds
from a small plot that was to serve us as a baseball diamond, for
baseball was to be one of the important courses in this school. I
wanted the boys from the various villages to become friends and
felt that teamwork might help.

When new boys arrived at the school, they all had to go through
the same procedure. A Chinese tailor measured them for suits of
khaki and issued them ordinary T-shirts and a pair of underpants.
Then came a bath and a physical inspection. Some boys had skin
diseases, various types of itches caused by small fungus plants grow-
ing under the skin. Others had infections from thorns or cuts in their
bare feet. My treatment of the skin diseases was invariably an
application of strong salicylic acid, a harmless substance that was
very effective in destroying the fungus. The small wounds were
washed and disinfected. The boys who had malaria were placed on
a dosage of quinine. Most of the Manobo children were skinny,
which suggested that their diet of rice and sweet potatoes was not
adequate. I was planning to find out what would happen if corn
were regularly added to their diet, since a poor quality of corn could
be purchased.

On the day of the earthquake word had been brought to Eleo-
terio that his mother was dead. He asked for some leftover boards to
make a coffin. When I visited their house sometime later, the women
had begun the wailing signifying mourning. On looking at the
woman in question it was evident that she was not dead, but merely
unconscious, and at times she would murmur unintelligible sounds.
She had been in this state for two days more or less, taking no food,
and it was indeed a miracle that the spark of life still flickered in her.
Everyone seemed aware of this but the priestess and others insisted
that she was dead, that a devil had entered her body and was making
them think she was still alive. They said the only way to get rid of
the devil was to bury the body. From the odor one might well
believe this.

30 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

I insisted, however, that they wait to bury her until the following
day; then I returned to the school. The next morning I found that
my arguments had been of no avail. She had been buried as soon as
I left, chiefly at the insistence of the priestess. Of course she was
now dead, and the devil in her body indeed destroyed.

The everyday tasks in the school were small, but one of the most
pressing was the preparation of food. Two boys were assigned to
the job each day. They had no objections to this arrangement since
cooking was not necessarily the work of women; here the men pre-
ferred to carry raw rice with them when they left home and cook
it themselves rather than eat cold food. The preparation of the corn
involved considerable work. The shelled corn was placed in a
wooden pestle and beaten with a stout blunted pole about six feet
long. Thus the corn was not only broken up, but the tough husk
around the grain was loosened. The broken grains were shaken and
tossed in a flat woven tray and the grits winnowed from the husks.
It was then merely boiled.

Corn was not entirely new to the boys, and it was to be the main
item for at least one meal each day. The other meals would consist
of rice combined with vegetables or yams or with green leaves from
edible plants. Often we were able to purchase from the villagers
vegetables and fruits, or a wild fowl, or fresh fish. Canned salmon
was served once a day. After they became accustomed to it, the boys
enjoyed the change in diet and it was interesting to see the effect the
wholesome food had on them, especially the corn. Their skinny
bodies and anemic brown skins began to look healthy and they even
began to appear plump; they shortly became a sound and happy
crew of youngsters.

Since my plan called for enrolling boys from all parts of the
Manobo country, it was necessary to visit a number of the outlying
villages on the western branches of the Agusan and in the upper
reaches of the Bunawan rivers to try to recruit students for the
school. I acquired a dugout canoe fashioned from the trunk of a
large tree and sent the constabulary to find four men to serve as
grumetes. I had erected a small canvas canopy over a part of the
canoe to obtain some protection from the sun, and had prepared
my collecting bags and specimen containers. My boy, Antonio, pre-
pared the food we were to take, and saw that everything else was in
readiness for the journey. We were to leave at daybreak on the
following morning so that we might travel during the cooler parts
of the day.

I spent part of the evening in the dormitory helping the boys
who were struggling with the simple sentences contained in a first
reader. I would read a sentence and they would attempt to repeat it
in unison, over and over again. Then I would give them words not

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 31

in the book. After a time Gimeno interrupted and said, "Show us
of the magic. When will you take the moon?"

I had told them I would take the moon on the following Thursday
evening. "You shall see, if the raincloud does not hide the moon.
You will see this happen."

"But sir, tomorrow you will go to the villages. How can you take
the moon when you are not here?"

"You will see, Tiburcio, whether I am here or not I will take the
moon. Perhaps I shall give it to the crab Tuda to eat and you will
have to scare the crab away." There was much talk in the dormitory
long after the lights were out.

Antonio awakened me at dawn and told me we could not start
the water journey. When I inquired what the trouble was he said,
"Manobo grumetes no go water journey. Limocon talk, no go. Bibi-
lan say no go." The green dove had forbidden it and the priestess
had relayed the message.

After my breakfast of millet, jackfruit, and coffee I crossed the
river to town to find out why we were not to make the journey. It
was as Antonio had said, the limocon had announced to the bibilan
that nobody could go on the water journey that day and all of my
own efforts to convince the grumetes to the contrary availed nothing.
We would go on the following day. If we went today perhaps
Mandalingan, their god, would make us die. It would seem that
Mandalingan and his limocon were endeavoring to thwart my
efforts.

The morning was spent with the boys in clearing some second-
growth forest; I took a walk back into the forest where a great
balete, or strangler fig, tree stood. It was locally known as the
kitchen of the god Mandalingan. The tree was massive, with thirty
or forty trunks ranging in diameter from six inches to perhaps three
feet or more scattered over a somewhat circular area of more than
forty feet in diameter. The whole was surmounted by a great, thick
canopy of branches, reaching almost to the ground, covered by
glossy leaves which hid its dark mysterious interior. It bore, at this
time, small, tasteless fruits, for in fact its figs are to humans an
inedible variety. But the fruit is the favorite food of the limocon;
and it was usual for the limocon to call from this tree.

At the base of the tree near the path, I saw some bamboo cups
which held a small quantity of rice, a small wooden tray containing
numerous other miscellaneous objects, some betel nut and lime, and
to prove that Mandalingan was an addict, one dry leaf from a
breadfruit held two frayed cigarettes. I suspected that Antonio had
himself placed them there. Doubtless they originally had come out
of my pockets. These offerings to Mandalingan were put there by
his devotees or bv the bibilan herself. When food was offered, it was
almost sure to be gone in the morning for the forest shrews, or the

32 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

tiny midget squirrels, not much bigger than mice, or the forest
burrowing rats, or any of a dozen other animals would assist Man-
dalingan in accepting the offering.

The relative darkness gave one the uncanny feeling that ghosts
might actually be hanging about, or that Mandalingan was hidden
there, peering out with an all-seeing eye, surrounded by devils ready
to do his bidding. Strangely enough the orchids, ferns, and other
plants that ordinarily cling to the bark and branches of almost all
forest trees were absent from the branches of this sacred tree. I
confess that it was weird and ghostly.

In the late afternoon we played baseball. I scarcely need say
this was not a regulation game of ball. A temporary bat was made
from a branch, and the ball, also temporary, was fashioned from the
fibers of the abaca plant, which were wrapped about a small stone
and covered with strips of hide. My players were rookies. Most
could throw rather well, but they would have done better with the
javelin, having already had considerable experience in throwing
spears. Later on, we did acquire a baseball and bat from Manila.

In the evening I became concerned about the eclipse. The boys
were somewhat excited about what I had told them, and they had
also talked to the bibilan and to some of the townspeople about it.
After dinner I again checked my old newspaper to verify the eclipse.
I had gone to the door a number of times to watch for the moon, and
when it finally appeared above the top of the forest, it was blazing
in full glorv. Shortly thereafter, though, Antonio came in and said,
"People by river — moon going away!" Sure enough, the edge of the
moon was showing a small black indentation. The eclipse was
indeed beginning.

The boys came out of the dormitory frightened and puzzled.
Was it only the crab that was eating the moon or did the Maestro-
Americano have something to do with it? Had I got the crab to
come this time? Some of the boys had seen this happening before,
but most had only heard about it, since they usually retired too early
to see an eclipse or lived in an area where prevalent clouds or the
forest itself hid the happening.

The crowd from the village on the opposite bank of the river
grew until practically the whole population was there. The men
were yelling and shooting bamboo arrows in the air; the women
were holding their crying babes. "Tuda, Tuda," they shouted as the
darkness covered more and more of the silver surface of the moon,
and they sped arrows toward the moon to chase the crab away.

"Tuda, Tuda, go away, go away!" Still more arrows and still the
moon continued to disappear; more arrows were brought. The
schoolboys got their arrows and shot them from our side of the
river. When the moon finally disappeared completely there was
consternation indeed. Usually the cries and arrows would have

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 33

caused the crab to spew out the moon, but now it was completely
gone. I assured the boys that I would make it reappear, and after a
short time a tiny rim of silver did appear; it grew larger and larger
until the great fat body of the moon was again placidly gleaming in
the sky, while the crab crawled back into the cavern of space.

7. Drafting Students

We were up and on our journey early next morning; the limocon,
if it had called, had used the proper notes and the journey was to be
auspicious. Two of the constabulary were to accompany me. Our
plan was to ascend the Bunawan River for two miles to a small
natural canal that ran ten or fifteen miles through the forest and
connected with some lakes through which the Agusan River flowed.
The lakes had been formed within the memory of the old men when
a great earthquake had caused the land to sink in this region, and
the depression had been filled promptly by the Agusan River.

Along the narrow channel, the banks were lined with a wild
variety of a grass resembling sugar cane. There I found a species of
small, shiny lizard with a brilliant red tail. The undersides of their
toes had tiny overlapping scales that allowed them to cling to the
smooth stocks and leaves of the canes. I recognized them as a
species of Emoia, which I later named E. ruficauda, and collected
several. A handsome, slender, green snake with a snout pointed
almost to the sharpness of a pencil was also taken. This was Dahun
palay, the rice-leaf snake, thought by the people to be deadly
poisonous. Although there is some poison, which is sure death to
small frogs and lizards, it cannot kill a large animal or a man; how-
ever, when I caught the snake, I held it so it could not bite.

We drifted with the current through the many channeled routes,
for here currents separated into different channels that reunited be-
low. Looking ahead I spotted a crocodile lying on the bank at some
distance, but since I thought we might pass bv the spot without
disturbing it, I said nothing to the grumetes or the boys. When we
were nearly opposite the crocodile, I suddenly heard movement and
yelled "buaya" as its great body plummeted from the bank to splash
water on us. Two of the men jumped into the water and swam a few
strokes to the other bank of the narrow channel. We drifted down
to pick them up and while the dripping grumetes again took their
places in the boat Antonio sagely remarked that they were "jumping
in crocodile's nest to escape crocodile."

Having come opposite the mouth of the Waloe River, which
entered the Agusan from the west, we now started up against a
current. The river was running high, and we camped at a place
where the falls made it necessary to leave our boat. When every-
thing was in readiness for the night, I took the lantern and went

34 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

collecting along the path that led to the villages of Sagunto and
Waloe. Only a few frogs were obtained.

The following morning, the two constabulary men found a guard
for the boat and we set off for the western villages on foot. We
traversed the path through the forest to the village of Sagunto.
There Dato Pada received us saying he had no son of the proper age
but we might take the son of his brother who was perhaps fourteen
years old. The boy, Basilio, was sent for and he appeared dressed in
his finery. He wore loose whitish trousers, highly ornamented with
red embroidery and decorated with bright red fringe at the bottom
of each pant leg, and a very short jacket, open in front. His long
hair was rolled along the sides and tied in a knot on his neck. He
had gold rings in his ears and wore bracelets and anklets of black
woven fibers. He was certainly picturesque and might even have
been called handsome except for the wad of biiyo in his lips and for
his blackened teeth. While Tuburcio talked to him, he looked rather
enviously at Tiburcio's trim khaki trousers and his coat cut with a
stand-up collar, such as soldiers formerly wore in the U.S. Army.
Tiburcio was a good salesman and told Basilio of the wonders of the
school and of the most extraordinary Maestro Americano who was
master over sawa and animals, and who said he was able to kill
people without a gun, and who could have the crab take the moon!
He also promised the boy a fine new khaki uniform like the one he
himself was wearing. The young man said he would give us an
answer when we came back from the next village.

We pushed on to the village of Waloe and found the people
there suspicious. This town was subject to the outlaw Dato Taoidi,
and his son was supposed to be living in the village with some
relative. I did not inquire at first about this boy, but asked about
another young man, Pedrinka, son of one of the bigganis (men
famous for their prowess in headhunting). Pedrinka was sent for
and, after some thought, said he would come to the school. Tiburcio
had told him about me, saying that I was not afraid of sawa. It
seemed that Pedrinka was not afraid of anything either. He was
very brave; he had killed three men. How many had the Americano
killed? Yes, he would come to the school, but he would bring two
other boys who, although not exactly his slaves, were required to do
his bidding. When we asked about Taoidi's son, we learned that he
lived there but could not be found. We left word that we expected
him to accompany Pedrinka to the school. At a later time he sent
word that he would only come to kill the Filipinos and the Ameri-
cano and the soldiers who wanted to punish his father. In the
fighting the soldiers had killed some of the friends and relatives of
his father. Through an intermediary I sent word to Taoidi that he
must surrender to the constabulary so peace could come to the

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 35

country. I stressed that he must send his son to the school with
Pedrinka.

On our trip back through Sagunto, we learned that the father of
our prospective student had agreed to send Basilio to the school. We
found our dugout, boarded it with the grumetes and guards, and
started upriver along the Bunawan. We passed the canal entrance
and made our way to a point opposite another settlement in the
forest. With Tiburcio and Antonio, who carried food for our
immediate needs, I left the boat and sent it back with the constabu-
lary and the grumetes to Bunawan. We would obtain a canoe and
leave the town by a branch of the Agusan that ran near the village.

I wanted to make an unannounced visit to the village of Dato
Badao. Previous attempts by the governor to see that dato had been
thwarted. The people left the village and hid in the forest, probably
because the governor had arrived with an armed patrol, and the
inhabitants feared they were under attack.

We did not know just how far Badao's village was from the
river. The two boys with me were afraid, and they wanted me to
return with the boat; but since I was determined to make the
journey, they reluctantly came along. We were uncertain whether
we had been observed and hoped to appear suddenly, before the
villagers had time to leave. We were soon aware that our presence
was known. A native began beating with his club on the buttress of
a forest tree, telegraphing our arrival to the village. Tiburcio trans-
lated. "Stranger come, big boat with soldiers. Soldiers, boat, go
away, Stranger in forest, two saccopie."

Tiburcio then found a small club and utilizing a large buttress,
himself sent a message. "Friend, friend, come visit Badao. No spear.
No gun. No soldier."

Tiburcio sent the same message two or three times, but when we
finally came to the village, not a single person was to be seen. All
had left the town, even the dogs had been taken. Tiburcio went up
to several houses calling, "laki." At last he discovered an old woman,
too ill to be moved, and perhaps ready to die anyway. She was, I
believe, the sister of Badao's father. The boys told her that a school
was being made, that we wanted as students one or two boys, the
sons of Badao or of his bigannes. I also left with her a message for
Badao. I explained I had come as a friend with no constabulary and
no guns. I told her I wanted Badao to come to Bunawan to talk to
the governor and negotiate a peace. Moreover, we wanted him to
bring one or more boys to the school. She said her people did not
want to be friends, and might kill us as we left the village.

We were in a quandary and became aware that our coming had
been a mistake. We knew a small branch of the Bunawan Biver ran
close to the village, affording possible escape. We descended from
the house, pretended we were starting back to the Bunawan River,

36 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

then disappeared into the brush and circled in the opposite direction
toward that branch of the Bunawan. At last we found a small
dugout canoe, appropriated it, and started drifting downriver toward
the upper reaches of the Bunawan. We had no oars, but by holding
a stick at the back end of the canoe it was possible to guide it. We
did not stop for our evening meal but continued drifting on the slow
current for some distance. We pulled the boat up out of the water
to wait for darkness, when we would drift on downriver to the
school. After about an hour we felt reasonably certain we were not
being followed. We then cooked rice and ate it as we drifted down
the river. We passed two other friendly villages in the night; at one,
we left our canoe, arranged for it to be taken back upriver, and
purchased another to continue our journey. The current was fairly
strong and we reached Bunawan sometime after midnight.

On our return we found everything placid, but the supplies that
usually came twice a month had not arrived and there was a shortage
of food in the school as well as in the village of Bunawan. I knew
the boys could find food in the forest, so one group was sent to hunt
for obud, the end growth of the trunk of certain kinds of palms.
Many are rather bitter but, with proper boiling, become palatable
nourishment.

I sent three boys in the canoe to visit the clearings along the river
to see if we could purchase vegetables, coconuts, and saguing, which
is Manobo for banana. With the remaining boys, and our axe, I
went into a partly cleared area and began preparing it for a vegetable
garden. The boys trimmed away the shrubs with their bolos and
the few small trees were cut down with the axe. The brush was piled
on poles and removed. Usually, when the Manobos made their
clearings, they left the trees just where they fell and would burn
them when thev were drv. At this season of the year, however, it
would have taken months for the brush and trunks to dry sufficiently
to burn.

In the afternoon the food hunters returned with a sufficient
quantity to keep the boys in food for three days. Surely the supplies
would arrive within this time. Indeed, the evening of the third day
the launch arrived with a half-month's supply of rice for the school
and some for the villagers, as well as with axes, saws, and even a
plow for the school. There was now no immediate threat of a famine.
I also received my first lot of mail from the States. I had almost
forgotten such things as daily newspapers existed.

8. Strife with Mandalingan

The following day we were actively engaged in clearing the land.
I taught the boys how to use the saw to cut down trees, and three of
the older boys learned to use the axes. I confess I expected them

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 37

to injure themselves, and one boy did hurt himself somewhat by
kicking his foot accidentally against an axe blade.

I mentioned that we had received a plow, made by a Chinese
"manufacturer." We fashioned a harness for the carabao from
braided rattan to replace the old ropes we had been using, and a new
singletree for attaching to the plow. Long before we had the whole
field completely cleared we began the plowing. Now, plowing in an
open field with horses or a tractor, and a good plow, may be fun.
But I assure you that with a water buffalo named "Slowpoke," and
a plow made by the Chinese at Butuan, to work in a field of green
stumps and soil that had never been plowed was not fun! It was a
gigantic task.

I was plowman. Scarcely would Slowpoke start before the plow
would be caught in a tangle of roots. Then we would have to back
up and start again only to get stuck in a soft green stump before the
animal had walked a dozen steps. One had to have the patience of
ten Jobs. Our plan was to work in shifts, the carabao being given a
rest about every two hours. She was led to the river and allowed to
lie in the water. Once a crocodile attacked her and injured her right
rump. But crocodiles or no, the carabao needed those breaks or she
would have been unable to work well.

The clearing of the land was wonderful for my collecting. In the
morning the boys had found a niagatilocock (Tarsier), a strange
midget of a primate with a body about five inches in length, and
long arms and tail. Its eyes were relatively huge. There were flat
nails on the thumb and first finger of the hand, and on the first three
toes. On the other digits were typical claws; one flat fingernail had
an incipient claw in its middle. I realized that, as a primate, this
midget was probably man's smallest living relative.

At least five or six species of terrestrial lizards, certain arboreal
geckoes, and three kinds of snakes were collected. Of the last, one
was a blind Typhlops found in a hollow within a small, severed tree.
It was a puzzle how the snake had found entrance, unless from
underground. Another snake (Haplopeltura boa) had fallen from a
small dead tree that was covered by lichens and mosses, and, indeed,
the coloration of the snake gave much the same mottled appearance
as the lichen-covered branches. It had remained motionless after its
fall, in fact practically rigid, feigning death. In this condition, it
was picked up.

This spot was visited again at night. Under the tree was a long-
accumulated quantity of dead branches. Moist, they gave off a
phosphorescent light, suggesting a mass of burning coals.

Work on the farm progressed, and after some weeks the land
intended for the cornfield had been cleared and plowed. There re-
mained many low stumps, a few high ones, and the great, spreading
balete tree that stood near the center of the field, shading part of

38 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

the cleared land and monopolizing a great area for its own needs.
With the removal of the surrounding trees more birds seemed to
congregate in it and the prophetic limocon called ominously and
frequently.

The last visit of the launch from downriver had brought us a
fine young Poland China boar, which the Bureau of Agriculture in
Manila had obtained for us from the Hawaiian Islands; we hoped to
improve the local breed of pigs, which were really stunted half-
brothers of the wild boar in the forest. In the same shipment our
corn seed arrived, obtained by the bureau from a foreign source that
I could not learn. I have never seen more beautiful corn. The ears
were large and shapely. The grains were the color of pearl, and on
the cob the neat, regular rows suggested nothing so much as a series
of pearl necklaces laid side by side. If we were successful in raising
corn in Mindanao, we were to return a quantity of the homegrown
seed to the Bureau of Agriculture.

The study of baseball had also progressed, and the new boys
from the western villages had arrived and been outfitted with khaki
uniforms. The day before their arrival, I had found a handsome
spreading cobra (Naja naja saniarensis), in the garden patch and
numerous other snakes and lizards had been taken as the brush piles
had been dragged away. Some snakes, more Typhlops, had been
unearthed during the plowing. Three species of small lizards had
moved into the house and could be seen at night running over walls
and ceilings, chasing mosquitoes or moths, or fighting or courting
each other, the activity ever accompanied by their calls. Our daily
lives appeared to have settled into a routine, until I undertook to
disturb it.

Early one morning I was out in the fields before breakfast and
began considering the wisdom of removing the balete tree, Man-
dalingan's kitchen. The usual small offerings to the god had been
placed there by the people in the village or by the boys to assuage
his wrath or to beg some favor. Three teaks (large black ravens)
that had been assisting Mandalingan by eating rice grains from a
tin can flew away scolding, "wak, wak, wak." I looked at the ancient
tree for a time and recalled its strange method of growth, for the
tree is indeed a strangler, a murderer. The limocon that feeds on
the fruit does not digest the hard seeds of the figs; instead, the bird
may deposit them high in some great forest tree where the seeds can
find root. The new tree gets its nourishment from its host by thrust-
ing roots through and under the bark, which begin growing down to
the ground, often fifty or more feet below. More roots go down until
the trunk of the host is surrounded by a heavy network of trunks and
roots that grow constantly stronger and tighter. From its now-
spreading branches, the balete lets down small floating roots to grasp
the earth. In the meantime the roots steal the sap from the host, and

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 39

the network on its trunk becomes a mass that may cover its whole
surface, strangling it with deadly tenacity until the host is finally
killed. Many years will pass before the standing mummy of the
giant finally decays and disappears. As if gloating over its kill, the
balete will continue to put out new branches and develop other new
trunks which the years find growing ever thicker and stronger,
thriving and fruiting, now serving the god, Mandalingan.

I decided that I would cut the strangler fig, and remove it from
the land, Mandalingan or no Mandalingan. There was no reason
aside from superstition to leave it there, destroying the productivity
of my field. I announced to the boys my intention of cutting the tree.

Basilio said, "But Mandalingan will dead you very hurry."

And Tiburcio said, "The people will very angry and Mandalingan
make revenge; we are very afraid."

But I said that I was not afraid of Mandalingan and that he
could easily find another kitchen. I asked if any boys wanted to help
cut the tree, but only Pedrinka, the headhunter, volunteered. In
Manobo he shouted he was not afraid of Mandalingan or his devils,
and he would help the maestro cut the balete.

We took two axes and began the task of cutting the multiple
trunks. The wood of this tree is very soft and offered little resistance
to our axes; the "blood" of the tree was a pure-white, sticky latex.
Pedrinka, to bolster his courage, kept repeating he was not afraid
every time he severed a small trunk.

When the townspeople learned we were cutting the tree, they
remonstrated. They feared Mandalingan would punish them if I
continued and that I too would be killed by the god, but the cutting,
once begun, was to be finished. The people stood about in sullen
groups; the boys forgot their assigned tasks; they thought my power
must be great to defy the god.

By evening the last trunk was severed. I of course had expected
the tree to topple over, but it refused to fall. Some of the boys were
greatly excited and went to their dormitory calling back to the
others, "Dali Dali mala ad tao" (Hurry, hurry, or you will be lost
men). They barred their doors and fastened the media aguas over
the windows. Antonio, my house boy, reported he was sick and must
go to the village. I waited a while by the balete. The tree in growing
had balanced itself quite perfectly. I began making cuts from the
lower parts of the severed trunks, but, while I was able to get some
movement, when darkness came the tree was still standing.

I cooked my own rice, heated my own can of salmon, and dined
alone under my mosquito net canopy. I began to question the
wisdom of what I had done. Pedrinka had shown no fear except
when the balete had refused to fall over, but then he too went with
the boys, no longer boasting. Mandalingan is holding the tree, he
had shouted in Manobo. The village people had stood in groups on

40 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

the opposite side of the river in the evening, talking and gesticu-
lating. Something dreadful would surely happen. At dark, I closed
my doors and windows against guests visible or invisible. I desired
no visitors from the village. Was I anticipating a visit from an
invisible god or devil? I could hear a babble of voices from the
dormitory but I did not go to quiet the boys. I tried to read but I
felt uneasy and apprehensive. Not because of Mandalingan, to be
sure.

When I looked at the matter from another viewpoint, I became
even more apprehensive and felt even greater misgivings. What
would a community in America think if vandals took axes and
chopped up an altar in a church or otherwise destroyed it? Sleep
would not come as the night passed. There was still noise in the
dormitory. I tossed about, tried again to read, and then returned to
my bed. Sometime near daybreak it began to rain, a breeze sprang
up, and I heard a great crashing and smashing as the tree finally
toppled over and "gave up the ghost."

In the morning I went out to view the fallen tree. There was
still a great amount of work to be done in cutting it to pieces and
dragging the dismembered body to the river. We could not wait
until it was dry enough to burn. Moreover, the captured plot of
ground would have to be plowed. Already the villagers were looking
across to the clearly visible field and the tree. The boys, too, re-
turned to the field, their courage apparently revived when the sun
came up. Even Pedrinka was boasting again and was quite ready
to help in the cutting. I lost much of my apprehension and, when
some of the villagers began bringing occasional gifts of fruit or
vegetables, I suspected they might be trying to gain a measure of
favor with me. They still believed that I would be punished,
however.

By the third day most of the tree had been taken away, the
plowing well started, and much of the prepared field planted. With
hoes and a homemade harrow constructed of bamboo and hard
wood, we had smoothed the plowed areas and planted corn. The
boys said there should be ten grains of corn for each hill, three for
the birds, three for Mandalingan, and three or four to grow; but I
set a limit of three grains per hill, and the corn hills were spaced.

On Sunday I took my usual jaunt into the forest. Three days later
the boys reported that the wak were stealing the corn. When we
visited the field a large flock of ravens rose and flew to the other side.
We drove them away, but the next morning at dawn they congre-
gated again and were following the rows of seed. The birds had
been clever enough to discern the exact places to find the planted
grains. The boys said they would make traps, and a large number
were put in the field. But the ravens were smart birds, and not one
was caught. Finally, we placed a series of guards in the field for

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 41

two-hour periods during the day to keep the birds away, and all
day long they could be heard scolding from the forest trees bordering
the cornfield.

We waited several days for the growing corn to appear; but only
an occasional plant could be found instead of the thousands antici-
pated. Almost all the seed had been taken. The boys pointed out
that Mandalingan had sent the ravens to take his share of the grain;
they had also taken ours. We replanted.

At lunch one day a boy whose duty it was to care for the young
Poland China boar reported that "baboi very dead." When I won-
dered at the cause of its death the boy at once suggested Mandalin-
gan, but I noted the throat was swollen badly and began looking
about the pen for a snake. Lying in the shade of the trough I found
a deadly haguason, a cobra, that on seeing me raised the anterior
part of its body and spread its neck regally. Here indeed was the
guilty party and, whether or not he was an emissary of Mandalingan,
he soon was another specimen in my collection.

Curiously, the same day, Maria, the woman Antonio had found
to launder my clothing, was beating the wash on the smooth rocks by
the river when she was bitten by a snake and ran screaming to her
house nearby. Her companion killed the snake and carried it to her
house as evidence. Someone else came across the river to tell me
that Maria had been bitten by an haguason. Aware that it was prob-
ably too late to help, I went to her house and found her lying on the
floor, moaning. The women who had come from the neighboring
houses were saying in Manobo, "She will die, she will die."

In the yard I had noticed the snake that had bitten her and
realized that although in some ways it mimicked the poisonous
cobra, its bite was harmless, in fact no more dangerous than a scratch
from a thorn. I took the dead snake in my hand and informed the
onlookers that I could cure the bite. Maria need not die. Turning
to a corner, I removed a part of the animal exposed by the beating,
and, screening the bitten foot from view, I applied this to the wound.
I shook Maria.

"Madadjaoa," (good), I said to her. "Good now. No more pain
yes? You will not die, Yes? You feel very good now, Yes?" I took
her by her arm and lifted her to her feet. "See," I declared to the
people, "I have cured the bite of this snake," and started laughing.
Soon Maria was also laughing. I gave her a slap on the hip and told
her to be about the business of washing my clothes. I told her that
Mandalingan would not send another haguason to bite her. But he
had sent the one that bit the pig, and it had died.

The place where the kitchen of Mandalingan had stood was now
a part of the field of growing corn, interspersed with stumps. After
the third planting, we continued the shifts of guards in the field from
daylight to dark, and our stand of corn flourished, growing as if by

42 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

magic. The great balete back in the forest, the palace of Mandalin-
gan, was as forbidding as ever, though, and a visit showed the evi-
dence of numerous recent offerings. Almost every night from across
the river the sounds of the bronze agongs, struck by hand, accom-
panied the bibilan in her worship. The boys in the school, more-
over, seemed to regain their exuberance and scarcely a day passed
without their playing a game of baseball. It was the custom to
choose two captains by lot, and then have these choose alternately
the men for their teams. Thus, no stationary groupings or cliques
were formed and the boys were becoming great friends. Even
Pedrinka was becoming more of a "boy" than the warrior he was
when he first came to the school.

One evening in the dormitory Tiburcio gave me a more-or-less
complete account of the gods, as he knew them. There were many.
First in the minds of the people was Mandalingan, who had a wife
named Daraga. She stayed in the background and played little part
in the lives of the men, but the women sometimes prayed to her for
small favors. Only the bigannis, the warriors, could speak directly
to Mandalingan, since he is the god of the pangayao, the headhunt,
and of the important concerns of men. There were other more
ancient gods, Lamakin, who made the hills and mountains; Akonkis,
who created rain clouds and the waters of the land and sea; Aka-
koren, who made the air and the sky. But Mandalingan made man,
and Daraga his wife made woman. I could not learn whether these
gods were equal, but I believe Mandalingan was supreme. Like all
primitive folks and others, the people do not ask who made the gods,
who created them in the images of men, with their foibles, their
weaknesses, and their emotions.

I found that Mandalingan is easy to anger if his pride is offended;
he can hate; he is jealous; he demands respect; he must be wor-
shipped; he carries weapons; he may fall in love with women and
become the father of their children. He frowns, he punishes mortal
men, and many of his bodily functions are those of men. His food
is spirit food and the souls of animals. He can cause the death of
mortals, but will listen to reason, and his affection and good will can
be purchased by good sacrifices.

Mandalingan had some lesser deities who assisted him. One was
in control of the harvest and planting; another was interested in
procreation and birth; another was in control of the lives of animals.
There was also wicked imps or devils. They made you lose your
way in the forest, stole your bolo, tripped you and caused you to fall,
and led you into deep mud in the swamp. The busao, giant devils,
made a tree fall across your path, and picked up people and placed
them in forest trees or hid them in holes in the cliffs until they died.
Then they ate them, and left only their bones. Unless certain cere-
monies were observed, they exhumed the dead from graveyards and

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 43

feasted on putrid flesh. Houses could become bewitched if a busao
took up residence. Then there was Tuda, the crab that ate the sun
or moon, and Balogan, the earthquake-maker.

9. Mandalingan's Revenge

The corn grew superbly, all but hiding the unsightly stumps.
The ears began to grow fat. One morning shortly after dawn there
appeared flocks of cockatoos (Cacatua), great white members of the
parrot family, each with a large greenish-yellow crest on the top of
the head, scolding and shrieking their delight. They alighted on the
corn and began tearing open the ears to get at the soft, luscious
grain full of milk. The boys and I ran to the field and drove them
away, but more and more of the birds arrived. Men were stationed
in every part of the field, and with shouts and sticks the cockatoos
were scattered. Some flew to the forest fringe but others alighted
on the palace of Mandalingan farther back in the forest. Again, a
watch was set from dawn to sunset, at which time the marauders
would return to their roosts in the trees growing from the sunken
lakes in the forest.

After the planting, a fence had been built to keep wild boar out
of the field; but one night they broke it down and destroyed a few
stalks. We reinforced the fence and along the path worn by the
boar, we dug deep pits. Over the openings we placed carefully
camouflaged covers, and in the bottom of the pits a series of
sharpened spikes of bamboo. No pigs fell in the pits, but they
continued to patrol the fence on one side. One morning other
visitors, three deer, were found in the field, having leaped the fence
with ease, but, being chiefly browsers on leaves, they did less
damage than might have been expected, and when surprised
escaped from the field as easily as they had entered.

Obviously, guards would have to be kept in the field night and
day to scare creatures away, so we hit upon a noisemaking scheme.
In the middle of the field we built a shelter on bamboo poles; at
various places throughout the field we drove single bamboo poles
into the earth and suspended from each an empty five-gallon gasoline
can in which a clapper was fastened. From these poles we ran rattan
lines to the central shelter. Thus, by pulling the several lines, one
man sitting in the middle of the field could produce a loud and
threatening noise in any part of the area. The boys, in teams of
two, took turns standing guard during the night. At first they were
afraid, but when the maestro stood the first watch alone, they did
not want to seem more cowardly.

Thus the night marauders were thwarted, but then a new
menace appeared. A boy reported that ears of corn were missing
from those stalks along the edge of the forest, and under nearby trees
we found the husks and cobs. Monkeys had come to harass us.

44 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

These creatures would perch in the trees, remaining silent, watching
the guards as they patroled up and down the field. As soon as a
guard passed the place of concealment, a wretched little mimic of a
man would run from a tree, climb over the fence, seize an ear, and
return to a silent gang of thieves still in the trees, there to husk the
ear and gnaw the succulent grains of com. We redoubled our watch,
for the corn was hardening, and it would be only a short time before
it would be ready for the harvest.

Then, without warning, one of the boys, Gimeno, became ill
with some lung infection, and he was very ill indeed. I moved him
into my quarters and remained with him practically all the time.
I had been warned by the governor that no boy should be allowed
to die at the school.

I do not know the name of the illness, but I strongly suspect it
was pneumonia, or something similar. This was no case of a harm-
less snakebite; the boy ran a high fever and had great congestion in
the lungs. I was almost certain he would die. It was no satisfaction
to hear the other boys remark that if Mandalingan killed Gimeno, his
father would kill me. They feared too that Mandalingan might take
them next. But Gimeno eventually recovered, and this represented
another victory over Mandalingan.

The next trouble was the truancy of two boys from the school.
Presumably they had returned to their homes, frightened at the
prospect of punishment for helping remove the god's kitchen from
the field. I could not permit desertions, so as soon as their absences
were reported, I went to alarm the constabulary and to send them
for the boys. The able men, however, were away on their regular
patrol and I had to go myself. Gimeno had recovered to a point
where I could leave him with my houseboy, Antonio. I called Ti-
burcio from the field, sent for a carrier, and with food and collecting
equipment, prepared to set out to round up the deserters. The
limocon, fortunately, had obliged with the propitious calls in the
morning.

The missing boys had left the dormitory very early in the morn-
ing, taking some ears of corn for food. They had "borrowed" a tiny
dugout canoe lacking outriggers and scarcely capable of supporting
the weight of the two men, but both were expert oarsmen. The first
part of their journey would be down the Bunawan River for about
fifteen kilometers. Then they would have to leave the water high-
way and take an obscure game trail through the forest to the village
of Lubangon, if, as I felt certain, the boys intended to return to
their own village.

We were soon on our way. With two oarsmen in a medium-sized
dugout canoe with outriggers, Tiburcio and I started downriver to
follow the presumed course of the boys. The current was strong

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 45

following heavy rains, and in a relatively short time we reached the
place where we were to begin the overland part of the trip.

One of the oarsmen had been over the trail and said he could
find it, but until we finally encountered it, after crawling through
the mass of wild sugarcane on the river bank, I had my doubts. No
canoe left by the boys was visible, but I was certain they would have
hidden it carefully. The first hundred yards or so of the path was
reasonably clear. Then it was mudhole after mudhole interspersed
with stretches of water a few inches deep. Progress was slow, ex-
cessively slow, and laborious. The path was so overgrown that we
could move forward only by bending low and pushing through the
undergrowth. We saw no trace of our boys. After traversing a
distance of possibly two or three kilometers, we found another dim
trail entering our own and, shortly, the fresh footprints of two
humans mixed with the tracks of pig and deer. We had in fact
guessed correctly — the boys were on their way to their village.

Soon we entered a section of the forest where the rattan palms
were numerous and their great, thorny, whiplike leaves were con-
stantly catching at our clothing, as if attempting to hold us back.
One caught at my cheek and ear, leaving deep scratches. The path
began to climb over low foothills and, while there was less water
and fewer wallows made by wild boar, we encountered slippery clay
soils that still made travel difficult, and what was as bad, armies
of leeches.

Some of you may have found a bloodsucking leech on your body
after a dip in a swimming hole, and perhaps observed how its rub-
bery body expanded as it filled with your blood. Here on the ground
leeches were present by the thousands, and, in places, the movement
of these creatures as they inched their way like a tiny army sug-
gested that the whole earth was moving.

I, of course, was reasonably well protected with shoes, puttees,
and good clothing, but our guide wore only very short trousers and
was barefoot. Tiburcio also was barefoot with his trousers rolled
up. Time and again they stopped to scrape the leeches from their
legs, leaving dozens of tiny wounds slowly oozing a little blood. I
feared we would have to turn back, but finally in lower and wetter
ground we left the leeches behind. We stopped and prepared lunch,
getting our drinking and cooking water out of the trunks of rattan.

Late in the afternoon the path became much better and we soon
approached our destination. Our coming had already been an-
nounced, as some native had seen or heard us and had used the
forest telegraph to tell of our arrival. We were received by the dato,
the father of Ubigon, and learned the boys were with their parents.
I told him that we had come to visit the village, that his son had
come for a short visit, too, and that we would all like to return to
Bunawan the next day. The boys were surprised that no word of

46 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

punishment was mentioned. When I asked them if they would be
ready to go the next morning, they said they would.

The clato was pleased by his son's appearance. Unlike the skinny
boy who had left for school some months before, he was now as
plump and chubby-cheeked as a corn diet could make one. The
night was uneventful and on the following day we started back to
the school at Bunawan, unfortunately meeting the same difficulties
as on the previous day's journey.

Things had gone very well at the school during my absence. A
young boar had fallen into one of the pits by the fence and a boy
had caught two jungle fowl, Gallus. Even those wild ancestors of
our common chickens wanted to be in on the harvest; they could be
heard in early morning as the cocks raised their high voices in a
cock-a-doodle-doo. And the monkeys, deer, cockatoos, and occa-
sional groups of wdks still threatened the corn.

But at last the com was cut. The ears were left on the stalks,
which were stripped of leaves and tassel. When the corn was dry, I
selected a quantity suitable for seed. Several dozen of the most
beautiful ears were culled out and packed away in containers im-
pervious to rain and rats.

The boys and the people in the village marveled at this corn. I
may say that I too marveled at it. Each ear was a masterpiece com-
posed of pearls. When the next upriver launch came, the specially
chosen ears, each wrapped in dried banana leaves in turn wrapped
in a mass of fibers from coconut husks, and packed as carefully as
fine glass in a heavy box, started on their journey to the Bureau of
Agriculture in Manila, to be placed in competition for fine agri-
cultural products at the National Carnival.

Every boy felt that he himself had raised the corn. In fact, every
boy had, and probably no corn in the world ever owed so much to
so many! To say nothing of our debt to the old carabao, Slowpoke,
who had sacrificed the side of her rump to the crocodile, and who,
like the rest of us, had defied Mandalingan by dragging the dese-
crated remains of his kitchen to the river.

We started the plowing all over again, but one Sunday I decided
to take a day's vacation and returned to the great, tabooed forest.
I took a series of collecting sacks because I intended to try to find
some new kinds of snakes and lizards. Deep in the forest I forged
my own paths, blazing a tree here and clipping a branch there. As I
got farther back into the forest the ground became a little higher and
the undergrowth somewhat less dense. I turned over a log and found
two fine rough-scaled lizards (Tropidophorus rivularis). Other logs
yielded additional species of lizards; and another, two small harmless
snakes (Typhlops braminus). I climbed into the trees and cut down
masses of orchids or great bird's-nest ferns; then I proceeded to chop
the roots to pieces and managed to evict two common snakes and

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 47

several specimens of a tiny lizard (Lepidodaclylus), scarcely larger
than a kitchen match. Passing another large forest tree, I dislodged
a strip of loose bark and a snake, quite new to science, fell to the
ground and began to uncoil. Once having discovered the bark
habitat, I began to pry off loose bark wherever I found it and took
several more snakes of the same kind. Near an accumulation of
trash close to the base of a large buttressed tree, I found several
specimens of a glassy smooth lizard (Brachymeles). And, while pry-
ing off yet another piece of bark, I was startled by something gray
that flashed past me on its way to the ground. I finally located the
object, the gray now black, and the animal revealed was a curious,
soft-bodied lizard, a variety that also had not been taken by any
scientific collector (Ptijchozoon intermedia). Tiny, winglike flaps
were on each side of its face, other broad winglike expansions were
along the side of its body, a similar flap bordered the back of the
thigh. The long tail had a series of frills on each side, as if scalloped
lace had been sewn on the sides for decoration.

I then lunched on cold rice and a tin of coconut milk. Weary
from overturning countless logs I fell asleep but, upon awakening,
noted that I had developed a headache. Nevertheless, I climbed a
tree and continued to cut plants. Suddenly a handsome green-and-
red pit viper crawled out of a plant mass. In my excitement I
dropped my bolo and found myself in a rather precarious position
on the limb. As the snake approached me, I brought my hand down
quickly on its head, thus effectively preventing it from opening its
mouth. Then with considerable care I moved my other hand up the
neck close to the head, picked up the uninjured snake without
danger, and dropped it into the collecting bag tied to my belt.
Perhaps it was a foolish thing to do, its bite being dangerous,
although not necessarily deadly, but it was a calculated risk and I
wanted a perfect specimen.

It had clouded over and had begun to rain. I took shelter under
some large arums, whose leaves served almost as well as an umbrella.
I realized that in the excitement of my success, I had failed to mark
my path and thus had to find my way back. I had slept much longer
than I had thought possible after lunch and it was obviously quite
late. I must have been miles from the school; nowhere could I find
a trace of where I had been. I was feeling very miserable. There
were pains in my legs, and the headache was worse. I was feeling so
weak that panic overtook me.

When I finally came to my senses it was dark. I had been running
and my clothing was torn. I had a number of deep scratches from
rattan on my shoulders. The collecting sacks were gone. I wondered
if I was insane. What had been happening to me? I forced myself
to sit on the wet ground. I must stay here for the night. I must not

48 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

move. I was uncertain of directions. I was very ill. Rain began
again and flocks of mosquitoes were crowding around. I must sit
here, and I must not move.

I dozed off and when I awakened the rain had stopped; in the
distance, off to the right, I heard a faint sound of agongs and ganzas
that accompanied the bibilaris conversation with Mandalingan. Ap-
parently I had been wandering in a semicircle and was not far from
the river. I laid a branch on the ground pointing in the direction of
the sounds, the direction of the river and the village, and relapsed
into sleep or unconsciousness. The next thing I knew the sun was
shining, and I heard nearby the sound of wood being cut by a bolo.
I marshaled my strength and called out. I staggered to my feet,
fighting pain, and started in the direction of the sound. How far I
moved I do not know but I continued calling for help. Then
blackness.

When I became conscious once more, two Manobo farmers were
standing near me. They had heard me from their small clearing near
the river and had found me. I told them I had malaria, not a danger-
ous illness, and they must take me to Bunawan. One got on each side
of me and lifted me from the ground. After some painful steps I
blacked out.

The men got me into their canoe and returned upriver to my
house, where the boys helped them carry me to my cot. They cooked
some rice and left it near the bed. Then they promptly left the
house. They knew why I got lost in the forest, and why I was taking
more punishment and would probably die. All activity stopped as
everyone waited to see the effects of Mandalingan's anger. The boys
kept to their dormitories, and the villagers stood about on the river
bank. There was no work; there was no baseball. Tiburcio took a
package of cigarettes and some corn and placed it at the palace of
Mandalingan in the forest; and the boys would peek in through the
windows to see if death had come. During this time I was conscious
off and on but the pain seemed unbearable and darkness would
again return.

Four days had passed in this manner when a constabulary patrol,
coming from Davao in the south to Butuan, was passing the village
on its way down the river. One American traveling with the group
learned of the illness of the Mericano and stopped to help. After
giving me much-needed care, he fixed a bed of sorts in our outrigger
canoe and transferred me to the craft. Taking two men with us to
return to the school, we started floating down the river.

It was a curious awakening. I saw the trees passing in steady
succession. Was this some amazing dream? But no, the details were
too clear. A large lizard nearly two feet long flopped down from the
top of a low tree and splashed water. It made an unmistakable
sound as it ran across the surface. Turning my head somewhat I

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 49

noted the strange American and a Manobo, who was squatting in
the stern, guiding the canoe. I tried to speak but could get out little
sound. I finally attracted the attention of the stranger and he told
me we were on our way to find help. He talked for sometime but
again I slipped into unconsciousness. I next awakened when the
man in front tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the boat from hitting a
submerged stump and tree. Much to my detriment, I was thrown
into the water and floated some distance downstream while my
companion caught the boat as it swung around.

We finally reached Butuan, where I was taken to the Visayan
doctor and put to bed. It seems I had a fever, commonly called
dengue, that is insect-borne. It seizes its victim with startling ra-
pidity, bringing intense pain in joints and muscles, so that it is some-
times called breakbone fever. The victim passes from states of con-
sciousness to unconsciousness when the fever is high. Within three
days the fever broke and my mind seemed clear. The pain was less
severe and I was hungry. Recovery of strength was slow but after
two weeks I was able to walk about, and before the end of the
month I started upriver to do battle once again with Mandalingan.

This journey was made in the launch, with the governor accom-
panying me. The glare of the sun on the water tired my eyes. To
add to the general discomfort, the launch was having difficulty
getting over sand bars in the river, and, at one point, the governor
suggested that some of us get into the shallow water to lighten the
craft so it could get over a bar. Still weak, I slid over the deck into
the water, but it was not so shallow and the current picked me up
and carried me back downstream. Unable to swim against the
current, I floated with it like a dry chip for about forty yards, until
the launch could turn around and come after me. At another point,
on the second try, the launch passed through the shallow water and
was on its way.

A young teacher, Ciriaco Moreno, had been sent from Butuan to
look after the school while I was away. At first he had been very
reluctant to come upriver, fearing these wild people. But he had
done a good job holding everything together. He had tried to plow
and had given English lessons to the boys. We continued the plow-
ing and had the boys smooth the surface with our old homemade
harrow; we started at once to replant the corn.

The boys seemed glad to see me and their first question was
about the corn. "Did we winning the prized?" Basilio asked. But I
had to say I did not know. And Tiburcio insisted, "Mandalingan no
killing you yet." Pedrinka had assumed some control while I was ill
and had ordered the boys to do the chores such as taking care of the
carabao and preparing the food. They had even played their daily
baseball game.

50 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

10. Big Blue Ribbon

The corn was growing and the bananas, planted on my arrival,
were beginning to bear fruit. Our garden was excellent, providing a
variety of yams, eggplants, gabi, and a dozen other vegetables in-
cluding onion and manioc, the tapioca plant. The eggplant was
nearly as high as the boys' heads. There was now no chance of
another food shortage.

Pedrinka came in one morning as I was eating my breakfast.
"Launch come today. Meby we have letter for the prize," he said.

"How do you know, Pedrinka?"

"Yesterday the launch sleep in Talocogon, today come to Buna-
wan I think."

And in the late afternoon the launch came. The whole school
was waiting, since I had permitted everyone to cross the river to be
at the dock. The boys came back with my mail, the first to arrive
since my return. There was no letter about the corn. I was dis-
appointed, but the boys were more than that; some were almost to
the point of tears, and I heard some very uncomplimentary remarks
in Manobo, as they called down curses of Lintic yaica.

Antonio, the houseboy, suddenly seemed to remember something
and went into the house. He returned carrying a small package of
mail that had come while I was in Bunawan. The mail was several
weeks old and in the lot was one letter, a fat one, from the office of
the Director of Agriculture. The boys were breathless as I tore it
open and read:

I have the honor to inform vou that the corn submitted to

J

the Bureau has taken first prize in the Bureau of Education
exhibits and in the exhibits of the National Carnival. Please
accept our congratulations. The blue ribbon is enclosed.

Submitted through the Superintendent of Schools.

If before we had been depressed and disappointed and angry, these
moods evaporated like mist before a tropic sun. We could not have
been happier, or more vociferous in our happiness. A holiday was
declared, and everyone could do as he pleased.

Of course, I was delighted to have the time to try to pick up my
old trail in the forest and to recover some of the finds of that ill-fated
journey I had undertaken several weeks before. Three boys asked to
come with me. We were a few hundred yards into the forest when
we inadvertently disturbed a group of sleeping wild boar. Each
of us ran for a tree while the pigs vented their anger by stamping
their feet with their neck roaches elevated, and then disappeared
deeper into the forest.

Four men can turn over larger rotting logs than one man, and
there was more to be found under the bigger ones. Some of the
species I had taken on my previous journey were again in the col-

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 51

lecting sack. Gorio had found a tiny species of flying lizard quite
unlike other species of these strange dragons taken earlier. This one
had round black spots with a cream center on each side of the head
and its colors were dull. We had seen them before, but they had
always kept to the high trees. The boys continued to climb into the
trees, cutting plants and letting them fall to the ground. More
lizards and one snake. As we rounded a bend in the path, a hand-
some haguason, his head erect and about ten inches above the
ground, the neck flattened and spread, threatened our advance. I
yelled for the boys to watch out for their eyes; mine, of course, were
protected by my glasses. On our approach the snake opened its
mouth and sent two tiny streams of venom in our direction. The
venom, if it falls on the skin of the hands or face, is no more
dangerous than water; in the eye, however, it can cause blindness.
It was then a simple task to throw a collecting noose over the snake's
head and to transfer our catch to a stout bag that Tiburcio carried
on the end of a short pole.

We finally devised a scheme of cutting the plant masses and
letting them fall into quiet pools or in a rivulet; as the water soaked
into them, out would come a variety of insects, worms, occasionally
lizards, snakes, and even frogs. We were really having a field day.
One of the boys said that a curious skeleton-like small tree had much
water; it also had a few tufts of leaves at the ends of its branches.
It belonged to the screw-pine family. We cut it down, expecting to
find tree frogs, but instead netted twelve specimens of a curious
narrow-mouthed toad (Kaloula conjuncta), of a kind one would never
have expected to find in a tree, since most of the species of the genus
burrow in the ground.

Sound came booming through the forest on the native telegraph.
Tiburcio said, "War party come with spears. Also launch come up
river." And we were being called back to the school.

Gorio said, "Meby, we have pangayao." But I suspected that the
"war party" consisted of the dato from the Mandaya village, and the
launch meant that the governor was coming from Butuan on an
inspection trip. We returned to the school as rapidly as possible and
arrived before either of the visitors. When the governor disem-
barked, we told him the dato was also expected.

The war party arrived, but, despite the fact that all were carrying
krises and spears and were decked in their finery, they were not on
the warpath. The meeting between the governor and the dato was
held at the school, conducted through interpreters. The governor
explained that in other places tribes were building their villages
along the rivers, and that the government wanted to make the datos
the presidentes of the villages and would also build a presidentia or
a place for the village business. The dato was asked if he would
consent to bring his people out of the forest to resettle by the river.

52 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Then there was the matter of headhunting. The dato said that
the only heads they had taken were from neighboring groups that
had killed some of his people. If his neighbors did not molest his
village, he would not molest theirs.

After the conference was over the schoolboys played a game of
baseball. The son who had accompanied the war party, decked out
in his feathered hat, jewelry, bright-colored jacket and trousers,
watched the boys in their khaki uniforms with much interest, and
perhaps more than a little envy. The dato talked to the boys. They
looked well fed and happy, and said the school was a good place to
be. I asked the dato to leave his son with us and assured him that if
the boy grew lonesome, he could return home. The boy remained,
and I suggested to the others that they make an effort to keep him
from becoming too homesick.

The governor left in the afternoon and we went about our regu-
lar business. The captain of the constabulary and his personal ser-
vant, a Visayan boy from Cebu, remained in Bunawan. I had told
the captain about our difficulties with the wild boar and the deer.
That evening after the captain had retired, his servant, wanting to
take a prize, "borrowed" his superior's rifle and with a Manobo boy
from the village came over to the forest bordering the school prop-
erty. The Manobo boy was left behind near the house while the boy
with the gun went along the fence, hoping to see game in the bril-
liant moonlight. After some little time had elapsed, he returned
quietly. The Manobo boy, who had moved on to the eggplant patch,
stood up at his approach and the hunter, mistaking him for a deer,
shot him in the head; he was killed instantly.

When the hunter realized what had happened he became panic-
stricken. He ran to my house and left the gun, telling me that he had
killed a Manobo, then got into his dugout canoe and crossed the
river. I had heard the shot as I sat under a great mosquito net
rereading one of my few books, and had been concerned about its
source. Now, I was even more troubled, for I knew there would be
difficulties both for the hunter and for the constabulary captain. I
roused the boys and we retrieved the body of the youth, carrying it
to my house on a blanket fastened to two bamboo poles. As soon as
our dugout could be readied, we took him across the river to his
parents, Manobo folk who had recently come from the forest to con-
struct a new house in Bunawan.

Soon a party of Manobos and the boys who had served as pall-
bearers came back across the river. The leader of the Manobos,
brandishing his spear, announced to my utter surprise that they had
come to kill me. Definitely afraid, I went into my house, closed the
door, and talked to them through the open window. The boys, who
were still standing about, arranged themselves on the steps to pre-
vent the hostile visitors from entering and tried to persuade them

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 53

that I had not killed the boy, that the gun was the captain's and not
the maestro 's. But the look on the father's face and his threatening
manner with the spear showed that he did not believe them, for
there, still standing at my door where the hunter had left it, was the
gun that had killed his son.

I tried to talk with them, but my faulty Manobo only made for
confusion. I told one of the boys to go across the river and tell the
constabulary what had happened and to alert the captain that if
they did not kill me they would probably kill him. Finally, Pedrinka
took the highest step in front of my door, picked up the gun, and
with the natural oratory of a grownup warrior, began shouting his
harangue in Manobo.

"This gun is of the Constabulary. Maestro no gun. Maestro
needs no gun to kill, he much magic. This gun Captain gun. Cap-
tain's servant seeks to kill wild-boar that eats from com field, but
bullet finds head of your son, and son's head destroyed. Perhaps you
make crime to Mandalingan and Mandalingan turns bullet from his
wild boar to your son, or perhaps captain does wrong to Mandalin-
gan. You must talk to captain's servant. Captain's gun killed your
son. I finish."

Finally the father was convinced that I had nothing to do with
the killing, and the party returned to the village, saying they would
kill the captain. When they reached the presidentia where the cap-
tain had lodged, he had already taken refuge in one of the rooms in
the carcel (jail) and had stationed three armed constabulary soldiers
to guard him. He knew Manobo law — "a life for a life" — and rea-
lized it was not only his servant's life that would be demanded. He
sent his sergeant off by boat with the hope of overtaking the gov-
ernor at Talacogon, where he was spending the night. Fortunately,
the aide reached Talacogon the next day in time to bring the gover-
nor back to Bunawan.

You may think the captain behaved in a cowardly manner, but
his actions were motivated by reasonable tact in dealing with a
delicate situation in which the Manobos might all decide to return
to the forest. The governor called the parties together and the
matter was placed before him. When he had heard all the evidence,
the governor felt that although the servant had "borrowed" the gun
without the knowledge of the captain, the captain was guilty of
negligence and that he, as well as his servant, must in a measure
share the guilt. The dead boy's father agreed to this finding. Then
the governor ordered that the captain give the injured father, as
restitution, one carabao, six spears, two agongs, and one bolt of
cloth, or something of equivalent value. The whole amounted to
about one hundred pesos, or half as many dollars.

The second year of my sojourn in Bunawan was drawing to a
close, and I began to take stock of our accomplishments at the

54 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

school. We had thirty-one boys enrolled from all over the Manobo
country; we had nearly four hectares (approximately 10 acres) under
cultivation, and were raising practically all the food consumed at the
school, except for rice and fish. Corn had replaced rice in the diet
to a considerable extent. The baseball diamond showed much use.
Cirioco, the teacher sent from the Visayan Islands when I was ill,
was retained to teach English, simple arithmetic, and writing; they
even learned songs. But their voices, uncertain at best at this age,
gave promise of becoming only the curious high falsettos in which
the men always sang their native songs. Cirioco also taught the boys
to make door mats from the fibers in coconut husks, and these could
be sold when sent to Manila. The fear of danger from Mandalingan
passed. After he had inspected it, the governor pronounced the
place in excellent condition and complimented me on the result of
my efforts.

I was aware of the outside world only through newspapers from
the United States, which told of the newly-elected president, the
Democrat named Woodrow Wilson, of the unrest in Europe, and of
the Japanese preparation for war. There were Japanese in the Min-
danao territory whose presence was unexplained and I occasionally
saw them passing up and down the river. I had written to the
governor of their activity, as it was obviously a "spying out of the
land," and their reports were subsequently intercepted by Manila.

Usually we were engrossed in less serious matters, such as the
new diversion we discovered one Sunday. Some of the boys knew
where gold was to be found in the sands of a small tributary of the
Bunawan River. Sometimes we would dig in the sand and wash it,
to find the gold particles. But panning for small quantities of gold
was a far less interesting hobby than collecting the strange plants
and animals of the jungle country.

11. Fired for Inefficiency

Word came to us from Butuan, the provincial capital, that the
Secretary of the Interior from Manila was coming to Mindanao on an
inspection tour. He would visit the wild tribes and would come up-
river to Bunawan on Thursday with his retinue.

All wild peoples of the Philippines were under the control of this
secretary, as were all governors and lesser governmental officials,
of these unorganized provinces. He was rightly feared by everyone.
It was only Tuesday and already the village people, urged by the
captain of the constabulary who had recently come upriver, were
building a beautiful arch of bamboo and decorating it with the
foliage of the forest, including orchids brought from the jungle. This
I thought might be expected from the village, but I saw no reason
for our American school to make what was, in my opinion, a stupid
display.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 55

The "Great White Father" arrived to make his inspection, and it
was thorough. We were well prepared, however; the boys had
laundered their clothing, policed their dormitory, cleared the path
bordering the river, and patched the fences. They had spent the
morning of the "great day" in their work clothes hoeing the corn,
although there were no weeds and the cultivation was not badly
needed. But there was no welcome arch! Thus the secretary found
that the corn was not properly planted, there were stumps in the
fields, the boys were not given proper rice rations, and they were
forced to work too much. Some efficient person would be sent to
relieve me, since I was not fit to manage the place.

Such a fate! I grant I had done many things that perhaps should
have warranted my dismissal: I had practically forced a large
number of the students into the school against their will; I had
deceived them greatly and lied about my abilities as a magician; I
had defied their god and destroyed his sacred property — all good
crimes for which I could have been "fired." But the charge was
"inefficiency"; the cause was actually "no arch of welcome for the
'Great White Father.' "

I prepared at once to pack my belongings to make the return
journey downriver with the inspection party. But my preparations
were needless. The secretary found that it was quite impossible for
me to travel with that party; I did not have to seek the reason. I had
the boys help me build a raft of bamboo, instead. With the aid of
two Manobos we cut the bamboo and dragged it to the river with
old Slowpoke; the carabao at last had come to tolerate me without
showing fright. Perhaps she remembered that I took care of her
wounds after her encounter with the crocodile.

When the raft was finished, I found I was in no hurry to leave.
I decided to spend two or three days making a final survey, to see if
there were species of reptiles that were lacking in the collection —
some frog or lizard that was waiting to become immortal by having
me preserve it for posterity and christen it with some lordly Latin
name. I profited much by this short vacation. The boys and I
went back into the tabu forest, following trails that we had cut
previously but that were now almost completely overgrown. We
found species not seen before and another curious earth snake
(Typhlops). We uncovered a small slender coral snake (Doliophis
bilineatus), that when disturbed would elevate its tail, turned under-
side up, coiled like a watchspring. It was deep crimson in color.
Its head would be conveniently hidden under a bit of trash and if
we touched the creature it would throw its body off the ground
again and again aimlessly. The snake was deadly but it made no
attempt to bite us or even to strike.

I kept hoping that we might cross my old trail made during the
ill-fated expedition when I came down with dengue fever; I wanted

56 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

to find the sack that would now contain only skeletons. But this did
not happen. We did find, however, two specimens of another known
species of snake in a pile of recently fallen orchid plants. There we
also obtained eggs of a tree lizard (Calotes), one with a large angular
head, a compressed body, and a long tail. The curious thing about
the eggs was that they were spindle-shaped with elongate, blunt
projections on each end.

Returning from our last journey in the forest, we passed by the
palace of Mandalingan. To show no hard feelings for the old god I
tossed him a small handful of cigarettes which fell on the earth
among the other offerings, a flat shell with fresh oleander blossoms
and the partial skeleton and feathers of a white chicken. Mandalin-
gan favored white chickens. However, whether he appreciated my
cigarettes, made of raw tobacco of warrior strength and costing
seven cents per package of twenty, I never learned.

We came back to the mahogany house, and as I looked up into
the tree that stood beside it, I saw on a low branch a superbly
colored smooth-sided skink, a lizard I had never seen before. It was
my last prize from Bunawan. It had probably watched me from
the day of my arrival, but in two years I had never seen my neighbor.
It was a species, however, that already had been discovered and
named.

The python we had caught on the first journey upriver had taken
up residence in a storehouse and stood guard against the forest rats
who would eat the food. We usually could find him, but the two
years had done nothing to improve his disposition and our relation-
ship had been one of mere toleration. Since he was getting careless
and rats were getting to the stored grain, I decided to fire him from
his job, for reasons of inefficiency, and take him with me to Manila.

I had not had any particular regrets about leaving until it was
time to say goodbye to the boys. Then I realized how much there
was between us. As they offered small, pitiable gifts to me, some
boys had to forbear saying goodbye for fear their tears would be
seen by the others. So ended this first important chapter of my life,
and my career as a farmer and baseball coach.

The journey downriver was uneventful but full of memories. To
avoid having to camp at dark, I fixed it so I could sleep on the raft;
and with one man to stand guard and keep the raft on its course, and
another to relieve him, we had to stop only to cook rice. We saw a
few faces peering at us from the riverbank; once we found two girls
bathing behind their barrier of bamboo poles. We passed and
recognized old camping places used on my first journey.

To my great surprise, when we arrived in Butuan, the good ship
Negros was in the river ready to take me to Manila. Another special
boat already had taken the secretary and his party. The governor
was most kind; he transferred my baggage directly to the boat, and

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 57

then invited me to have dinner with him and other Americans in the
town. It was a farewell party. At the beginning of the dinner he
gave me news that was most heartening. The Secretary of the
Interior, the "Great White Father" of the wild people, had been fired
by the new President Wilson. I never learned the cause but I
suspect it may have been for "over-efficiency." It was the one time
in my life, thanks to President Wilson, that I considered the possi-
bility of becoming a Democrat.

The dinner was long and drawn out, accompanied by stories from
the various guests of their past years in the Philippines, some funny,
some remarkable, some sad. I was a listener. It was late when I
went on board ship, with a promise of a headache for the morrow.
We were to leave at high tide in the morning to get over the bar at
the mouth of the river. About daybreak I was awakened by a terrific
jolt that rattled dishes in the galley and caused the ship to pitch and
toss. Another earthquake — perhaps Mandalingan's way of saying
goodbye and thanks for the cigarettes.

When I awakened again I went up on deck to watch the dis-
appearing coastline and the distant mountains of the wonderful
island of magic, Mindanao. Mindanao; the name even today brings
back a thrill, an exultation, and a host of nostalgic memories of a
time when I was learning things from the "yellow and the brown."
Things that would help with the whites.

I had much time to think over the past two years. I sat on deck
and gazed into the placid, oily water. What had become of the little
boy who had broken his arm in the fall that left him a cripple?
Where was the young son of Taoidi who had sworn to kill the
Americans who had imprisoned his father? Where was my Ameri-
can friend who had carried me downriver when I was ill? What was
hidden in the mountains and jungles beyond the ranges? Would
someone find the source of the gold that we panned in the river?
Would I go back and retrace those footsteps?

12. My Life on Negros Island

After my sudden departure from the land of the Manobo, smeared
with the anathema of inefficiency, I started for Manila hoping to
obtain some other civil service appointment. I did not feel sorry for
myself, nor was I resentful. A change might mean more and different
adventures. In conversations with the provincial governor of Butuan,
I had learned that the "Great White Father" of the wild people, the
erstwhile American Secretary of Interior, was not held in high per-
sonal esteem, even by governors. The governor prepared, without
request on my part, letters of commendation stating that I "had
exceeded his hopes." Also, Mr. Scott, head of schools, expressed
satisfaction for my accomplishment and provided a letter of recom-
mendation.

58 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

I arrived in Manila, found lodging, had a two-dollar dinner at
the Manila Hotel with apple pie a la mode for dessert, and went to
a cinema, all in my first day. I definitely was back in close touch
with civilization. I also bought a newspaper, the Cable News
American, with news only twenty-four hours old. Down in Bunawan
my news had been stale, one to two months old, and even that was
only available about once a month. Before going to Mindanao I had
thought bread and butter, together with apple pie a la mode, were
necessities of life. But one learns. These things are luxuries, as are
the daily news of the world, telephones, and trains.

I presented myself, and my credentials, to the committee dealing
with schools. Then, awaiting the completion of my financial affairs,
I explored Manila. I examined the old walls about the ancient part
of the city, built in the past to keep away attacks from dreaded
Moros, the Mohammedan pirates from the south — walls where later
I was to have a splendid aquarium. The old moat surrounding the
walls had been drained to remove the hazard of the malaria-bearing
mosquitoes. I visited the College of Santo Tomas, a school that was
old before the first college had been established in the United States.
At the Bureau of Science, I became acquainted with certain members
of the staff. I looked through their collection of reptiles and dis-
covered that many of the species I had collected in Mindanao were
not in their museum.

I was later assigned as a supervisor to a district in Negros Occi-
dental, a province on the western side of the Island of Negros, one of
the large islands in the Visayan group. My headquarters was to be in
the city of Hinigaran, a community with an estimated population of
37,000. One glorious item was that my salary was to be raised $200.

Since the present incumbent on Negros was not planning to
leave until the fall, I decided to use the time before taking up this
position by returning to the States and enrolling in summer school at
the University of Kansas. I departed by boat via the Pacific route
and eventually arrived in Lawrence in time for the summer session.
I completed the school work and received the M.S. degree.

Arriving in Manila, I found I had about ten days before I must
leave for Negros, so I decided to take a collecting trip. Across Manila
Bay one can see on the Bataan Peninsula the mountain peak of
Marivales, and the Zambales Mountains running north and south.
South of the city were still other mountains, all offering a challenge
to come and explore. There must be animals and plants, strange and
new, that were waiting to be found.

A railway running south from Manila passed along the shore of
Laguna de Bay, a large fresh-water lake drained by the Pasig River,
to the small city of Los Bafios. I planned to go to Los Banos and
from that point climb Mt. Makiling, an old volcano that rose up
from the shore of the lake. Moreover, Los Banos was the location of

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 59

a government school of forestry where I could obtain lodging and
perhaps find a companion or guide for a journey to the peak. I got
together my collecting gear and started south, traveling slowly for
hours in unbelievably hot railway cars. At every stop the native food
sellers passed up and down the station platform offering, through
the car windows, dingy-looking cakes, sorry shrimp, various fruits,
sprouted-bean pie, and supposedly delectable baluts — those boiled,
incubated eggs containing large embryos of chickens or ducks.
Frankly, I prefer chickens somewhat older and duck only rarely.

At Los Bafios, I put up at the house of a government official
where certain teachers of the forestry school boarded. I met the
director of the forestry school, Dr. Baker, an entomologist of note.
His collection of insects was enormous. He was accustomed to
sending groups of specimens to specialists over the world, retaining
the types. At his death the collection was given to the U.S. National
Museum; it was reputed to contain some three million insects, pre-
sumably all studied, including a remarkable number of type-
specimens.

On learning of my interest in reptiles, one of the professors told us
of a happening in his class some three months before. His students
were sitting on stools alongside a laboratory table, which had a
separate compartment below each place. As he passed behind one
of the girls who was carelessly swinging her sandaled foot back and
forth, he happened to glance under the table. There, coiled on the
floor, was a king cobra, its head reared up and swaying back and
forth with the slow movement of the girl's leg. His shock on seeing
the snake was great, but he acted with speed. He yelled to the class,
"Don't anyone move!" Then, grabbing the girl, he dragged her from
the stool and pushed her out into the room, to the utter astonishment
of the class. The snake was startled and issued forth from under the
table, starting directly toward the professor, who struck it on the
neck with a yardstick he had snatched up as soon as the girl was out
of his grasp. The reared head, standing nearly three feet high, was
knocked to the floor. A door nearby, through which the snake had
entered, offered an escape route and it slithered from the room. The
snake was pursued and a few more blows killed it. It was later
preserved in a jar of alcohol. The snake, which I measured, was
more than seven feet long, or less than half-grown.

I had been provided with a husky forestry student to accompany
me up the mountain. The morning after my arrival we were on our
way to the summit of Mt. Makiling, taking only our food, collecting
sacks, and two gasoline lanterns. At first we followed the well-
defined forest paths that had been made on the lower parts of
the mountain, largely by forestry students. We were continually
stopping to explore a fallen log or to turn over rocks in search of
burrowing snakes and lizards. My Filipino companion was active

60 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

and he would cut down ferns and orchids from the trees, then I
would chop them to pieces with my bolo. Each of us acquired a
good strong cane to be used in case we should find a cobra or other
snake that might demand severe treatment.

We were on the whole very successful. Along the small rivulets
that we crossed, we found brook frogs that took to the water as we
approached and hid in the soft bottoms of clear pools. However, the
milky sediment that was churned up gave away their hiding places;
we waded into the water and, ducking under the surface, succeeded
in finding several.

Later, in moving a bit of drift trash beside a stream we found a
small snake that I suspected was an unknown species. It was gray-
blue in color with bands of cream. This snake needed extraordinary
treatment, so I put it in a special sack and saw to it that this sack
was handled with extreme care.

We built a fire and cooked our rice and made coffee, using a tin
can to boil water from the mountain stream and a brand of instant
coffee. We rested for a time after lunch and then resumed our
journey. The paths were less distinct but we knew our general direc-
tions. It was getting cooler as we went up. We routed out several
small frogs from some water plants and obtained certain lizards that
scuttled through the dead leaves on the ground. A rumble of thunder
and an overcast sky told us to prepare a shelter soon or take a
drenching. We cut some small poles and made a skeleton shelter,
then spread leaves cut from giant caladiums over the frame. When
the first drops fell we were completely sheltered, although we were
already somewhat wet from perspiration and wading, but sat while
the rain poured down.

It was afternoon when the downpour ended and we continued
on our way, for we planned to spend the night on the summit. The
sky was still overcast and in the forest the light was dim. I saw
Arturo scrape a leech from his hand with his bolo, and soon realized
that I had some of the same visitors. We presumed that they were
in a belt in this area below the peak and that soon we would pass
this army of bloodsuckers by going higher. As protection I re-
wrapped my puttees tightly around my boot tops and legs.

Later it became necessary to light our lantern after the sun set
behind the mask of cloud, and the thin thread of a path we had been
following seemed to be lost. Arturo felt certain he could find the
path but we had to get around some steep points. Fortunately at
this elevation the jungle was not dense, and we were able to go on.
After half an hour we stopped to listen to frog calls and pick off any
recently acquired leeches and in the near silence I heard a strange,
quite inexplicable noise. It sounded exactly like a very thick liquid
boiling on the kitchen stove, complete with the noise of bubbles
popping as they reached the surface. But this was no small pot of

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 61

soup; it must be an immense cauldron. I asked Arturo what it might
be but he could offer no explanation. Surely no group of breeding
frogs could make such a noise. We moved forward cautiously since
the undergrowth had become denser, but soon the brush gave way
to open blackness. We found our boiling pot. We shone our lantern
into the blackness. Six feet below our level was a great pit of boiling
mud perhaps a hundred yards in diameter; puffs of steam issued from
the small mounds that rose up, exploded with a plop, then sank back
to a troubled surface. We had stumbled upon a small mud-volcano
that we did not know was on the mountain. At this point, we knew
we were far from our path and the only certain way for us to go
was up.

We started to climb and leeches became less numerous. Finally
I decided that, although we had not reached the summit, we would
stop for the night. We chose a place that was rather flat. First we
picked off all the leeches we could find and then prepared for the
night. We built a fire, cooked our rice, and had a belated supper.
I cut a series of slender poles about seven feet long, tied them to-
gether to make a platform about three feet wide, and braced this
with crosspieces. I suspended the platform horizontally from the low
branch of a tree a few feet above the ground. This was to be my bed.
I urged Arturo to make a similar one, but he laughed at the idea, and
prepared to sleep on the ground. He scattered ashes from the fire on
the ground saying that they would drive awav the leeches. Perhaps
he was right but I still thought he would be wise to follow my
example. He was asleep almost at once, however. I loosened mv
clothing and found numerous leeches scattered over my body. I hit
upon the scheme of slowly bringing a lighted cigarette close to the
body of the leech as it was gorging itself with blood. The heat
caused it to withdraw its hooks and drop off. Finally, having de-
leeched myself and wondering if the leeches would steal all our
blood, I fell asleep. We awakened about daybreak. I had passed a
reasonably comfortable night, but my companion had not fared so
well, for leeches had utilized certain surfaces as well as certain
entrances to his body, including his nostrils, which caused him con-
siderable discomfort and pain.

I congratulated myself on escaping all that. But as I made my
toilet and started to prepare breakfast, a leech got in my eye under
the lid. I did not dare pull the leech loose, for it would have caused
eye damage. I forebore and endured the creature for about half an
hour when, bloodgorged, it loosened itself and pushed out of my
eye. It was not painful but caused much discomfort.

We started back down the mountain after having only moderate
success collecting near the top. Most of the specimens were of well-
known species. We found a few more specimens on the lower part of
the mountain and finally reached the forestry school late in the

62 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

evening. Here I was able to remove from my clothing and from my
body about 120 leeches. These I placed in a small bottle of alcohol
and kept as documentation of a seemingly improbable story. But
my fine snake in the special sack was now gone; seemingly it was
more sharp-sighted than I and had found an escape from the sack.

On the weekend two of the younger American teachers accom-
panied me during short collecting jaunts in the vicinity of the school.
Both were good helpers. Visiting the nearby shores of Laguna de
Bay we found many water serpents lying on the bottom in shallow
water, and a series of a dozen or more was taken. These snakes be-
longed to a nonpoisonous genus and they could be picked up with-
out difficulty since they made no attempt to bite. They had a curious
character — it appeared that the internal organs were not fixed in
place, and when the snake was held head up the viscera seemed
to fall back, filling the lower part of the body. The scales of these
snakes were sculptured in a most intricate fashion.

It was now time to return to Manila. I was continually amused
to think that after being fired for "inefficiency," I had obtained my
new assignment with practically no difficulty at all, thanks in large
part to my letters of recommendation. And on the same day I re-
ceived the assignment, newspapers from the States told in more
detail how the "Secretary of Interior Dean Worcester had been fired
by President Wilson." I am aware I should have felt some pity for
the poor "White Father" but I can honestly state the contrary was
true. I fear too that most of the contemporary government em-
ployees likewise felt no sympathy. Some may have recalled the
quotation, "Lo! How the mighty are fallen."

13. Conquest of Canlaon

I journeyed to Negros on an interisland boat, and on arrival my
first impression was not a bad one. I learned that the population of
Hinigaran consisted of friendly, civilized Filipinos, who spoke both
Spanish and Visayan. There was, of course, a sprinkling of Chinese,
as well as one European, a Catholic priest of Irish birth, and a few
second- or third-generation Spaniards.

Since at Hinigaran there was no hotel, it was necessary to rent a
house, find servants, hire or buy a horse, and set up as a citizen of the
town. I visited the priest and he helped me find a large, rambling
house near the beach that was peopled by a variety of shrews,
rodents, bats, and lizards, not to speak of roaches, mosquitoes, etc.,
etc. No longer had I a house built of Philippine mahogany or a
family of second-generation head-nappers to instruct.

Priest Rogan, "Padre," as he was addressed, became a worthy
friend. He was a great help in finding needed shelter and equip-
ment. He found a man-of-all-work to serve as rice-boiler, market-
man, dishwasher, and groom for my soon-to-be-acquired steed that

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 63

was destined to transport me to the schools in the surrounding towns
and barrios. The name of this "boy" of uncertain age was Juan, and
although it is possible he had another name, at the moment I cannot
remember if I ever heard it. His language was a mestizo patois of
his own, which mixed Tagalog and Visayan words with Spanish and,
frequently, English. For example, my horse was "muy bad caballo,
poco ciego, and no see" (very bad horse, little blind, cannot see
well ) .

My work took me to the town of Isabella and its nearby barrios
and to the barrios of Hinigaran. I found the young Filipino teachers
doing well and the elementary classes thriving. Almost to an indi-
vidual the teachers, both men and women, were energetic and
willing workers.

On Sunday evenings, Juan, in the guise of chef, prepared food
and my friend the padre was my dinner guest. I found the good
father a delightful person. I maintained a supply of sweet malaga
wine, which pleased him, and toward the end of an evening, mel-
lowed, he would relate humorous stories. Although repetition was
rampant, I was always able to laugh because they were recounted in
an inimitable Irish brogue.

Near the center of the island arose a great volcano known as
Canlaon. From a little above sea level it soared to a splendid height
of nearly 8,000 feet. Its slopes were covered almost to the summit
with a magnificent carpet of forest, while its crater, usually quiet
and placid, would occasionally belch forth some gas and throw a
few stones to warn the world that it was not dead but merely sleep-
ing. From the first moment that I saw this mountain I wanted to
visit it. I set about getting a party together.

A young American Lieutenant of Constabulary named Ralph
Lincoln Christian was stationed in Isabella, and I persuaded him to
agree to accompany me. At La Carlota, farther north and much
closer to the volcano, was another young American, Homer McNa-
mara, assigned to the government agricultural station there. The
three of us decided to climb the volcano, but for several weeks our
duties forbade such a journey. When a short vacation did come,
Christian was unable to go; however, Homer McNamara and I de-
cided to make a preliminary journey to ascertain something of the
difficulties and to make some scientific collections on the lower part
of the mountain. We chose a weekend for the experimental trip.

At the agricultural experimental station we obtained two horses
and started early one morning (actually Christmas Day) along a
trail that led into the forest through the fields of the agricultural
station. It looked as if we had chosen a perfect day, and having
started early enough, we were in the cool forest before the sun
became hot.

We crossed a mountain gorge, fording the stream without diffi-

64 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

cult)' since the water was scarcely knee-deep for the horses. We then
went on up through reasonably clear forest. The path was dim but
easily followed. I should mention that Homer was riding a potential
stallion known as an "original." Its testes had failed to descend. In
consequence, we rode apart from each other since my horse was
a mare.

By eleven o'clock we had reached a spot which I thought might
offer good collecting. I could hear water and knew there was a
stream nearby. After removing their saddles, we tethered the
horses so they could graze and, having emptied our canteens, fol-
lowed the sound of the water. Less than a five-minute walk brought
us to the water, a magnificent spring that gushed out from among
rocks and formed a swiftly-running, shallow stream six or eight feet
wide. Here we filled the canteens.

Then we began searching for specimens. We heard a few frog
voices and found several species of brook frogs in the immediate
vicinity. Growing on the slopes nearby was a thick patch of wild
banana plants, which produce a fruit that looks like a small banana
but is so full of seeds that there is little edible pulp. Knowing that
the leaf axils of bananas catch and hold water, I thought this would
be a good place to look for frogs, so I began cutting down stalks and,
to be sure, a small frog was in almost every plant we cut down;
we obtained a good series of them. Instead of conforming to a single
color pattern, each example was usually colored and marked differ-
ently from every other. The species was later named Philautus
hazeli.

Under a log I found a new species of blind snake that was shiny
greenish-black on the back and sides, but pinkish-yellow on the
underside. This was later christened Typhlops canlaoensis. Along
the stream we found a water snake that was quite new to me
(Natrix dendrophiops negrosensis), reddish-brown above with a
series of dark bars on the body. Then we obtained several speci-
mens of a small snake with four lines on the body, and still another
small, burrowing snake, irridescent bluish-brown (Cyclocorus linea-
tus). Examination of the bird's-nest ferns that grew on the tree
branches, often spreading their fronds ten feet, yielded two species
of lizards, a tiny gekko (Lepidodoctylus christiani), and a tiny skink
(Sphenomorphus steerei).

We suddenly realized that we had not eaten lunch, which had
been left where we tethered the horses. It was almost one o'clock
and breakfast had been at four — no wonder we were nearly
famished. We ate rapidly, as it had begun to cloud up, and were
soon back at our happy task.

The rain was coming closer. We made a hasty shelter out of the
leaves of the giant caladium and the rain came down torrentially.
We remained dry, but regretted the loss of precious time.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 65

The rain, after the first downpour, stopped for a time allowing
us to collect. Later it continued somewhat more gently. As it was
growing late, we left our shelter, got our horses, and started back
down the mountain, shivering a bit from the cold. It was totally
dark and still raining when we reached the gorge we had crossed
early in the morning and we found it now full of swift water. We
debated whether we should try to cross; a cold, wet, and most
uncomfortable night was the alternative. We decided to attempt a
crossing. I went first; my horse was picked up by the current and
thrown against a large boulder. The roar of the water drowned out
our voices, and, thinking that I had gotten across, Homer followed.
As his horse came plunging, it reared as it approached the mare
and its hooves struck me in the back and knocked me into the torrent,
with my sacks and cans containing the precious collection. My
horse, now free of me, managed to make the opposite bank, and
while I was between the boulders I too managed to make the oppo-
site bank. I emerged from the water perhaps a hundred feet farther
downstream, but without a single specimen of serpent, lizard, or frog
to show for the day's journey. The sacks containing two cans had
been tucked in my belt but the water had pulled them away.
Homer's horse had managed to plunge and swim through without
serious mishap.

I recovered my horse and we reached the agricultural station
much later, very tired, very cold, very wet, and very hungry. One
might well imagine that the old giant in the volcano — like my old
enemy Mandalingan — resented our coming and trying to take his
animals from the mountain.

A month later we planned another ascent, and this time Lieu-
tenant Ralph Christian and John Deren, the fifteen-year-old son of a
provincial official of Bacolod, were to accompany us. We were to
make the ascent on foot, certain that we would be able to travel as
fast as the horses. Each man had his pack containing rice and other
food. I had my collecting outfit, including a gasoline lantern for
night forays, since the purpose of our journey was to rediscover the
species collected and lost on the previous trip. We started early
after a hearty breakfast and were soon retracing our previous trail,
moving single file up the mountain.

We rested from time to time, for none of the others were as
experienced in mountain climbing as I. During these rest periods I
searched for specimens. We reached the great spring before noon
and remained in the area for the rest of the day, collecting with con-
siderable success. We decided to camp here for the night, too.
Remembering the rain of the last journey, we set about making a
shelter out of bamboo and palm leaves. When it was nearly fin-
ished Ralph, who was not an expert with his bolo, struck a bamboo

66 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

trunk a glancing blow, throwing the blade against his arm, cutting
both veins and arteries.

As quickly as possible, I prepared a tourniquet from a long sack
and twisted it above the elbow so the loss of blood was largely
stopped. But we had to get him back to the station and to a hospital.
Homer and I started back down the mountain with Ralph, leaving
John with our equipment. It was necessary to loosen the tourniquet
frequently and as a consequence more blood was lost. For about
two hours Ralph had been walking under his own power but,
weakened by loss of blood, he then nearly collapsed.

We made a swinging chair suspended between poles on our
shoulders and carried him slowly over the rough territory, although
at times he would walk a little to give us a rest. A six-hour walk-
brought us back to the agricultural station where the superintendent
sent the lieutenant bv auto directly to the hospital at the provincial
capital, accompanied by one of the station employees.

After some food and coffee, we started back uo the mountain,
despite our fatigue. We reached camp about daybreak where we
found John safe and dry. We ate again, breakfast, and slept for
three hours.

Leaving part of our food supplies well hidden, we continued up
the mountain. We collected in a rather leisurely, but successful,
manner all morning, and after lunch took a much-needed siesta.
Nightfall found us still nearlv a thousand feet from the summit. We
stopped, built a fire, got supper, and collected leaves and mosses for
a comfortable bed. We were at an elevation where there were few
or no mosquitoes, and it was cold.

I preserved most of my specimens in jars of alcohol and placed
the jars in a large knothole in a resinous tree near the campfire. I
wanted nothing to happen to these specimens, which duplicated
most of those lost on our first journey to the mountain.

We were extremely tired and soon fell asleep, after throwing
much wood on the fire. Sometime toward morning I was awakened
by what seemed to have been a pistol shot. I was scarcely awake
when I heard another! Were we being attacked? I realized sud-
denly that the tree where I had hidden mv specimens had caught
on fire and, being very resinous, was burning rapidly. The jars of
alcohol, after boiling my specimens, had exploded and scattered
pieces to the wind. The others awoke hastily and moved the beds
and equipment. Within twenty-five minutes the tree came crashing
down, scattering branches over the place where we had been
sleeping. No one was hurt but the collection of the past two days
again had been snatched from our hands.

There was no more sleep for us, so we decided to cook breakfast,
but the tree had fallen on our rice and tinned food. Onlv a single

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 67

can of beans could be reached. We kept as close to the fire as pos-
sible, for a cold drizzly rain had begun at daybreak.

Since we had come to visit the volcano, we started on up to the
summit carrying with us our single can of beans. The exercise kept
us reasonably warm but at the summit it grew colder. Finally we
stood on the rim of a great crater nearly a half-mile across. From
one side there arose a new crater reaching about three hundred feet
higher. We descended into the old crater and found that it grew
colder closer to the bottom where, some three hundred feet below
the rim, pools of water were covered with ice. I tried my matches
but they were wet. We were now very cold, wet, and shivering. We
all set to pulling the long cogon grass and, when a considerable pile
was at hand, crawled under it and kept our wet bodies side by side
until we had become reasonably warm.

I dried my matches by friction against a smooth surface, and
then started a fire with some difficulty. Leaving the others to heat
our can of beans, I had started across the crater to a small lake with
a cover of ice when I was soon startled by another "pistol shot."
This time it was our single can of beans that had exploded over the
fire. The cooks, not knowing what steam could do, had not punc-
tured the can, and our breakfast was scattered for yards about the
fire — here a bean, there a bean. When I returned the others were
on their hands and knees hunting on the ground for the remains.
It was a sorry breakfast.

McNamara and I climbed to the new crater and looked down
into the great chasm from which the strong sulphur fumes were
issuing. We kept to the windward in order not to breathe the offen-
sive gasses. Then we all started down the mountain, traveling fast,
knowing that food was waiting for us at the spring. John, lacking
the stamina of McNamara and myself, became ill, but with the two
of us at his side we hastened on down the mountain.

Finally we reached the former camping place. John and McNa-
mara sank exhausted to the ground and I went to the place where
I had so carefully hidden our supplies. But the food was gone! It
had been stolen by rattan hunters, as the remains of a fresh camp-
fire indicated. We set out at once for the agricultural station to
obtain our much-needed breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We did arrive
and indeed survived. Without too much exaggeration, our journey
could be termed a second ill-fated expedition. And, remembering
again my troubles with Mandalingan, I began to feel certain the
God of Canlaon had similar attitudes toward hunters who would
take his animals.

The following day I returned to Hinigaran and resumed my
ordinary life, but there were compensations. Frequently at night, I
went for a swim in the shallow waters near the shore. Myriad
Noctiluca, those minute organisms that light up when disturbed by

68 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

motion of the water, were very active. As a result, my body could
be seen brilliantly outlined in a robe of light, as could the fish and
other denizens of the sea near me.

I have mentioned my pleasure with the company of Padre Rogan.
If ever a man lived for his parishioners, it was he. He might be
called at midnight to plod through rice fields to some obscure and
distant barrio to give extreme unction to a dying person. Unfor-
tunately for me, he was transferred elsewhere. His replacement was
a somewhat younger priest who, I later learned, had been sent to
Hinigaran for penance. After we became acquainted, he too was
asked to be my guest on Sunday evenings. He was a Friesian by
birth, educated in Paris, and at one time had been somewhat
exposed to surgery and medicine, how I never knew. He treated
malaria patients with quinine pills, but his practice was limited. He
told me that since he had been in the Philippines, three sets of
parents had brought him their children to have their tails removed.
This curious deformity, which may of course appear in any people,
occurs when the terminal part of the spine in developing fails to
make a proper bend inward.

"Did you amputate, Padre?," I queried.

"I? Would I interfere with the Lord's handiwork?"

An estrangement grew between us in a peculiarly roundabout
fashion. Two young Americans, one in charge of the schools at the
large town of Binalbagan north of Hinigaran, the other in charge of
schools at Himamylan, the large town to the south, were invited by
me for Christmas dinner. My Chinese cook (Juan had been super-
seded ) had promised us a feast.

A large suckling pig, stuffed with a considerable lot of spicy
Chinese herbs and sporting a small ear of corn in its mouth, had the
place of honor on the table. There were vegetables and a fancy
cake, of which any competent housewife might have been proud.

Having eaten and enjoyed the dinner, we took a short siesta and
then went down for a swim, since the beach was only about a block
from my house. While resting on the beach after a swim, my guest
from the south discovered a hermit crab dragging his molluscan
house across the sand. He asked me what the creature was. I,
always happy to oblige, explained that the crab was an ordinary
creature, somewhat like the American "crawdad," that had envied
the mollusc its house. When the mollusc died the crab seized its
shell and thrust its body into the spiral. Eventually, the evolu-
tionary process resulted in the crab now having the posterior part
of its anatomy represented only by a large gut! I removed the crab
from the shell and displayed the proof.

"But there is nothing to this evolution stuff," my guest said.

"So say you, but there is nothing in any philosophy that is more
true."

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 69

"But if it were true the priests would certainly know about it."
There was a religious problem.

"If they were smart enough to know they probably wouldn't tell
you so!" From his reaction I realized that I had lost a friend.

Repercussions of this conversation were to spread widely. Re-
turning to Himamylan, our man seemingly reported the dialogue to
the priest. The priest, aware of the danger, reported to the bishop,
who resided in Iloilo on the nearby island of Panay. The bishop, in
turn, had reported to the archbishop in Manila.

The Sunday evening of the second week following Christmas my
friend, the local padre, did not arrive for dinner. Some days later,
I stopped at the convent where he resided and was told by his
muchacho that the priest would not see me — "No, he is not sick."

I was astounded, for I could not imagine how I might have
offended the priest. I saw him at a distance in the street some days
later, but he turned off and went in another direction. About ten
days after that incident we both happened to be in the post office
at the same time, and I demanded in no uncertain way an explana-
tion for his behavior.

He explained. "I have orders from the archbishop in Manila to
hold no converse with you as you are trying to proselyte our people
[Catholics]."

Now I have always cared little if my beliefs were accepted,
whether in religion, politics, or science, for I was in no sense a
missionary — not even in a minor capacity. But I was unhappy about
the aftermath of the affair, which was fairly predictable. The story
that reached the provincial capital as well as our own town was that
the priest and Taylor had had a fight over the postmistress. And, I
felt strongly that the archbishop, whom I did not know and had
never seen, should be the object of some retaliation.

Vacation time soon arrived and I decided to make one more trip
up Canlaon, at least to the lower parts of the mountain. I went
alone, borrowed a horse at the agricultural station, and revisited
areas where I had found specimens on the two previous occasions.
I was fortunate in again finding most of the forms that I had re-
garded as new, and this time there were no untoward accidents.
I also wanted to visit Manila during this vacation because I had
heard that the ichthyologist of the Bureau of Science was planning
to leave the Philippines, and I proposed to apply for the job. Al-
though I had few qualifications for such a position, I thought I
could learn.

In 1916 I returned to Lawrence with the intention of attending
summer school and, if possible, completing work for my M.A. at the
University of Kansas. I also hoped I might find someone to replace
my former girl friend who, following a "Dear John" letter, had

70 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

become a seemingly happy housewife of a man who had been a
very good friend of mine.

At my fraternity house the housemother introduced me to some
of her acquaintances, one of whom, Hazel, stimulated more than
casual interest. I was invited to her Kansas City home after summer
school, and later joined her and her family at their summer home in
Michigan. We played together and swam together and I suddenly
realized that I wanted her for a wife, doubting greatly that she
would accept me. It took me several days to develop the courage
to propose marriage, and happily I found that my feelings were
reciprocated. With much reluctance because of the short time
available, the wedding invitations were telegraphed, and the family
dressmaker produced a trousseau and wedding gown for the bride,
and gowns for the bridesmaids, since the wedding ceremony was to
be a formal one in the Episcopal church in Kansas City.

The affair went off without a hitch and after cake and cham-
pagne we were off to the railway station to start on our journey to
the Far East. As we passed through Lawrence enroute to San
Francisco, our train was boarded by some 25 of the bride's sorority
sisters and somewhat fewer men from my fraternity bent on giving
us a farewell sendoff, much to the discomfiture of the conductor and
the dispatcher.

We had been able to acquire passage on the boat, but my bride
was forced to accept a place in a stateroom with an elderly lady,
and I had half a stateroom with an elderly but very agreeable man,
a tourist also bound for Manila.

We made a short stop in Honolulu and had the thrills provided
by the bands, the singing of "Aloha," and the exquisite leis with
which the passengers on board were welcomed. Our next stop was
Japan. As soon as we were through customs in Tokyo we obtained
passage by rail to Kyoto, where we had reserved space.

Here our long delayed honeymoon became a reality.

We went to Tokyo on weekends and attended some ancient No
plays, and saw two modern plays. The clever Japanese provided
programs in English for the handful of Americans and English who
were patrons of the theatres. We also learned much of the great
city of Tokyo. From Japan we moved on to Manila and back to
work again.

14. Zamboanga

I was soon offered a new and better position in Manila as Chief
of the Fisheries. My offices were to be in the Bureau of Science,
where I also was able to house the herpetological and ichthyological
collections. There were several large desks, four large aquaria built
in the walls, and adequate space for research and entertaining
visitors. My work was varied, and I became acquainted with men

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 71

in other departments of the bureau, especially with our elderly
director, Dr. Cox, who owed his position to the "Great White Father"
— seemingly they were related.

The most frequent visitor was Padre Sanchez, an elderly botanist
from the Jesuit University in the "Walled City," the older part of
Manila. He was extremely well-known and highly respected by the
Filipinos since he had, in Spanish times, been exiled to Mindanao
with Jose Rizal, the famous martyr of the Philippines.

The padre occasionally brought other younger members of the
Jesuit faculty. One was especially interested in mammals, reptiles,
and fish, and occasionally brought specimens for me to identify.
Probably for the first time he saw together groups of related species
of a single genus, or groups of specimens of a single species from
various islands, displaying slight differences stamped on their bodies
by the island environment. With the examples before us I suggested
that evolution had been at work to bring about all these changes.
He did not take offense at the explanation despite the fact that evolu-
tion then was considered an anathema by Catholics, and was almost
a forbidden word. He returned on various occasions and would
usually concern himself with the problem of speciation. But sud-
denly his visits stopped completely.

Some time later I was returning specimens I had borrowed from
the Jesuit museum, and on being received by the head of the Jesuit
institution, I asked for the former visiting padre.

"Why do you wish to see this man?" he inquired in a somewhat
severe tone.

"I am returning borrowed specimens and I know he is in charge
of these collections and holds my receipt."

"I will send you another."

He left and I was joined by another priest who received the
specimens. I made no queries concerning his predecessor.

Two weeks later a young man came into my office. He was in
ordinary citizen's clothing. I suddenly realized it was my former
visitor, without his long floor-sweeping cassock.

" tQue es eso?" I exclaimed.

He explained in reasonably good English that he had left the
Jesuit order; that a Spanish friend had given him the clothing he
was wearing; and, that he was hoping to earn sufficient funds to
return to Spain. He wondered if I had any ideas that might be of
help, for the order seemingly had retained any property he might
have had.

"You would give lessons in Spanish?" I queried, remembering the
recent arrival of several Americans now living at the Y.M.C.A. who
wanted to learn Spanish. He was agreeable, and a telephone call
arranged a meeting between the group and the proposed teacher.
Agreement was reached and the class was begun.

72 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Journeys to various parts of the islands kept me away from
Manila for a time and later, when I inquired about the teacher, I
learned that he had returned to Spain, having obtained passage on a
freighter to Barcelona. I have since wondered many times about
the fate of this young man on his return to Spain, now observing a
somewhat different world, riding perhaps on a new philosophy.

Shortly after I had been appointed Chief of the Fisheries of the
Philippines, I acquired a small boat, formerly a ship's lifeboat, for
my department's use. It was broad and, like all lifeboats, capable
of riding rough seas. A gasoline engine and gasoline tanks were
installed in it, and a canopy was set to cover it. The boat could
make about six knots an hour, when the engine was running; but
occasionally the engine would fail, at which time the boat would
wallow in the waves. We could move only slowly under muscle
power with oars. At this point I also acquired a permanent engineer
and muchacho, young Tagalogs (the name for the people and
language of this part of Luzon). Numerous trips were made to
Luzon ports not far from Manila, and the cultivated fish farms
common around Manila Bay were studied. But I rarely ventured far
from sight of land and concerned myself with the barometer and
clouds as well as with the uncertain weather reports.

The director of the Bureau of Science suggested a journey to
southern waters and the extensive Sulu Archipelago, lying between
southern Mindanao and Borneo. My boat was placed on an inter-
island ship for transportation to Zamboanga, a port on southwestern
Mindanao.

One passenger on the ship was Baron Waller, a newcomer to the
Philippines from Austria, who had planned to accompany me on the
journey. Just before the ship was to leave, I was tipped off by a
Swedish secret service man that the baron should not travel on it.
Knowing the man, I acted on the warning and told the baron what I
had learned. The baron said, "This man knows his business?" I said
I was certain that he did. At the last minute I had the baron's
baggage removed from the boat, and he disembarked just as the
gangplank was being removed.

The ship left about four in the afternoon, heading out through
Manila Bay and south. Late in the evening I was on the bridge with
the captain when we noticed the approaching lights of another ship,
which signaled for us to halt. Our captain, a Spaniard, considered
this an insult and voiced his opinions of the boat and its officers in
vociferous and very profane language. He definitely would not stop.
Shortly afterwards there was a bright flash, accompanied by a
cannon report. Still the hardheaded captain continued, not allowing
himself to be bluffed by blank shell. A few minutes later a cannon-
ball passed high over our ship and the patron stopped.

The other ship stopped next to us, and we were boarded by

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 73

British officers and two sailors. As the patron spoke no English, I
served as interpreter. The first questions were perfunctory. Where
were we going? What did we carry? Then they wanted the pas-
senger list. On observing the name of Baron Waller, they asked
that he be brought up. I explained that illness had prevented his
traveling, although he had come aboard and his baggage had been
removed just prior to sailing. They also inquired about a Swedish
National whose name was on the passenger list. I said that he had
failed to appear. The British thought they were being deceived and
searched the ship despite my candor. Their search yielded nothing
and they finally left. My Swedish acquaintance had seemingly
known his business.

The remainder of the trip to Zamboanga was uneventful. On
arrival, my boat was removed from the ship. My "crew" found
lodging at a small inn, while I proceeded to the hotel and engaged
a room, which happened to adjoin one occupied by a baby orangutan
(man of the forest). Its playmate was a small dog, and both were
owned by the proprietress of the hotel. The two animals were the
best of friends. I spent considerable time observing this baby
arthropoid and marveled at the similarity between its activities and
those of a young child. Sometimes its mistress found occasion to
administer mild punishment and the ape would run to its bed, pull
up its covers, and whine, or make equivalent noises.

I decided to visit Basilan, an island not far from the tip of the
peninsula of Zamboanga. It was mountainous and promised to
provide good collecting ground. We obtained the necessary food
and supplies for the journey and started across the channel separat-
ing the island from the mainland of Mindanao.

The island's inhabitants were for the most part Mohammedans,
or Moros, of Malay stock. But in the large village of Isabela there
were numerous Filipino merchants, while on the coast several
planters — Americans, Japanese, and an Englishman — were preparing
land for cocoanut plantations.

At Isabela we anchored in a small harbor that offered protection
to boats. We tied up to a piling at the pantalon, or wharf, and then
obtained shelter from a trader who ran the government store.

We began work here, going into the forest during the day and
making the journey back before night. In the evening we waited for
the fishermen in small sailboats to dock in the tiny harbor at Isabela,
examined their day's catch and noted the kind and quantity taken.
We questioned the fisherfolk on their average catch, number of days
fished per month, methods used, and the size to which the various
fish species grew. From the presidente of the town, I ascertained
the number of persons holding fishing licenses and could thus make
rough estimates of the annual catch from Isabela.

One day I joined a local fishing boat on the invitation of the

74 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

owner and spent the day watching the fishermen, noting on my
charts water depth compared with the depth to which their lines
reached. The following day we left in our own boat for a trip around
the island. We landed late and camped near Abung Abung, a
village by the beach.

In the two days spent there, many fine herpetological species
were obtained, including my first specimens of caecilians, which were
found under rocks or rotting logs. Large earthworms more than one
foot long were picked up and examined, then discarded. The first
caecilian was picked up, mistaken for a different species of earth-
worm, and it too was thrown down. I noticed, though, that it moved
more like a snake than an earthworm and I picked it up again and
examined it carefully. It was no worm. It had a mouth with four
rows of teeth! I realized what I had, and searched until other
specimens were also found. This new species was later named
Ichthyophis glandulosus.

I pursued my collecting for a time, then decided to return to
Zamboanga before starting to the wilder parts of the Sulu region.
We left the mainland of Basilan and, because of high waves, stopped
after dark in a Moro village on a tiny islet. The village actually had
been built on pilings and was situated entirely over seawater. We
came in quietly, tied the boat to some isolated pilings, slept in the
boat, and left before daylight since the waves had subsided. The
people were seemingly unaware that we had spent the night in
the village.

After a short run the engine began to act up, and when it quit we
started rowing to Zamboanga, keeping close to the shore of Basilan
in case a squall came along. Soon we noted a large dugout canoe
with outriggers putting out from shore with several natives on
board. They were coming directly toward us and I became appre-
hensive when I discerned that all were carrying krisses, those sinuous
swords with sharp double edges. They seemingly meant to harm us.
The engineer said, "They will kill us, Senor; better you shoot first."
But I was unconvinced. They signaled for us to stop as they rowed
in front of our boat; two of them came aboard. I could not under-
stand their rapid questioning but yelled and shouted "Aco Ameri-
cano," "Gobierno American." The engineer tried to answer them in
Tagalog but I am sure they did not understand what was said.
Finally the two men returned to their dugout, apparently appeased.
It seemed they thought I was an English planter, or so I assumed
when I understood their word Ingris.

We went on to Zamboanga, but it was another three hours' pull
before we reached the town. While rowing, we saw a launch cut
across from the northwestern part of the island to the peninsula. At
Zamboanga, we found a party of constabulary just starting to Basi-
lan. They were going to investigate a report from a Japanese planter

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 75

that a party of Moros had landed at the Englishman's plantation,
killed him, and, reputedly, thrown his body into the sea. When I
reported the incident of the Moros boarding my boat, the con-
stabulary major concluded that they were the guilty parties. He
asked me to accompany him to Basilan and if possible identify them.

The swift constabulary launch took us to the plantation, where
we found the body, terribly slashed, the head almost completely
severed, in a pool near some rocks. It was hauled to the surface
and taken ashore. Closer examination revealed a number of major
cuts; each assassin apparently contributed his stroke so presumably
all were equally guilty.

I suggested that a good place to start inquiry might be the point
on the shore where the men were seen entering the outrigger canoe,
a place we soon reached and, indeed, there was a large outrigger that
had recently been pulled up on the sand. I could not be certain that
this was the boat that stopped us, but it was the one used by the
assassins, for blood was smeared on the inside.

This convinced the constabulary that we were on the right trail.
The discovery of a path leading back to some clearings looked
promising, but the houses were empty. Thinking they could not be
too far ahead of us, we followed paths that led back toward the hills.
We had ascended a considerable distance when I, looking for all
and sundry animals along the path, suddenly discovered broken
twigs at the side of the path for two or three yards. A minute's
investigation showed where one or more persons had left the path,
headed to the right. I suspected there might be a shelter nearby,
built for protection from rain or for the use of woodsmen gathering
rattan in the forest. The constabulary sent four scouts in all direc-
tions and, after some time, one reported seeing a group of Moros
cooking food near an old shelter, about four hundred meters away.
The rest of the soldiers returned with the scout, and the Moros were
soon surrounded and called to surrender.

Of the original seven, five were captured. What became of the
other two we did not learn. We returned to shore with the prisoners
and then were off to Zamboanga.

15. The Island of Sinbad

It was late at night but still hot when we returned to Zamboanga.
I went straight to my hotel, for it had been a long and very harrassing
day and I was tired both mentally and physically. But sleep was a
long time coming, and when it did come, I was plunged again,
dreaming, into the events of the day. I awakened from my fitful
slumbers with an apprehension of immediate danger and my mind
flashed back to the thing that had been pulled out of the water and
which a few hours previously had been a man. I could see the
frightened mother and her children, who had barricaded themselves

76 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

in the house near the shore, likewise expecting to be killed as the
father and husband had been, for they had watched the murder from
a distance and were assured of safety only by our belated arrival.
Then back to sleep; but, troubled sleep.

In the morning I was rudely awakened by a sudden crash as my
hotel neighbor, the young orangutan, knocked over the screen that
stood in front of the open door of my room. I jumped up and saw
the creature sitting placidly on the screen. It had carried some of
its toys with it, which it placed on top of its head. Then they were
allowed to fall to the floor. When the toys were recovered, the game
continued, in the same fashion.

The next day I found my two "crew" members waiting for me
when I went to the boat. We set about getting several five-gallon
cans of gasoline to fill our tanks, keeping extra cans to take along
for emergencies. I reported to the constabulary headquarters and
talked to the colonel, who insisted that I carry a constabulary guard
on my boat. He said if we went alone, we might not be heard from
again. The constabulary guard was a bit of visible insurance.

Of course, there was no argument. Our guard consisted of three
soldiers, all Visayans from the middle islands of Panay and Negros.
All spoke some Spanish, and one had learned a little of the language
spoken by the Moros in the Sulu Archipelago.

It was afternoon by the time all the arrangements had been com-
pleted, so I decided to depart the following morning and spent the
late afternoon collecting in the hills back of Zamboanga. I stopped
to have a swim in the city swimming pool fed by a small stream from
a spring; it was a welcome relief from the tropic sun.

In the early morning we left Zamboanga and traveled south, past
Basilan, where we had already collected and had encountered the
murdering Moros; then to Bubuan and Bulan. Our boat was so low
in the water that on the curved surface of the ocean, so like a ball,
our first glimpse of the islands along our route was distorted and
consisted only of the bushy tops of coconut palms or other trees. As
we drew closer, the trees seemed to rise out of the water, and short
trunks became visible; closer still, the trunks grew longer. If we
were approaching a coral island, we would have to be even closer
before we could see the white line that marked a beach of coral sand
from breaking waves. We stopped at one of these small islands, one
not marked on our map. It appeared uninhabited, and as we ap-
proached we came upon a coral reef three or four hundred yards
from the shore. Circling the island, we found no place where we
could get our boat into the lagoon and close to shore. Not to be
thwarted, we anchored the boat on the reef and I swam ashore,
carrying collecting sacks, to gather specimens in the forest. Ordi-
narily, even a pair of boots is none too good for the rigors of col-
lecting, and certainly bare feet and legs complemented only by a

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 77

bathing suit is no improvement. In a few hours I took several speci-
mens of lizards. I also found two biscuit-shaped eggs plastered
against a tree trunk, each nearly an inch in diameter. I knew they
belonged to some species of gecko but to that point I had found
nothing on the island to account for eggs of that size and character.
I pried them off carefully, intending to keep them until they hatched.

Shortly before leaving the island, I felt a sharp, rather violent
pain on my foot and discovered a small scorpion had stung me after
I stepped on it. I knew that scorpion stings were painful but felt
certain there was no serious danger. The pain increased, running up
my legs to the groin, and within twenty minutes that region began
to swell. I was mildly alarmed, as intense pain frequently brings me
to unconsciousness, and I was fearful of trying to swim to the boat.
Swelling continued but at the end of half an hour the pain lessened
somewhat. The swelling, however, spread and the glands under my
arms became affected. I lay down for an hour, and the intensity of
the pain was so reduced that I returned to the beach and started
what seemed an endless swim back to the boat. The men helped
pull me onto the boat after taking my sacks, which I had tied about
my neck.

One of the eggs, which were in a tiny sack, was broken and you
can imagine my surprise on finding in it an abnormal gecko with
two heads. It was the same species that I had found two years before
in the interior of Mindanao in Manobo country. The other egg con-
tained a normal gecko.

These double-headed curiosities are found in all species of ani-
mals— snakes, turtles, and even humans — but they are merely incom-
plete identical twins, accidents of nature, and do not constitute a
separate species or kind. One can suppose that stories of two-headed
giants are based on the fact that children as well as geckos are some-
times born with two heads.

Our first night we stayed on another small, uninhabited island.
We got the boat ashore through the reef and anchored in the clear
quiet water of the lagoon. We cooked rice and heated canned
salmon. My cot was placed ashore; but the other five slept on the
boat. The night was uneventful save for a shower, which did not
awaken me although my net and blanket got wet.

Another day, and another; islands, reefs, wonderful fish, a whale
in the distance. One day a squall rose and we ran for safety behind
a small island, entering a lagoon. I did not dare take chances with
the boat, and not one of the other men aboard could swim; loss of the
boat might mean loss of all hands. Of course, the soldiers were afraid
of the sea, being from interior towns. My two men, however, had
had sufficient experience so that they were enjoying the trip, more
or less. However, none of the five could be brought to touch a snake
or even a lizard, so all collecting was left to me.

78 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

One day, as we were coming in sight of two islands separated by
a narrow channel, I saw, at perhaps a quarter of a mile, what
appeared to be a wall of water approaching us on the quiet sea.
I had never seen anything like it but remembered reading of tidal
waves; these usually were the result of great earthquakes, however,
and we had experienced only small shocks not worth mentioning.
Then I remembered tide-rips, small tidal waves that develop as a
result of the shifting of the tides in island regions. This must be a
large tide-rip; the force of which could easily overturn the boat. I
immediately ordered the engineer to change course; the outer part
of the wave passed us and the boat tossed wildly for a minute or
two, but we did avoid the riptide. Had we met the main part of
the rip head-on, which could have happened at night, someone else
might have written this story.

We next came to a very rocky island perhaps a hundred feet high,
with an area of coral beach. I decided to stop there since a squall
appeared to be forming ahead of us. We passed the reef without
difficulty and reached the quiet lagoon. Dressed as usual in bathing
trunks, I jumped into the water with a rope and pulled the boat up
to the beach so my men could set up camp. No sooner had we
beached when by the side of the boat there arose from the water a
sea serpent, a Laticauda. Its size and diameter astonished me and I
captured it, later to discover that it had swallowed an eel three-and-
a-half feet long, besides containing many unborn young. Prepara-
tions for the evening meal went on as I removed the eel and pre-
served the snake. The species was one of the three kinds of sea
serpents, related to cobras, that can crawl on land. Most sea serpents,
if tossed on a beach by a wave, simply lie there, and if they are in
the sun they die, since they usually cannot crawl the two or three
feet to the water. Almost all sea serpents are deadly poisonous, but.
despite that fact, they are not aggressive. If one picks the serpent
up by its flat, oarlike tail, the snake is entirely helpless.

I was in for more surprises when I took a walk along the beach
and found under every coral head and each piece of driftwood
smaller snakes of this species. I walked back to the rocks, and every
crevice and gap was filled with snakes; between two rocks was a
specimen some six feet long with a brood of thirty or forty newborn
young. I had heard of such islands of snakes. The most famous was
that of the fabled traveler Sinbad, and I thought perhaps this was
the island he had visited and about which Scheherazade had spoken
one night.

It grew dark. The lantern was lit and I was called back to rice.
I did not tell the men what I had found, as they were already dis-
turbed enough by the snake I had caught.

The next morning, I had the boy start breakfast while I set out
to climb the higher rock masses. Everywhere I looked, wherever

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 79

there was shelter from the sun, there were snakes. I could have
caught hundreds — perhaps a thousand — but I was content with a
small series. When we were ready to go I took the soldiers and the
boys back among the rocks so that they too could tell their unbe-
lieving families of this fabulous island of serpents.

Other such islands in the Philippines are now known, and in
recent years the Japanese have taken incredible numbers of serpents
from such places. The serpents serve both as food and as a source
of fine leather in Japan. The Philippine government currently pro-
tects these snakes by limiting collections and demanding that the
collectors purchase a license.

After leaving our "Island of Serpents," we cruised for three more
days and visited several other islands. On one beach I found a large
number of old shells of the oyster species that produces pearls and
wondered about an opportunity for a pearl fishery. This island was
not surrounded by a reef, the coral seemingly growing only on the
leeward side.

In many of the lagoons we found bcche cle mer, the so-called sea
cucumber, those strange sea animals that look like great, thick worms
ten to fourteen inches long with a leathery skin. When dried they
are used for food by the Chinese. I collected a number of these ani-
mals which, when placed in a bucket, eviscerated themselves, throw-
ing out of their bodies the digestive gut, liver, and other internal
organs. This does not kill them, and if they are put back in the sea
they will grow a new set of organs. What was most amazing was
finding a symbiotic species of fish that lived inside the digestive
tract of the beche de mer, a very slender fish whose fins had all but
disappeared and whose body was nearly transparent, without any
color except that of translucent flesh. They enter the sea cucumbers
by the anus and apparently do them little harm, save that of ap-
propriating some of their food.

There were many starfish, curious animals usually in a five-
pointed symmetry, but sometimes with ten or fifteen arms. If these
animals are cut to pieces and thrown back in the sea, many of those
pieces with an arm attached will live, grow, and regenerate a new
starfish. In several areas the starfish feed almost exclusively on
oysters and often can completely destroy the commercial beds.

We either avoided islands where we saw villages or landed as
far from them as possible. One day we landed on a rough island half
a mile long, which appeared uninhabited. The soldiers went ashore,
hoping to find some balud, wild pigeon, and I climbed to the top of
a small, rocky hill. From the summit I saw a group of Moro men on
the shore near an old shack, and they saw me. Immediately they
got their weapons from their boat and came toward me. Thinking
retreat the better part of valor, I retreated, going back to the place
where my soldiers were hunting balud. The Moros reached the top

80 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

of the hill where I had been a few minutes before, and finding me
still in sight, thinking that I was alone, they started yelling and
running towards me before I gained the cover of the trees. Thank
goodness the three soldiers were near enough to hear my shout.
Seeing me running and hearing the Moros, they grabbed their rifles
and advanced.

When the Moros were within fifty yards they saw the soldiers,
one of whom, a corporal, called to them to halt and shot his rifle
over their heads. This stopped them, and two began running the
other way. The corporal and I started toward the remaining three
intending to find out their business on the island, but they too
turned and ran back across the hill. We gained the summit just as
they started rowing off, presumably to an island about three miles
distant. I suspected that they were preparing to dive for pearls. Or
they could have seen smuggling in opium or silks from Borneo and
did not want to be found out.

Our food supply was growing short and we put into the harbor
of Jolo, a town on the large island of the same name. Here lived the
American governor of the Sulu country and also the famed Sultan
of Sulu who was, and always had been, a very unwilling subject of
the United States of America. He claimed the Sulu Islands as his
own, as well as a large territory in the great island of Borneo, for
which the British government paid him an annual rental of several
thousand pounds. Moreover, he claimed that the Spaniards had
never conquered his people and that his was a free country. But
the Americans had heard a different story and this island territory
had been ceded to America at the end of the Spanish-American
War. So the conditions in Jolo had never been good.

At Jolo, the soldiers were quartered with the constabulary and
my muchacho and engineer with a Filipino family. I obtained ac-
commodations at the governor's. The city was now comparatively
safe and presumably amply guarded by constabulary, so I began my
collecting. On two or three journeys I was accompanied by an
American, Captain Link of the constabulary, who had an interest in
natural history and enjoyed hiking. He was probably the only
American on the island who carried no gun. He was reluctant to
explain why it was unnecessary, but the governor told me that Moros
had killed some of the soldiers on patrol and had thrown their heads
in his yard. This had been too much for the small quiet officer, and
he declared war in earnest. He put up a row of bamboo poles in
front of his house and on these affixed the severed heads of certain
Moro outlaws; there they stayed until they were grinning skulls.
Two could play at the game of heads.

Collecting was uneventful and not especially successful. One
day I planned a trip to the old mountain, Bud Daho, where General
Pershing had fought his famous battle. I went alone, armed with a

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 81

bolo, a revolver, and my .22 rifle. I found a faint trail and climbed
to the summit, often having to chop away the strong ground-fern
masses that hid the path. I collected around the summit and around
the old trenches, finding a few lizards and frogs. I ate my lunch in
the middle of the afternoon and then had a siesta. I slept too long,
perhaps because of weariness from the excessive heat, and when I
awakened, the sun was low. I had been careless in marking my way
and could not find the path by which I had ascended. Finally,
exasperated, I started clambering down through the fern masses that
covered the long slope. But this was slow, because heavy, strong,
wiry stems were very tough for my bolo, now dull. I had made some
progress but the sun was sinking even lower. I finally placed my
sacks in a tube of bamboo, got on top of the fern masses, which grew
to three or four feet above the ground, and literally rolled down on
the tops of the ferns, sometimes rolling twenty or thirty feet before
falling through to the ground. At any rate it was much faster than
climbing down, and before dark I reached a grassy area and was
soon on a trail leading to a carabao road.

I returned to the palace to find that the governor had ordered the
constabulary to bring in my "remains" ( thinking I had been killed ) ,
and they were on the point of leaving for Bud Daho when the "re-
mains" walked in. The governor hinted that for his peace of mind
I should carry a guard or a companion on future journeys. Perhaps
he thought two people together could not get lost.

The next day I had an invitation from the American engineer to
accompany him across the island, where a road was being con-
structed. The workmen, chiefly Filipinos from northern islands,
were doing the work under protection of the constabulary. Our
conveyance was an old Ford, actually a great-grandfather of the old
Model T, without a top. The engineer drove and I sat on the seat
beside him, armed, at his insistence, with a revolver, cocked and
ready for action. Part of our road lay through fields of cogon grass,
eight to ten feet high — and the heat was of inferno intensity. We
passed by two or three very low, extinct volcanoes, their cones per-
haps less than a thousand feet high.

At the road camp, we found that a band of Moro outlaws had
attacked the night before. A number of shots had been exchanged,
but no one was killed or injured.

After a short stop we went on to another road camp at the east
end of the island on the edge of beautiful Siet Lake. Here I spent
some time looking about for specimens. I discovered a tree gecko
that was a species new to science, and to my knowledge no second
specimen has been taken. The specimen was lost for a number of
decades, in a jar with many common house geckos. Upon its redis-
covery, it was described and named Luperosaurus amissus, the lost
one.

82 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

On our return journey I persuaded the engineer to stop near one
of the volcanoes. There was forest at the very top and short grass
covered the sides. I especially wanted to examine this bit of forest
so we left the car and started up the side through the grass, which
became shorter as we ascended.

We had scarcely left the car when a shot suddenly rang out and
the engineer jumped and turned. "Where did that come from?" he
asked excitedly. "The bullet went by my head." I realized that my
own cocked gun had discharged accidentally, so I exercised my
imagination and remarked that I had been gunning for a lizard but
had not hit it. His fears were allayed. And, the bullet really had not
been too close to his head.

We reached the trees in less than an hour's climb, and at the top
observed in the crater a deep-blue lake that looked cool and quiet.
We decided to go down and swim. Since the walls were quite steep
on our side, we cut a rattan palm with a long snakelike trunk and
let it down so we could pass the steeper parts with some aid and
have an assurance of getting back out. We soon reached the water,
some 500 feet below the summit. Lacking bathing suits we disrobed.
I was on the edge of the lake, the engineer thirty feet above me in
low brush. Suddenly he let out a shriek and yelled "CROCODILE,"
and a moment later there appeared a naked man with his clothes
held high and a huge crocodile, disturbed from his siesta, almost
immediately behind him. The crocodile was trving to reach the
water, too, probably amazed at the sight that preceded him.

When the crocodile disappeared in the water we found a place
where a tree trunk, fallen at the edge of the lake, gave us a measure
of protection and some clear water. We bathed but did no swim-
ming. Within ten minutes, more than a dozen large crocodiles had
surfaced and were lying some distance away on the water, expecting
a helping of meat. We dressed, ascended to the summit, and jour-
neyed uneventfully back to the city. I conjured up no more imag-
inary lizards for targets.

16. Lednicky And The Mercury Hunt

One day my good friend Victor Lednicky, then Chief of the
Division of Mines and Mining in the Bureau of Science, came into
my office and notified me of a new assignment for us. Victor had
been a student at the University of Kansas with me and we had
maintained our friendship here in the islands. The United States,
threatened by war, was in dire need of mercury for munitions, and
the supply was very limited. Could other sources be found? On
previous occasions samples of a reddish mineral, known as cinnabar
and containing mercury, had been sent to the bureau from various
points on the islands of Mindoro, Busuanga, Palawan, and from one

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 83

or two other smaller ones. Our job was to investigate these places
to locate the sources of these samples.

We left Manila by launch, a comfortable one supplied by the
government. I took my collecting kits and preserving materials, as
usual. Our first stop was on the northwestern coast of Mindoro at a
large cattle ranch where the government manufactured a serum for
treating the domestic carabao for the dread cattle disease known as
rinderpest.

We ran alongside the small wharf. Victor took his gun and
walked to the marshy mouth of a small river to try for wild ducks,
while I took a short journey through a pasture to some forest near a
large swamp, hoping to find reptiles or amphibians. I had not gone
far when I found a snake and later captured some lizards. I came
upon a sort of path that had been made very recently- It looked as if
a very large object had been dragged through the grass and through
the edge of the forested area. I followed it some distance, noting the
tracks undoubtedly left by a crocodile in the wet mud. But surely, I
decided, one crocodile alone could not have made this trail; it must
have been dragging some heavy object.

I followed the tracks until they disappeared into the water. If
one of the cattle had been killed, it had been hidden somewhere in
the deeper parts of the swamp. Since it was getting late, I returned
to the laboratory and reported what I had found. Indeed, one of
the cattle was discovered missing, a young Indian bull which was
said to weigh 800 to 1,000 pounds. The next morning a search was
instituted and the remains were found in the water some distance
from where the trail ended. The crocodile, which we did not see,
must have been very large to have killed an animal of this size and
then to have dragged it such a distance.

We learned that the cinnabar sample sent from this place had
been obtained from a native in a passing boat, but where the native
had gotten it no one knew. The next morning we started south
along the west coast of Mindoro, making stops at two points to check
unconfirmed reports of red stone. But we found nothing resembling
cinnabar. From there we crossed Apo Pass, heading toward the
island of Busuanga, where we were to spend the night. At our next
stop, near a settlement on Busuanga, we learned that the sample of
cinnabar sent from here supposedly came from Culion, a neighbor-
ing island where the great leper colony was situated.

While Victor was consulting with the local officials, I took a walk
through the forest. In a high tree I noticed a plant which I sus-
pected was an orchid, one not previously seen in my journeys in the
Philippines. I tried to cajole some of the natives into climbing the
tree and bringing the plant down, but, even with a good reward
offered, no one would do it. Too dangerous they said. Finally, I
attempted the climb myself, dangerous and difficult as it was. I

84 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

reached the plant and lowered it to the ground with a strong fishing
line. The plant was nearly twelve feet in height, but bore no
flowers at this time. We made a kind of hammock for it under the
awning of the launch, since I planned to take it back to Manila and
keep it until it had flowers.

The next day we stopped on Coron, a somewhat formidable
island apparently formed of solid limestone with very little soil cover.
The surface of the rock is covered with small sharp points of lime-
stone than can pierce all but the stoutest shoe leather. We rowed
our boat close to shore; Victor and I jumped out and clambered up
the side of the seawall, pausing everywhere to look at the curious
plants growing in the rock. The plants looked as if they were
growing in a desert, despite the fact that the island has a heavy
rainfall.

We found a cave that had served as a burial ground. In it were
left coffins, hewn from rough logs and brought from one of the
neighboring islands. We finally reached the summit of the wall and,
crossing a deep dry gulch, came upon several small caves which
showed signs of human habitation sometime in the past. The caves
had been occupied by bird's-nest hunters during the nesting season
of the swifts, Collocalia. These curious cave-dwelling birds build
nests from materials which are cemented together by secretions from
their salivary glands. The cement is similar to a hardened gelatine,
and it is famous as the base of Chinese bird's-nest soups. The birds
place their nests on the walls of caves, and the hunters use notched
bamboo poles as ladders to reach them. The nests are small; it
would probably take as many as ten to make up a pound.

We found very few living animals on the island. Just as we were
about to descend to the water's edge to return to the boat, however,
I obtained my only herpetological specimen, a harmless slender
bush snake that lay motionless on a small shrub.

Our next stop was at the leper colony on Culion, not altogether
a pleasant place to visit. We were surprised to learn that children
born of two leprous parents might be wholly without the disease.
On leaving we walked through a shallow liquid solution to prevent
carrying on our shoes anything that might transmit leprosy.

The orchid we took back was given to a friend who had an orchid
garden, with a German gardener in attendance. The plant later
produced its flowers, a huge panicle with some fifty blossoms, and
the lateral petals of the blossoms measured more than four inches in
length. The panicle and part of the stem were sent to the noted
Boston orchidologist, Oakes Ames, who regarded it an undescribed
form. When America declared war on Germany, the gardener, to-
gether with certain orchids (including my rare find), disappeared
from the McCrory garden. He escaped from Manila on a merchant

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 85

boat. No one could be certain that he had taken the plants, but I
suspected he had.

I must confess here to a genuine interest in orchids and I have
collected as many as I possibly could. The species are legion, and
there are more than 500 in the Philippines. One form, almost like a
tiny tree 10 to 15 feet high, can sometimes be found growing on a
beach that receives salt spray. The flowers are large and leathery,
but scarcely beautiful. Perhaps the most extraordinary orchid plant
was found growing in sand near a small stream in Mindanao. It
lacked leaves but had several hundred small, greenish flowers. I
traced the roots and found the plant attached to a bit of rotten log
buried in the sand.

I collected part of the plant to take to Dr. Elmer Merrill in
Manila, who has written much about Philippine plants. I told him
I had discovered the strangest possible orchid, which must be new.
When he saw it, he casually remarked that it had been discovered
perhaps a hundred years ago. But, in all his Philippine collecting,
he did not know of any specimen that has been taken in the islands.
Later I also found another unusual orchid, with flowers partly of
blue. This specimen was sent to Oakes Ames, who did me the honor
of naming the plant Dendrobium taylori.

17. Many Little Fishes

For several weeks after our return from our hunt for mercury, I
was kept very busy at the Bureau of Science in Manila. One of my
new duties involved the supervision of the large aquarium, where
often more than a thousand fish were kept alive. In conjunction with
this, I wanted to try stocking some of the mountain streams of the
Philippines, which were lacking in any species of game fish, with
trout or bass, since I suspected that both trout and bass might do
well there. Bass ordinarily do not require mountain streams, but
in the tropics they require the temperature that mountain streams
can provide. Knowing that bass had been introduced successfully
into the warm Hawaiian Islands, I purchased some young fry there
and had them sent to the Philippines. A pond was prepared for them
at Baguio, a town in northern Luzon with a considerable elevation,
where it would be cool enough for them to thrive. They learned to
utilize as food a species of snail that grew abundantly in the water.
After the bass were about six inches long I took a few down to
Manila to try to acclimatize them to the warmer temperatures of
the lowlands. The fish were released in a small pond built on the
grounds of the Bureau of Science. Since there was no food in the
pond, it was necessary for us to feed them daily. They soon learned
to swim to the shore for food at a given signal, the slapping of the
water's surface with a small paddle. The fish even took food offered
by hand and were not intimidated by the children who often came
to help in this task of feeding. The fish thrived for about three years.

86 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

One day two of the fish, at that time nearly ten inches long,
failed to report for their meal, and an investigation was instituted.
The guard at the bureau was assigned a special watch during the
succeeding nights, but three days later another fish was missing.
The following day the culprits were discovered. While I was feeding
the remaining fish, I caught a glimpse in the water of another crea-
ture— a strange snakelike fish nearly two-and-a-half feet long, called
Ophiocephalus, the snake-headed fish. Using nets, we carefully
seined the pond and caught two of the carnivorous fish; they un-
doubtedly were the destroyers of my bass. These predators can live
for several hours out of the water, and they crawl across fields and
highways, following rivulets if possible. At night, they move from
pool to pool, destroying all the fish in each pond as they go. I had to
build a fence of finely woven wire around my pond to keep these fish
from getting in the water.

One of the animals kept at the Bureau of Science was a macaque
monkey. Her lodge, where she was tethered by a long chain, was by
the path leading to my fish pond, and each time I passed she would
leap to my shoulder and search my pockets for peanuts or other food.
One day she failed to appear for the pocket search but had instead
busied herself in her lodge. I investigated and found that somehow
she had acquired a tiny bleary-eyed kitten, seemingly half-starved,
which she was holding in her arms, human fashion, searching its fur
for evasive fleas. She behaved like a little girl with a new doll.

I got some canned milk for the kitten, but the monkey refused to
release it, or to allow me to approach her. She disappeared into her
lodge. The kitten must have found the milk eventually, however,
for it had begun to take on a well-fed appearance. But the monkey
still would not let anyone touch the kitten. If the kitten attempted
to get beyond her reach, it was apprehended and held in her arms.
One day I heard the monkey screaming violently and observed that
the kitten had wandered some distance from her, so I picked up the
kitten and carried it back to the scolding monkey. As I approached,
she landed on me and gave me a furious bite on my shoulder. Then
she snatched the kitten away and disappeared into her lodge. A
few days later the kitten disappeared for good and the monkey fre-
quently whined and whimpered for several days, seemingly grieving
for the adopted young.

Since leaving the Manobos in Mindanao, most of my journeys
had involved sea travel and my visits were chiefly along coastlines
and to small islands. I thought the high mountains of Luzon in con-
trast must be inhabited by interesting animals and species different
from those occurring in Mindanao and other islands to the south, so
I planned a journey to the northern part of Luzon. I wanted also to
see the many wild peoples who lived in this region, the Benguets, the
Bontocs, the Kalingas, and the Ifugaos. They differed in dress, cus-

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 87

toms, and laws, but all were very picturesque, although some were
inclined to be warlike, and addicted to headhunting. Traveling as a
government official on government-made trails, however, I felt that
the journey would be reasonably safe. Moreover, I wanted to exam-
ine further the suitability of the mountain streams for the cultivation
of fisheries and to observe strange plants and animals that might
be there.

I journeyed to Baguio with my old friend, H. Otley Beyer, an
ethnologist and anthropologist from the University of the Philippines
and advisor to the governor General on the wild people of the
islands. Beyer knew the wild people very well and spoke a variety
of their languages. We met an Ifugao chief and a party of his
followers and Beyer showed them the wonders of the small city of
Baguio. Electric lights were hard to explain, but he told them the
electricity was like lightning, perhaps very young lightning, made to
run on wires. When they visited the ice plant and the old chief saw
large, recently-frozen cakes of ice, he was very surprised to find it
was like cold, wet glass. There is no word in the Ifugao language
for ice, because surface ice never forms there; but they do have
much hail and, of course, a word for it. Beyer thus told the chief
it was "hail." The old chief, as well as his followers, became excited
and they all wanted to leave the ice plant, a place where hailstones
might weigh fifty pounds! The normal hailstones that fell in Ifugao
were bad enough.

We visited the dog market and saw perhaps a hundred dogs
awaiting purchasers — not to become pets, but food. The wild people
who come to Baguio consider dog as satisfactory as pig, goat, lamb,
or carabao; consequently dogs are raised for food just as pigs or
lambs are raised here. I still prefer roast beef and doubt if dog meat
will ever, under any conditions, make my mouth water. Dr. Beyer
was unable to go farther north with me, so, after I found carriers for
my baggage, we started through the mountainous regions of the
Benguet Igorots.

A young Igorot whom I passed on the trail asked for a cigarette.
He had been to school and spoke some English. "Baguio big city,"
he said. I agreed and asked if he knew about Manila. Yes, he knew
Manila, "But, it not so big Baguio." I insisted that Manila was many
times larger than Baguio. Then to make a good story, I said, "But
in my country, New York is twenty times more big than Manila."
This was too much for his credulity. "Sir, I think you do one big lie.
Baguio more big." He was rooting for his home town.

We passed others on the paths, usually older men and women
who would move off the path and conceal themselves in the under-
growth. As I rounded a bend in the trail I saw three naked girls,
probably twelve years old, walking along arm-in-arm and singing,
"Old John Brown had a little Indian, had a little pony." When

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they discovered I was approaching, they ran to the side of the path
and peeked through the bushes. As I passed them, they came out
and asked for cigarettes, which I gave them.

We left Benguet toward evening and traveled to the government
rest house, where I obtained a night's lodging; the following day
we journeyed to Bontok, capital of the Bontok Province. The people
there likewise are called the Bontoks. The country is completely
mountainous and as a result their farms are strange. A series of
walls are built around the mountainside, and the soil is loosened and
placed against each wall. The separate fields may be several hun-
dred feet long, from five to thirty feet wide, rarely more, and the
retaining wall may be five to thirty feet high. Since it is necessary
to irrigate these fields, almost all of the water on the cultivated
mountains is used for irrigation. Wasteland that in most countries
could not support a goat is thus turned into rich agricultural land.
But there was no place for game fish.

Bontok was made up of a few government buildings and rather
poor houses, and many extremely poor hovels — some were no more
than cavities between small boulders covered over with hand-hewn
boards and thatch. Most of the natives apparently did not care to
adapt themselves to better housing. I doubt if I have ever seen more
unsatisfactory living conditions in towns occupied by any of the
pagan tribes, with the possible exception of those of the small black
Negritos.

My collecting was not successful; I found only two or three
species of lizards. One day as I was passing near a native house, I
noticed a rooster that had just captured a snake. I was so desperate
for specimens that I immediately started after the rooster. Finally,
as he flew down the mountainside, he dropped the snake, which
I appropriated. It must have been a very funny scene, for when I
looked up I saw one of the Bontok Igorots bent double with laughter,
and such laughter was rare among this people.

Then on into Ifugao country! Here I saw fewer people because
most of the native travelers hid along the way until I passed. They
were said to be the most warlike of all the northern tribes, except
the Illongotes, and were feared by the neighboring tribes as well,
because of their proclivity to headhunting.

I spent a night at Bunawe at the government rest house, and with
my carriers started early the next morning to return south. I found
no suitable streams for bass or trout, for most of the water was used
for irrigation. The trip back could be dangerous; the constabulary
had warned that the trail beyond Bunawe, back toward the low-
lands, would pass close to an Illongot town where a number of
individuals had lost their lives to the headhunters, a town whose
reputation has not changed even to the present. A few years ago
two American Fulbright professors were killed there, as well as a
party including the wife of the former president of the Philippines.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 89

I was carrying my .22 rifle, which usually afforded satisfactory
protection. Late in the afternoon it began to rain; I took a rubber
poncho from my pack, slipped it over my head, and covered the gun
slung at my side, together with the sackfuls of live specimens. I had
far outdistanced my carriers who had taken shelter under boulders
during the downpour. Just about twilight, I was suddenly startled
by the apparition of a young warrior leaping out from the grass
beside the path. He was naked except for a G-string, brandished a
long bolo, and carried a head-ax in his belt. Before the bolo de-
scended, I jumped back and let out a terrific scream, hoping to
frighten the warrior. At the same time I grasped the rifle, throwing
the side of my poncho into his face. This confused him and he hesi-
tated. I advanced toward him with my gun exposed and screamed
again. This was effective, as he jumped from the path and dis-
appeared through the forest toward the village. After it was all
over, I found I was weak from fear, but I knew I must not stop on
the mountain as he might regain courage and follow me in the dark.
After recovering somewhat, I moved on, slipping and sliding down
a dangerous path that had to be traversed before I would find a
government rest house. The path zigzagged and I had to determine
when to turn wholly by "feel" since it was a dark rainy night.

The rain had ceased, and since I had been walking for about
three hours, I knew that I must be approaching the rest house. As I
rounded a bend, however, I saw a startling sight ahead of me. Down
the path two or three hundred yards, a mass of flame suddenly ap-
peared out of the blackness and then slowly faded away almost
completely. It was very eerie. I watched it for some time, during
which it reappeared and disappeared several times; then I decided
to move on. The fire disappeared from view as I went lower, but I
found it again — a tree filled with fireflies lighting in unison. The tree
of fire reminded me of the Biblical story of Moses and the burning
bush that was not consumed. But coming out of my tree there was
no voice such as the one Moses heard. Do such fireflies occur in the
country where Moses traveled?

Fireflies are remarkable creatures since they produce cold light.
Someday we may learn the secret of making cold light in quantities
for practical use. I remember a cold light given off by the minute
animals of the Sulu Sea, sufficient to guide my boat away from the
dangerous coral reefs. And once, traveling in Mexico, I saw tiny
glowing lights in the road, which turned out to be beetles, each
having two small headlights. These lights were constant, not turned
on and off as the firefly's. I captured five of these beetles and placed
them in a small vial; on an open book in the darkness, they gave
enough light to read by with ease — but back to my story.

I left the tree behind and finally found the government rest house
after another mile of travel along the dark trail. The next day I

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waited until early noon for my carriers to catch up, but I was in no
hurry and needed the rest. The remainder of the journey was
uneventful, and I returned to Baguio, in the Benguet country, then
continued down the mountain by auto to the railway at Pangasinan,
which returned me to Manila.

18. The Southern Philippines

Some time later, through the office of the Governor General, I
was given permission to join a coast and geodetic survey party
setting out to work the southern coastline of Mindanao, which
borders on the Celebean Sea. Preparations were made at once and
my collecting materials were placed on board their vessel, which
was to leave the following day. The captain was a very agreeable
person interested in the type of work I proposed to do, and the other
American officers were also friendly and welcomed me aboard. The
journey to the south was wholly uneventful. We made short stops at
Iloilo on the island of Panay and at Zamboanga on the coast of
Mindanao, where fruits and vegetables were acquired. The captain
also made an acquisition for himself, a handsome parakeet housed
in a large cage made of slender bamboo slats.

We headed southeast and approached the coast of Cotobato
Province, the sparsely inhabited area where the work was to begin.
The boat was anchored some distance from shore in the vicinity
of the tiny village of Saub. The crewmen could easily go ashore for
surveying, or make soundings in the offshore waters. Each morning
I was put ashore, and I usually spent the day in the forest, returning
to the shore in the evening to be taken aboard the vessel.

On board ship, besides an ample stateroom, the captain had pro-
vided me with a small room below deck to use as a laboratory for
the care and preservation of my collections. Here I prepared skins
of mammals I had taken and preserved reptiles and amphibians in
liquids.

One of our first survey areas was near a new plantation where an
American planter was having the forest cleared for growing coco-
nuts. At night, from the fallen trees, came the sound of a consider-
able variety of frogs calling. During the day, it was possible to
obtain tree lizards and occasional tree snakes, as well as numerous
mammals.

One day I returned to the ship with a live python about six feet
in length. I decided to place it in a small empty cabinet in my state-
room, instead of keeping it in the laboratory with the preserved
specimens. I told no one of the new passenger, not wanting to alarm
my fellow travelers. But I sternly warned "John," my Chinese cabin-
boy, never to open the cabinet. "OK, no open boss," he replied.

I wished to visit an inland area some distance from the coast and
the American planter was kind enough to lend me a horse. One

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 91

evening I rode about two kilometers, dismounted, and started to
investigate a series of recently fallen trees. I came upon a huge
trunk still covered with a great many plants and lianas, and I heard
the varied voices of frogs. I approached the trunk with my lantern
to discern the calling frogs. I had captured two or three when I
accidentally kicked against a shrub and made a noise. Almost
immediately there was a loud shriek, followed by the sound of
perhaps three animals spurting through the brush. After my heart
returned to its normal position and my fright had subsided, I con-
cluded the animals were deer — a stag and two does. Deer, and even
horses, when badly frightened often utter loud cries which would
seem to be foreign to either species. It took a good quarter of an
hour to recover completely from my fright before I returned to
catching frogs and lizards. A long while later I got my horse and
went back to the planter's house.

The captain became interested in my work, but he was hesitant
about believing some of my stories. I told him that certain arboreal
snakes could be caught by letting a snake wrap its tail around a
stick; then one might carry it an indefinite distance hanging from
such a stick. This was too much for him to believe.

One Sunday I did not leave the ship until about one o'clock in
the afternoon, whereupon the captain asked to accompany me, as he
wished to learn some of my collecting techniques. I carried a hand-
some Malacca cane that he had given me. During the afternoon a
number of lizards and one small snake were taken. Shortly after we
had begun our return to the shore, I saw a tree viper lying sluggishly
on a low branch of a shrub. I rubbed my cane on its tail and, as
expected, it coiled its tail about the stick; I lifted the snake gently
from its branch and walked down the path with a serpent swinging
from my stick until we reached the shore. The captain then agreed
that he would have to believe at least some of my stories.

I had also told him of a nearby colony of fruit bats that had many
thousands of bats measuring nearly five feet in wingspread. This
again strained his credulity, but after visiting this place, the captain
himself thought there might be at least a hundred thousand bats.

I had discovered the great bat colony earlier, when I had seen
them flying from their shoreside rookery in the nightly search for
food in the distant mountains. The colony occupied a number of
trees beneath which all plant life was destroyed by wild boar that
visited nightly and prevented accumulation of bat guano.

The daytime behavior of the bats was fascinating. If I walked
under a tree harboring perhaps a hundred or more bats, it did not
frighten them. They remained undisturbed, hanging by their feet
from the branches. Many fanned themselves with one of their wings
and, if a female was caring for a young one clinging to her, she was
almost certain to use a wing to fan herself at least during the hottest

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part of the day. When they flew off in the evening they formed a
long horizontal column, and as they crossed a river they would dip
down and, presumably, get a drink of water. Then on to the moun-
tains to search for fruits. What seemed remarkable to me was that
these great colonies were composed of two species belonging to two
genera, Acerodon and Pteropus, living together seemingly in reason-
able accord. The largest, Acerodon, measured 5 feet 4 inches in
wingspread; the Pteropus, about 4 feet 10 inches. The species were
not segregated, and one species might alternate with the other along
the same branch. A series of each of these two species was taken.

But some of the most interesting specimens taken were known
as Clieirorneles torquatus. In a partly hollow log I found several
that seemingly could not fly. They were nearly naked, their wings
relatively small, but they had very well-developed breast muscles.
Under the wings of females was a large pocket of skin covering the
mammal on each side. This was for carrying young, since the lack
of thick fur made it impossible for young to cling to the mother's fur,
as is the case in most bats. These particular bats have a gland on the
throat producing an extremely offensive odor. In females the gland
has a single large opening; in males there are several small openings.
It appeared that the bats I found had been injured when their tree
dwelling fell, which accounted for their being unable to fly.

The coastline, as stated, had practically no native inhabitants.
Occasionally, however, individuals were seen moving up or down
the coast. One day a native hunter carrying a medium-sized wild
boar that he had speared came along as we were about to go ashore.
We thought we might purchase the fresh pork.

One of the workmen on the boat could understand a little of his
language, and found that our hunter was interested in becoming a
"Molo," a Mohammedan ( he had the Oriental habit of changing the
letter r to I for easier pronunciation). The man looked every inch
the typical "wild man." He wore only a G-string and, besides his
game, carried only a spear. His hair was long and matted, and he
had several earrings in the lobes and rims of his ears. It seemed his
idea of being a Moro was wearing a shirt and a pair of trousers.
Some of the Filipinos from the boat took him in hand, and after he
had removed a few layers of his surface sand by bathing, they cut
off his locks, removed the numerous rings from his ears, and brought
from the boat an old T-shirt and a pair of old trousers, which he
donned. Now he was "every inch" a Moro. Later he went on his
way, seemingly quite happy with his new nationality and still in
possession of his pork, apparently unaware that it was forbidden
to Moros!

Days later I startled a group of people who were just emerging
from the forest to come down to the sea to obtain salt, fish, and other
sea food. These people wore only the scantiest clothing, the women

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 93

were "topless" and carried babies. I quieted their fears by giving
them some of my food and later I got pictures of the group as they
sat on the beach and then fished with their hands in the shallow
water. They had nothing so up-to-date as fishhooks.

It was at practically this point on the Cotobato coast that the
Filipino government later announced discovery of a new tribe that
lacked all knowledge of the uses of tobacco. This was in 1970, and
two years later a previously unknown group of cave dwellers living
in the same general region was reported.

The life with the surveyors was pleasant. As I said, the captain,
in looking out for my comfort, had assigned me a cabin and a young
Chinese boy named "John." To awaken me for breakfast, John would
carry the ship's portable phonograph to a chair by my door and play
a record of his own choosing — the "Meditation" from Massenet's
Thais.

Late one afternoon while I was ashore, a rainstorm came up
quickly and the constant rumble of distant thunder sounded like
waves breaking on a headland at high tide. I started toward the
shore but became confused and actually headed in the opposite
direction. After a short distance I stumbled on a nest of a jungle fowl
and appropriated several seemingly unincubated eggs. Suddenly I
became aware that it was much later than I supposed, and that I
should have reached the shore long before. I must be lost. Having
had other experiences of losing my way in the forest, I knew enough
to stay where I was. I prepared to spend the night and at once
began cutting and piling brush and branches to form a bed on the
wet ground. On this I piled quantities of small twigs and leaves of
large plants. To protect myself from the numerous mosquitoes, I
readied a large collecting bag to put over my head and smaller ones
to encase my hands. I started a fire with my tiny emergency bottle
of gasoline and boiled eggs in a bamboo cup. Thus, with some
crumbs left from lunch, I provided myself with an evening meal.
Covered with the small mass of branches and leaves, I was able to
keep warm and to dry out while I slept.

Sometime during the night I was awakened by a group of wild
boar passing, and found that the clouds were gone and the moon had
risen. I discovered that I had been traveling away from the coast,
so I marked my direction for the morning and returned to sleep.
Shortly after daybreak I arose and started. I soon began to find
evidence, in overturned logs and blazed places on trees, that I had
been this way before. I reached the beach and signaled the lookout
on the boat, who sent the launch ashore for me. I would arrive in
time for breakfast.

On board they had been somewhat worried at my failure to reach
the boat the previous evening. They realized, as did I, how futile it
would have been to send a searching party ashore at night. And

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getting lost is a risk anyone who insists on exploring the jungle takes.
One officer had dismissed the matter by saying, "Don't worry, with
his experience, he can take care of himself."

When I got to my cabin, my first concern was the python, and
upon opening the cabinet, I found the snake gone. I called John the
cabin boy, and after looking at his bland smile for some moments, I
pointed to the cabinet and said, "You open?"

He replied, "No open, boss."

I tried again. "You no see anything?" His reply, "No open," was
completely unconvincing. I dismissed him. I could imagine the
excitement if the snake should turn up unexpectedly in some officer's
cabin. Of course, it was possible that the snake had actually left the
ship and taken to the water, since these creatures are wonderful
swimmers. No incident was mentioned at breakfast, so I decided to
say nothing about the escape of the snake. It is one of my besetting
faults that I am always hoping for the best.

I spent the rest of the morning preserving the specimens col-
lected on the previous day. In the afternoon I went ashore to visit a
small sea cave from which I had seen tiny bats flying. The cave was
in a cliff of limestone and the opening was rather narrow, but as one
progressed a few yards, the cave became considerably larger. I
carried a lighted lantern, not that it was especially dark, but I
wished to locate the spot on the dome of the cave from which the
bats might be hanging. I finally found a small group hanging upside-
down on the ceiling and shot at them. Several fell and I ran to pick
them up. As I did so, stones began to fall and as I hurriedly re-
treated, practically the whole ceiling let loose, and masses of rock
fell to the floor. I managed to escape, having been struck only by
some tiny pieces. The vibrations set up by firing the gun in the small
cave had loosened the rock, and I had almost been buried. I felt
lucky that there had been the short time lag between the shot and
the avalanche.

I had gotten seven specimens before I escaped. These bats were
very much smaller than the large fruit bats I had taken before.
Those "flying foxes" had measured more than five feet from wing-tip
to wing-tip; these tiny bats, only a few inches. In the front of their
heads was a triangular depression, the use of which I could not
determine.

That evening, the surveying work in this area being finished, the
boat moved on down the coast and anchored near the mouth of the
Gulf of Davao, much closer to shore than we had been previously.
We worked in this area for another week, making daily landings. I
knew that the survey work was nearing completion and that we
would soon be heading back to Manila, but I felt that the journey
had been a success.

At the officer's table, I found occasion to discuss pythons, re-

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 95

marking on the swimming ability of the creatures. And I told the
classic story of one that had managed to swim eighteen miles to
reach Krakatoa from Sumatra after the destruction of all life on the
island by a volcanic eruption.

The weather had been extremely hot for the past week and I had
been sleeping on one of the cots John had placed on deck. One
morning I was awakened about daybreak by the night watchman,
who was shaking my arm.

"Big sawa catch bird, captain bird."

"What!" I exclaimed, sitting up. Then the awful meaning of
what he had said became evident. The "big sawa" was my python,
and the "captain bird" was the brilliantly-colored parakeet from
Zamboanga, to which the captain was teaching English. That is,
the bird could say "eek eek," very plainly, when the captain said
"Good Morning!"

Still in pajamas, I followed the watchman up to the captain's
deck. There in the bamboo cage was my python, his head and neck
thrust between the bars of the cage, trying to escape; but a suspicious
bulge within his body at stomach level was too large to go between
the bars. Here was the thief actually caught by his crime, even if
the crime was only an early breakfast; his guilt was written on his
body, if not on his face. I dispatched the snake at once without
sentiment, preserved him, and removed the bird. This I washed and
made into a museum birdskin, which, at this moment, is in the col-
lection at the University of Kansas.

The presence of the snake on the ship was much discussed. The
officers, in pondering how it had gotten aboard, recalled that the
snakes were excellent swimmers, and the final solution was that
the snake had climbed the anchor chain. Only John and I knew the
real truth. When I went to the cabin I called John over and asked,
"You open?"

"No boss; no open."

"You find open, then maybe shut?"

"No find open, no shut!!"
It was obvious that the snake had picked the latch from the inside
and closed the door when he left.

Before our work was finished in the Gulf of Davao, I asked the
captain to group some lights over the gangplank that was fastened
to the side of the ship, and which allowed one to come abroad from
the lifeboats or the small yacht. At night, the strong light shining in
the water attracted an incredible variety of animals, chiefly fish and
invertebrates. It looked as if the surface of the sea were paved for
walking! I caught as many as possible, using a butterfly net as a
dip net. There were many flying fish, and I took about thirty with
the net, mostly above water in the air. Some actually came high
enough to land on the deck. The most unbelievable objects taken

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were the larvae of certain eels. These animals were perhaps eighteen
inches in length, less than a clime in diameter, and seemingly com-
pletely transparent. For the benefit of an audience of officers, three
were placed in a white wash bowl filled with clear water. Against
this white background, all that could be seen were three pairs of
black eyes moving through the water; not even an outline of the eels
could be discerned in the clear water! These animals approached the
impossible more than anything I have ever seen in my travels.

I do not know whether using the same technique elsewhere in
the sea would result in such a congregating of sea life. The Davao
Gulf is deep and near the edge of the great ocean chasm known as
the Philippine Deep, with a depth of nearly five miles. Many of the
small fishes taken were preserved, as were a few invertebrates. The
flying fish found a welcome spot in the breakfast frying pan.

When we made the return journey to Manila, our ship stopped at
Zamboanga and I sought everywhere for a parakeet, but found none
for sale. I did see the captain again some twenty years later in
Washington, D.C., in a restaurant. I happened to be walking along
Constitution Avenue and from the sidewalk I noted a cafe below
street level. Through the window I saw a gentleman in a Coast and
Geodetic uniform and decided this was the place I would eat my
dinner. I had scarcely been seated by the head waiter when a touch
on my shoulder announced the arrival of the uniform — and the cap-
tain. He joined me and we began reminiscing. The python story
was recalled, and I still maintained that the snake is a marvelous
swimmer.

19. Cholera and A Typhoon

In thinking back over my adventures in the Philippines, one
shipboard journey stands out clearly in my mind, largely because of
two dangers that threatened for a time. One was the dreaded
cholera, and the other was a typhoon, which almost engulfed our
poor old ship. That neither of these dangers overtook us is evident;
and the journey was a "bust" as a collecting trip.

The island of Mindoro, some ninety miles in length, lay south-
west of Luzon and Manila and was near the regular shipping lanes
to the south. A mountain range formed the north-south backbone
of the island. And Mt. Halcon, in the north, which rose from near
sea level to a height of nearly 10,000 feet, was one of the majestic
peaks of the islands. Nearly everywhere was splendid forest, and
close to the shore one saw narrow beaches of white coral sand.
There were a few Filipino towns, and deep in the interior and in
areas where the mountains approached the sea, there were the
scattered indigenous inhabitants, a very primitive people of dwarf
Mongol stock. They were apparently peaceful and would trade
forest products for rice.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 97

In times long past, Chinese traders and miners had come to the
island and had obtained much gold. Thus, they called the island by
a Chinese word meaning gold mine. The island did not acquire its
present name until the Spaniards came and called it Mindoro,
meaning a mine of gold, which was said to be a translation into
Spanish of the Chinese name. Most of the settlements made by the
Chinese had been wiped out, presumably by the mosquitoes that
carried a malarial disease called blackwater fever. The mines had
long been forgotten or lost.

Centuries later the Spaniards and the Filipinos had tried to settle
the island, but they, too, for the most part died or left, and only a
few small settlements remained, scattered at distant intervals on the
coast. Apparently they did not discover the source of the Chinese
gold. The wild natives, seemingly immune to the fevers, were the
only ones who continued to persist in spite of all who would take
the land.

When the Americans took over the Philippines, they made some
attempt to settle in the uninhabited parts. They knew about fevers
and mosquitoes, so they made clearings and destroyed mosquitoes.
One such plantation for coconuts was begun at Sumagui on the east
coast of Mindoro by an American family who had purchased land
from the government and had lured Filipino woodsmen to help
clear the land. Many of the trees were of hardwood and had a good
market value in the sawmills of Manila. The trees were cut into
logs, dragged to the open coast, loaded on boats from the water, and
taken to the market in Manila.

My ill-fated adventure started with a journey to Sumagui for
just such a boatload of logs. My friend Clark Burks, the son-in-law
of Sumagui's owner, had chartered a boat in Manila for the trip, and
he invited me to accompany him. Our vessel was an old sailing ship
in which an auxiliary engine had been installed, and the captain of
the boat was Spanish. The ship got clearance from the port authori-
ties, and we left late at night. By morning we were outside Manila
Bay; but the weather was unsettled and the barometer was slightly
below normal "fair weather." The ship did not have a radio, so we
could get no weather information that the barometer did not give;
but, with that tub of a boat, a storm was the last thing we wanted
to experience.

We ate a hasty breakfast and went on deck. We passed through
two small squalls, accompanied by some rain, but the strong winds
had been momentary. The barometer, however, was falling. Clark
and I spent part of the morning reading old magazines, but I kept
thinking about the weather. Later in the morning one of the crew
casually mentioned that a man in the galley was ill. I went again to
look at the barometer and found that it continued to fall. It began
to look as if we might be in for a heavy blow in the afternoon,

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whereupon Clark pointed out that there was no real shelter for a
boat anywhere on the east coast of Mindoro.

Then, worse luck, another man from the galley came to the
captain's bridge and reported that he thought the sick man was
dying. The captain hurried below and remained there for some
minutes; when he returned he said the man was dead and asked me
if I would look at him. I did; it took little to surmise the cause of
death. The terribly sunken eyes and the blackened areas below the
fingernails as well as other, more unpleasant symptoms revealed that
Asiatic cholera had struck. I told the captain it could only be cholera
that had killed the man and pointed out the danger to the rest
aboard. The man had been the second cook and had quite possibly
contaminated the food. I urged the captain to try to disinfect the
whole galley with boiling water, and dispose of all food with which
the man might have come in contact. This he attempted with our
help.

The captain found some heavy pieces of iron and attached them
to the dead man. He was then wrapped in straw matting and was
consigned to the sea for burial. Those who had touched the corpse
were advised to disinfect their hands with alcohol I furnished, and
change their clothing.

By now the captain was also watching the barometer, and it was
still falling. Soon Clark pointed out Sumagui plantation ahead on
the coast, and we would discern a group of small dugouts towing
logs that were being rafted from the shore onto the water where the
boat could anchor. It is a curiosity of hardwood logs that many are
so dense that they are heavier than water and will sink, unlike most
wood which is lighter than water and floats. In such cases, each log
had to have a special raft of several bamboo poles tied to support it
on the surface.

The work of pulling the logs from the water with a crane and
winch was not difficult, but a great bank of clouds threatened the
blow that was soon to come. Most of the logs had been put on the
ship when the wind struck. It would have been folly for the men to
try to row back to shore a half-mile away in their dugouts, so after
their canoes were tied to each other, the work crew were gathered on
our boat, and the ship started south. The captain pointed out on his
chart a small island some fifteen miles south lying close to the shore,
which, if the water were deep enough, might permit a ship the size
of ours to find shelter. At the same time there was a chance of being
wrecked upon the rocks opposite the island.

The boat pitched drunkenly. Raising her bow, she would smack
the waves with her stern, then roll. Many of the men became sick,
but it was difficult to know whether they were victims of cholera or
of seasickness. Clark and I were afraid to eat. At last, sometime
before dark, we were able to make out the tiny island, only two

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 99

hundred yards long, and the boat was headed toward shore. The
sounding was made as we went in, and the ship narrowly escaped
being caught on a headland. Finally we found comparatively quiet
water, but still the ship tossed. The captain ran a line from the ship
to the island and another line was fastened to rocks on the shore.
Our situation was nonetheless precarious. The high cliff rising from
the shore was at the moment protecting us from the wind coming
from the west, but we knew there would be little protection when
the wind changed and came from the opposite direction.

In a typhoon the storm is moving in one direction and, at the
same time, it is whirling like a gigantic cyclone. In the center of
the storm is an area of calm and if one were in the exact center there
would be a small area of almost complete calm.

The storm continued. The food supply was being depleted, as
the crew of workmen had left their own food on shore at Sumagui.
After we found shelter I went into the galley and cooked a small pot
of rice, seeing that the plates were placed in boiling water and that
nothing touched the cooked rice. Next morning we contacted some
natives on the shore and had them bring bananas and rice, which
we obtained by barter. The workmen proposed to return to Sumagui
by land, by following the coastline, and were put ashore with some
of the food supplies from the ship. The storm had continued during
the night, but we fortunately escaped the worst of the blow, and we
had rougher going after the wind changed. The seas still were
running very high and the captain said it would tear the ship to
pieces if we attempted to leave. Clark and I cooked our own food
and then we went ashore. Storm or no storm I was in hunting terri-
tory. Away from the shore I was impressed by many handsome,
gloriously-colored shells of large tree snails that had been dislodged
and thrown to the ground by the storm; several hundred were col-
lected. On the face of the cliff at some elevation was a cave. It was
not an easy access, but apparently the cave had been explored by
someone before us, for against the cliff were notched bamboo stalks
which served as ladders. I ascended with difficulty and gained the
cave. The room was not large but it was being used by flocks of
bats and the floor was covered with guano.

Two things were evident — that the previous explorers had been
digging here, and that the cave had at one time served as an ancient
burial place. The diggers had left bones and numerous pieces of
broken pottery, pottery that in some century past had been imported
from China and had been acquired perhaps in exchange for gold.
One wonders why a primitive people should have acquired and
appreciated these fine potteries, but the larger vases and porcelain
jars were used to bury their dead and had survived the centuries
only because they had been buried. Many had been broken, some
probably because the diggers had been stupidly careless. A number

100 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

of human remains lying about suggested that many of the large vases
had been found intact and had been emptied of their contents. It
was obvious that burial in these jars had involved cutting up the
body in pieces; sometimes it was even necessary to split the skull.

We were not concerned with the dead, but I did collect some
bats. On the coast I found no amphibians or reptiles; apparently the
storm had caused them to take cover. It was not often that I failed
so completely to find specimens for the herpetological collection.

We returned to the ship, but the waves outside still were running
so high that the captain decided to wait until the following morning
before starting north. We hoped to get the remaining logs, if any
could be found, and Clark expected to visit the plantation before
leaving with the cargo for Manila.

But when we arrived at Sumagui there were no logs, and a lone
man in a boat rowed out with sorry news. The workmen who had
started up coast had been seized with cholera; they had been able to
reach a small settlement where most had died. Only one man, who
had gone ahead of the others, had reached the plantation, but he
did not know the fate of his fellow workmen. Word of their deaths
arrived later.

The ship had to return to Manila. This should have involved a
stop at a quarantine station at Olongopo, on Luzon Island, where we
should have observed a ten-day quarantine. On arrival the captain
reported the death; but that the man had died of cholera was not
reported, since there had been no doctor aboard who could have
stated positively the cause of death. Clark and I certainly had no
desire to remain exposed for ten more days to the possibility of
acquiring cholera on board the vessel, so we compounded a felony
perhaps by remaining silent. We only knew that the man had died
by natural causes and had been buried at sea. No further illness had
developed on board. After two days the boat proceeded to Manila,
where the ship's owners were told of the happenings and the ship
was thoroughly fumigated.

20. The Graveyard On Tablas

Back in Manila, the large aquarium that had become my concern
needed attention. There were some sixty aquaria for fish, as already
mentioned, and three other exhibits; one with two large sea turtles,
another with two half-grown crocodiles, and still another containing
three large pythons between fifteen and twenty feet in length. Since
the inhabitants of the aquaria were replenished twice a year, I sent
men to collect live fishes at Naujan, a port on Mindoro, where I
planned to join them a week or two later. A small coast-guard boat
would be sent down to Naujan with pumps and tanks so that the
live fish might be delivered to the aquarium in good condition.

It was very interesting fishing with dip nets around the edges of

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 101

coral reefs at low tide. One always had to be on the lookout for the
purplish "foot" of the large angel-wing molluscs. When stepped on,
these molluscs are able to close the bivalves and trap a careless fish-
erman, and without help he might be retained and drowned at high
tide. Men so caught need an iron bar to break the shell.

I returned to Manila with a collection and proceeded at once to
provide the newcomers with their respective aquaria. Some of the
tanks contained a variety of fish, but it was necessary to keep fishes
of nearly the same size together or the larger ones would eat the
smaller ones. Often, too, one fish would be more pugnacious than
another and fighting ensued. It was necessary to watch them care-
fully, or fish would be found with fins bitten off or with injured tails.
Frequently fishes that I had never seen before were brought in and
I used to place these in small individual aquaria until I learned their
habits.

One specimen, a very strongly compressed fish having only a
tiny mouth, was received in one lot, and I was certain it would do
no injury to other fish and so placed it in an aquarium with about
thirty others. For nearly a week all went well, but one morning my
helper reported that many fish were dead. I found all the fish in one
of the tanks dead except one, my new one. I at once suspected that
the air had been shut off, leaving the water with insufficient oxygen,
and the fish had smothered. But there was nothing wrong with the
air circulation. Next I suspected that one of the workmen had
poisoned the water by accidentally allowing a cigarette to fall in
the tank, but this had not happened.

Then I began to suspect the sole survivor. Why should this one
survive and the others die? I cleared the tank, renewed the water,
and returned my suspected villain to it, along with a few other fish.
Several days later all the fish were dead except the suspected one.
No, no longer suspect; its guilt was a certainty in my mind now and
so I, as judge and jailor, condemned the fish to live the rest of its life
in solitary confinement in a small tank. The fish seemingly had a
skin poison, but just how this was exuded and how it entered the
body of the other fishes I did not know, although my suspicion was
that it must have been absorbed through the gills. Unfortunately,
the species was never identified.

On some of my southern journeys I had passed an island called
Tablas, which means "table." It was about eighteen miles long and
up to six miles wide. It had been cultivated, most of the forest
cover having been removed, and many of the hills in the central-
southern part were grass-covered and supported numerous cattle. I
thought it would be interesting to see whether the forest animals had
disappeared when forests were removed or whether they had
adapted to the farming country.

I decided to visit Tablas and to learn its historv. About three

102 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

hundred years earlier the island had been inhabited by a tribe of
small, primitive Mongols, who were reportedly warlike. When the
Portuguese, the Spaniards, or the Filipinos came to take the land, the
Mongols fought, but lost. The last survivors, some two hundred
individuals, had been transported to Mindoro, which was then re-
garded a very undesirable place to live. Enroute to the island the
boat and all passengers sank in the sea. Some of the Filipinos living
on Tablas were convinced that the boat had been purposely sunk to
get rid of these people, but I doubt this is true.

I took passage on a small interisland steamer, and, thinking that
I would have no use for my own boat, left it behind. The steamer
was scheduled to make the regular stop at Odiongan, the port and
capital of Tablas, and presumably would come back in two weeks,
at which time I planned to return to Manila. I made my head-
quarters at Odiongan. Here there were no wild, unfriendly people.

I had brought traps to collect mammals, as well as my usual
outfit for preserving specimens of fish, reptiles, and amphibians. And
at the request of an entomologist, I was to catch some butterflies.

On my second day's trip to the country, I found a small depres-
sion partially filled with water on the side of a hill where some
limestone had been removed. From a point above it, I noted a large
lizard apparently drinking from the pool. I made a detour and
crawled close to the edge of the depression to look down. Sure
enough there was a huge lizard nearly four feet long eating a frog
that had been killed. I wanted the lizard for my collection, but I
had no gun or stick, only a butterfly net. The reptile suddenly reared
its head, saw me, and started to clamber up the side of the depres-
sion. It would certainly escape. Seizing the fragile butterfly net, I
swung it over the reptile's head and slowed him down until I could
get up from my horizontal position. His clawed feet ripped a great
gash in the net, and his head tore a hole, too. But now I had my
hands on the creature and soon had him in a stout sack. By this
time the fragile butterfly net was in shreds.

The next day I traveled to a sparsely-inhabited part of the island
where the natives told me there were ghosts and spirits; many were
afraid to visit the region. I followed the seashore for some miles
before the sun became too warm. Rounding a small headland, I
came upon a curious scar on the low cliff where a huge mass of
surface had seemingly slid into the sea, perhaps as a result of an
earthquake. It was obvious that the missing rock was actually the
covering of the cave, and one that had been the burial place of the
primitive Mongols.

The floor of the former cave, completely exposed, was about
thirty feet wide by forty long. The floor was strewn with broken
pottery jars, vases, large celadon plates, and other vessels. Scattered
everywhere were human bones. There was not a single piece of the

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST

103

Fig. 2. — E. H. Taylor, about 1922-23, in the Philippines. Photo courtesy of

Kraig Adler.

104 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

pottery that was not broken. If the pieces had been in perfect condi-
tion, they would have been of considerable value because they were
of the type that had been brought to the islands from China in pre-
Spanish times, perhaps more than 500 years earlier.

I collected several skulls, representative of what I believed to
be both men and women. I noted one very curious thing — a gekko
lizard emerged from the base of one skull. On looking into the skull,
I found that almost the entire brain cavity was filled with the shells
of lizard eggs plastered on the skull walls and on other eggs. This
was indeed a strange nursery for young lizards! Over on one side of
the terrace I found the remains of a large jar. Under the toothless
skull of an old man, I found a curious metal object covered by a
thick deposit of verdigris. It was bronze or copper, which was re-
markable because at that time the natives were not supposed to
know metal work such as this. In a sack I placed several skulls and
pieces of broken pottery, with the intention of taking them back to
Manila. I took them back to the village at dark and carefully hid the
sack outside of Odiongan. I acquired a box and, after nightfall,
packed the skulls carefully together with the other spoils. I did not
want anyone to know I was taking the skulls back to the Bureau
of Science.

Our boat was due the next day about noon. I finished my pack-
ing and moved my baggage to the wharf, but the boat did not come
that day. Next morning, bright and early, we were again waiting at
the wharf. I did not dare attempt any collecting for fear the boat
might arrive during my absence, but the whole day passed without
a boat. Finally, after a third day, we concluded that our boat had
been sent on another run and would not come again for another two
weeks. It had happened before. However, we were able to avail
ourselves of an alternative. We learned of a tiny sailing vessel that
was preparing to leave for the city of Batangas on the coast of Luzon.
From there, we found it was possible to go to Manila by train. The
patron of the boat agreed to take three persons as passengers, and
after another day's delay, we started back to Manila on our sailing
boat.

Everything seemed auspicious. There was a good wind and we
left Odiongan with all sails full; but toward evening the wind died
down completely and our boat idled by a small group of tiny islets.
Next morning there was still no wind. One of the sailors had, while
moving my crates, permitted one to fall and it broke open enough to
show the skulls. When the patron discovered this, he grew furious,
convinced he had found the cause of our trouble. The skulls had
becalmed the ship! He proposed to dump the box of skulls, but
after a wordy battle with me, allowed the box to remain.

I had put the piece of metal found in the burial jar in my pocket,
and while waiting for the wind to come up, I began to clean it, care-

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 105

fully removing the verdigris that had accumulated on both surfaces.
It proved to be a small Portuguese religious medal, commonly worn
around the neck on a chain. One side bore an engraving of a bust of
Santa Caterina; the opposite side, the Latin inscription "Sanctissima
Christo ora pro nobis."

What was this object doing in the burial jar of a dwarf Mongol?
I got my answer later, in Manila, when I showed the object to the
director of the Jesuit museum. He said the medal was one a Catholic
army officer might wear and suggested that it might once have been
the property of a Portuguese officer killed when the Portuguese had
invaded the island two or three hundred years ago. This object
probably had been taken from his body by a native who kept it as
an anting anting, a charm, until his death.

We waited for the wind another day and night; but it was well
into the afternoon of the next day before there was enough wind to
fill the sails. All this time the patron kept insisting that I throw the
skulls overboard, but I assured him they must be regarded as gov-
ernment property and throwing them away would be a crime.

Finally, we were on our way.

The next afternoon we were in Batangas Bay sailing along peace-
fully. On the trip I had worn a beautiful new velour hat which my
wife had brought me from the United States. While I was sitting
under the boat's awning, a gust of wind blew the hat off and plopped
it into the sea. I yelled for the patron to turn the boat around, for
at no cost could I lose that particular hat, but the patron, still feeling
angry about the skulls, ignored my plea. I jumped overboard and
recovered the hat, but the boat sailed on. I felt sure that if it did not
return for me, I could swim to shore, less than a mile away. After
making a wide turn of half a mile, the patron did pick me up. He
had been angry about the skulls, but by now he was in a rage! So
was I!

There was little I could say or do, and when I left the boat, I
tried to smooth his anger by leaving some money for the extra dis-
tance I had caused him to travel. But I did not feel that either I or
the skulls were responsible for the calm that had delayed our
journey.

21. Polillo

On July 9, 1920, I undertook a collecting trip to the island of
Polillo, off the east coast of Luzon, and to Calocot, one of a group of
small islets east of Polillo. My visit resulted in obtaining a consider-
able collection of herpetological specimens, a few of which are
worthy of mention. I was able to recognize most of the species en-
countered as belonging to species of the Luzon mainland. In many
cases, however, there were small differences in accord with their

106 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

points of origin. And of course a few specimens presumably repre-
sented new species.

Most of the island, which was a little less than twenty miles long
and between three and ten miles wide, was forest-covered; but the
undergrowth was not heavy enough to make walking difficult. A
great many of the trees supported masses of orchids, and of large,
elegant ferns, Asplenium nidus, the bird's nest, especially conspicu-
ous because of their size and appearance. The fern develops on a
limb, the fronds growing outward and upward, thus providing a
basketlike cavity that collects dead leaves, twigs, dust, etc. With
decay this material forms a soil that provides a terrestrial as well as
an arboreal habitat for worms, insects, centipedes, and grubs. All
this provides food for small lizards and frogs, and these, in turn, food
for occasional snakes. The bulk of these plants becomes heavier and
heavier after years of growth, and not infrequently their weight,
often 50 and occasionally 100 pounds, will break the limb from the
tree.

Cutting these huge plants to pieces in the trees was not a suc-
cessful way of collecting, so, choosing ferns growing in trees near
pools or small streams, I would cut or pry them loose, then carry or
drag them to the water and submerge them. This drove the denizens
to the surface of the water where they were easily captured and
bagged.

A noteworthy find was a small green gecko hidden in the basal
part of the fronds of one plant. This species was new to science and
later was given the name Gekko smaragdinus, owing to its green
coloration. Altogether twenty-two specimens were taken on the
island, for the most part from a species of spiny-leaved Pandanus
about 15 feet high, growing along the shore and small streams.
These were cut and submerged and the specimens captured as they
swam ashore. To my knowledge, the species has not been taken
again in the past fifty years.

Another surprise was finding in a fern two specimens of a small
snake, Typhlogs cummingi, which had been discovered before 1845
in the Philippines and named by Gray of the British Museum. This
small snake is terrestrial and one can scarcely believe it had the
musculature necessary to permit it to climb a tree and reach a fern.
Several specimens of a small skink were found, but the species did
not appear to be limited to the fern habitat for I found one specimen
in a Pandanus. This was named Saiphos herrei for Dr. Albert Herre,
who succeeded me as Chief of the Fisheries when I resigned.

Two specimens of a very rare Philippine snake were found, Hap-
lonodon philippinensis Griffin; and two others of another rare variety
were seen but escaped from the ferns before I learned the proper
technique for catching them. One specimen of Hologerrhum philip-
pinum Giinther, a terrestrial species, was taken. Three small frogs

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 107

of the genus Philautus were found ( and all were regarded as new ) .
And another small snake, Hemibungarus mcclungi, was discovered
when I was crossing the island to the eastern coastal town of Bislian.

At Burdeos, a small village on the eastern coast of Polillo, I was
told of a bird that lived on the island of Calotcot that dug holes in
the ground and buried its eggs as a lizard might. I suspected that I
was hearing a local myth, not knowing very much about ornithology,
but I was curious and decided to visit Calotcot.

I found a group with two dugout canoes that had arrived from
Calotcot to bury a child in the Bislian graveyard. They agreed to
take me to the island and bring me back when I wished to return.

We departed late in the evening. I occupied one end of the
dugout and soon was asleep. During the night we ran into a tiderip
and a heavy splash of water awakened me. At first I was sure I was
in the sea; it was soon apparent that the boat was intact, but that I
and my equipment were awash. We bailed out the water and con-
tinued on our way, arriving sometime before morning and catching
a bit more sleep at my boatman's house.

After a breakfast of rice and instant coffee, I began my search for
the bird, as well as for the desired amphibians and reptiles. A few
hundred yards from the house I found the bird's nest, which was a
somewhat circular mound of earth three to four feet in height and
twelve to fourteen feet in diameter. It was a communal nest, the
product of the efforts of generations of birds over a long period.
The boy who accompanied me looked over the surface, began to
dig, and shortly presented me with a great egg, as large as a goose
egg. My "myth" vanished into thin air in the face of this absolute
evidence. The boy pointed to a place for me to dig and at a depth
of about two feet I, too, discovered a similar egg.

It was not until two days later that I was fortunate enough to
see the bird that so buried its eggs. The birds were very much smaller
than those usually capable of producing such an egg — which I would
guess was equivalent to one-third of the total weight of the bird. I
later learned that the bird was a species of megapode or mound-
builder, and its habits had long been known.

The behavior of a group of snakes next attracted my interest. The
recent settlers on the island had been clearing the forest and pre-
paring the land for cultivation. Along the edges of the forest adja-
cent to the cleared areas I saw several snakes attempting to catch
lizards. The snakes seemed nearly famished. The lizards, foraging
on the ground, could outrun the snakes and escape up a tree. During
the period of an hour I may well have seen twenty such chases. I
caught specimens of each; but if a frog or lizard were held in my
hand, a snake would attempt to take it from me. The lizards were
small species of Mabouia; the snakes were of the species Natrix.
Apparently the destruction of part of the forest had upset the normal

108 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

balance of nature by taking away the snakes' usual source of animals
for food, and they were attempting perhaps to obtain a food source
in another species.

The following day I returned to Polillo. About August 12 or 13,
I left Polillo by the same interisland steamer on which I arrived. It
took me to Hondagua, where I entrained for Manila. Back again in
Manila with my treasures, I looked forward to a much-needed rest.

In 1920 my wife Hazel and I returned to the United States for a
vacation, but we were uncertain as to whether we would return to
Manila. Considerable pressure was being exerted on us to remain
permanently in the States. Thus, it was decided that I would resign,
take my accumulated leave pay, and a bonus. But I hoped to return.

We were with the family of Mrs. Taylor in Kansas City; and
compared to Manila, life in Kansas City, which included commuting
to the University of Kansas, seemed prosaic. Hazel and I agreed
that we would go back to Manila. We were able to occupy our
former house near the Bureau of Science, and I was offered a posi-
tion as head of the zoology department in the university. Most of
my journeys, financed by me, were to places on Luzon, Cebu, even
Mindanao — but none to the old Manobo "homestead." I suspected
that I had found most of the herpetological novelties in that area.

II

EDWARD HARRISON TAYLOR:
THE TEACHER

By

A. Byron Leonard

"First question: Trace the evolution of the human hand from
fish to man." Forty-seven pencils flew over the lines in as many blue
books, for the students in Zoology 3, Comparative Anatomy, many of
whom were sophomores visibly trying to control the trembling of
their upper lips upon which a nascent down was emerging, knew
that there would be no repetition of the question. The question or
exercise was dictated in a firm, almost stern voice that enunciated
each word with ringing clarity and studied emphasis. Ed Taylor
took no chances with examination questions "escaping" from some
secretary's desk; besides, in those days the Department of Zoology
had only one, part-time secretary! The examination questions were
dictated as they were composed, on the spot. When what Ed judged
to have been sufficient time for writing had elapsed, he dictated the
next question, but he sometimes conceded a little time at the end
of the hour for students to go back over their blue books and fill in
any gaps they had left. The crisply conducted examinations, that
left little opportunity for cribbing, epitomized Ed's philosophy of
maintaining in the classroom a strictly businesslike relation between
himself and his students. A self-disciplined man, he believed in strict
discipline in the classroom. Since he invariably came to class appro-
priately dressed, including suit jacket and necktie, his students in-
stinctively presented themselves in neat attire and with well-brushed
hair. This was the early thirties of which I speak; I often wonder
how Ed would have reacted to sophomore premedics dressed with
the studied disorder, and with the matted hair and scraggly beards
that much later came to be the mode among students.

Ed was a superb teacher of undergraduates; he always came to
class well prepared, his lectures were invariably well organized and
his talent at the chalkboard was remarkable. He entertained ques-
tions from the students, and to those who found courage to ask them,
he gave serious, well-conceived answers, even when the questions
betrayed the profound ignorance of the questioner. He viewed com-
parative anatomy not as a study filled with Latin names of muscles
and bones and nerves to be memorized — he confidently assumed
this would be done as a matter of course — but as a philosophy of
vertebrate biology. His bible and foundation stone for the study of
vertebrate morphology was Harris Hawthorne Wilder's "History of

110 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

the Human Body," a book which unfortunately has long since dis-
appeared from vendors' shelves, although a battered copy remains a
treasure on my desk. Founded on a sound knowledge of vertebrate
development and anatomy, Wilder proceeded to discuss the prin-
ciples of vertebrate adaptation that have led to the evolution of the
human body. Following Wilder, Ed took as the cornerstone of his
philosophy a strong conviction that life is and always has been since
its inception in some ancient sea, a continuum; that the soma is
ephemeral but the germplasm immortal, and that by minute, in-
exorable modifications in response to the impact of an everchanging
environment, man has evolved from humble and apparently simple
bits of protoplasm through an orderly series of events, the vestiges of
which remain in the living classes of vertebrates. Taylor was not
afraid to be an advocacy teacher; to him organic evolution was the
key to the biological world, and those who could not for various
reasons accept this, and there were then a considerable number of
this persuasion, he could not understand. Nor could he accept them.

Anatomical drawings as a discipline in themselves, and as an aid
to observation formed another significant part of Ed's concept of
good teaching. He could look at a drawing and its labels, and in a
moment assess the powers of observation of the student. Adept at
scientific illustration, his criticisms of a drawing were worth listening
to. He depended upon his teaching assistants — and I had the good
fortune to be one of these for several years — to carry the load of
detailed instruction in the laboratory. He expected us to be well-
prepared, and usually we were. But he maintained a close contact
with the laboratory, wandering from table to table, from student to
student, admonishing here, encouraging there. The respect and even
awe with which he was held by most students in his laboratories
made the assistants' task much easier, and indeed a pleasure,
although we had to maintain a sharp facility with the dissecting
probe, and a rabbinical familiarity with the dissecting manual. This
laboratory manual of comparative anatomy, the only one available
for many years, was, strangely enough, written by a distinguished
invertebrate zoologist, Professor Libbie Hyman. Ed was fond of
relating with obvious pleasure an anecdote concerning how Miss
Hyman came to write a laboratory manual of comparative vertebrate
anatomy; it seems her bank account was low, and after examining
the situation, a laboratory manual of comparative anatomy seemed
to be the easiest and best way to bolster her financial situation. And
it was a success, including the fortification of the bank account, I
am sure. At any rate, Ed used this book, and it was more than a
dissecting manual, for many years, until his retirement from teaching
in fact.

One result of Ed's considerable talents as a teacher of under-
graduates was his charismatic effect upon students, many of whom

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 111

returned at every commencement on a pilgrimage to revisit "Doctor
Taylor," as he was always called. His personal magnetism, manifest
long before it became fashionable to borrow a Greek word for it,
drew his former students back to his office as a lodestone draws the
compass needle. Many former students became famous physicians
or businessmen, but they never outgrew, nor have they outgrown to
this day, their habit of the pilgrimage to Ed Taylor's office, the one
teacher who most profoundly affected their lives.

As a teacher, mentor and colleague of graduate students, Ed
Taylor reached the peak of his talents as a teacher. Much less
formal with postgraduate students than with undergraduates, he
nevertheless knew how to maintain the subtle barrier that separates
the teacher and the student even as it binds them together. I never
heard a graduate student, even those with whom he had worked for
closely for several years, call him by his first or any other familiar
name, nor did I until years had passed since my doctorate. It was
not that his graduate students did not develop a sincere affection for
him; his stature as a scientist and teacher simply made familiarity
of address seem grossly inappropiate.

How well I remember a course in mammalogy that I took from
Ed. We used F. E. Beddard's old classic text book, which had its
points, but Ed wanted to up-date for us the systematic categories,
and this he did by dictating long lists of polysyllabic names and
authors. I was then callow if not exactly youthful, having just grad-
uated from a small college that had a department of biology that did
nothing about such abstruse subjects as systematics. So I sweated
profusely, along with a few others like me, trying to get those names
correctly. Eventually someone, I think it must have been Claude
Hibbard, with his characteristic zeal, dug up the sources Taylor was
using; thereafter my lot improved in the course, and I could enjoy
Taylor's fascinating accounts of mammals in the Philippines and
elsewhere. He had a series of study skins of Philippine mammals
that had suffered somewhat from travel half-way around the world,
but each became the focal point of an intriguing account of how the
animal lived and coped with its environment; the scaly pangolin
came alive, and we could see the strange beast shake the ants from
beneath its scales and devour them, the huge isolated vertebra of a
whale put the smell of salt spray in all our nostrils as Ed wove his
magic while we learned. This class introduced us to horizons even
as it introduced us to a teacher steeped in his subject and eager and
willing to communicate the wonders of the vertebrate world to those
of us who felt ourselves his disciples in zoology.

Fascinating as Taylor was in his class in mammalogy, it was
herpetology that was his forte; it was the creatures of this world that
brought out all the traits of teacher and scientist with which Ed is so
generously endowed. Like many youngsters I had been brought up

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RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 113

to fear reptiles, especially snakes, and worse, had been taught that
the only good snake was a dead one. Under the tutelage of Ed
Taylor and his enthusiastic insight into the personalities of these,
for the most part gentle, animals, an entire new world opened for me
and for many others. Together with this academic introduction to
herpetology came even more exciting field trips as spring ap-
proached. Attired in work clothes and boots, and carrying a gasoline
lantern and other gear, we tramped the sloughs and ponds on
"Haskell Bottoms" and other areas, searching for the first frogs of
the season, and making, as far as we were concerned, new discoveries
at every turn. Who has discovered his first clutch of frog's eggs, or
seen the mating antics of a pair of snakes will know what I am trying
to say. Ed was a man of tremendous strength, and slogging all night
through the mud was no chore for him; while I and other students
came back to Snow Hall dragging our tails, Ed was leading the pack,
and eager to get the specimens "pickled" and labeled. Or, later in
the season, we took off on expeditions to Washington Creek and
environs, looking for snakes and lizards that gathered under stones
as the sun warmed them a bit. Ed had an incredible way of knowing
under which stones the animals were hiding; while I struggled to
overturn a large stone, only to find no residents beneath it, Ed would
turn over a similar one nearby and lo! there were several snakes and
as many lizards. It was years before I grasped the subtleties of this
skill, and never did I attain that of our teacher.

Best of all, we sometimes, by dint of saving our meager funds and
preparing our food in advance, canned stews and the like, were
able to take off on longer field trips, perhaps to the Flint Hills, or
Cherokee County, where the Ozark Uplift enters Kansas for a few
miles. The Museum of Natural History had a battered Chevy truck,
and Ed had an equally battered car of what make I no longer
remember; at any rate, we distributed ourselves in these crippled
vehicles and took to the wilds of Kansas. Ed was a driving man,
and we worked long hours, but every moment was filled with new
bits of information, new techniques, and new concepts to digest.
I even learned how to put a frightened and angry rattlesnake in a
bag! If we had a bit of energy left after the day's collecting and the
night's work in preparation of our specimens, we sat around the
campfire and were regaled by Ed's accounts of other worlds and
other times. Ed was a raconteur par excellence, and we learned as
we were entertained, for his stories always had a point to them
worth remembering. For all his talents as a teacher, Ed was no
mechanic. I remember that on one of these extended field trips,
Ed's car began to make a truly terrifying racket. It quite literally
was clearly audible a mile away. I tried to get him to take it to a
garage, but he postponed this until evening. I don't remember what
the problem was, but I do remember that its repair cost less than a

114 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

dollar! All our worries went for naught, and Ed had none. He could
not have cared less, as long as the wheels turned.

It would not be fair to mention a few without mentioning all the
students Ed trained who have gone on to become noted in their
respective fields in herpetology. Like the undergraduates who
toiled in comparative anatomy, Ed's former students in herpetology
remember with deep respect and fond affection, the talented
teacher, relentless researcher, and loyal friend, who so profoundly
affected both their lives and their concepts of the biological world.

Ill

THE BLAZING OF A TRAIL:
THE SCIENTIFIC CAREER OF
EDWARD HARRISON TAYLOR

By

Hobart M. Smith

Man's brief tenure on Spaceship Earth has seen billions of his
kind traverse the stage of life. Most have been a flicker of light, or
a dark spot, perpetuated only in the minds and records of their own
era, and soon forgotten in the unceasing procession of successors.
A few, blessed by particularly benevolent heredity or circumstances,
or both, have attained the stature of giants whose light, or shadow, is
cast over many generations to follow. They established standards
of achievement others emulate, or scrupulously avoid, for genera-
tions far in excess of their own.

Edward Harrison Taylor is one such giant, blazing a trail that
will guide others as long as men continue to explore the mysteries
of the diversity of life on earth.

A dangerous and perhaps even fatal tendency of lesser lights is
to idolize and worship the giants of their time. Idolatry from the
past is largely harmless, but the charisma of the living can be grossly
misleading where wisdom is lacking. How tragic that wisdom is
so often recognizable only in retrospect and that, in the present,
charisma so often masquerades as wisdom! The two have little in
common, yet are widely held as siblings in the public eye.

A political giant can draw upon charisma alone, or upon a happy
combination of charisma and wisdom, never upon wisdom alone,
in achieving stature. An intellectual giant draws largely upon
wisdom, and for that reason merits twice the acclaim of his political
equal, with two strings to his bow. Edward Harrison Taylor is an
intellectual giant who achieved his stature, as have all others of his
kind, through exercise of wisdom. Those of us who have known
him in person, however, are the fortunate ones in his legion of
beneficiaries, for we have not only experienced his intellectual
stature, but with it the rarest of companion attributes among intel-
lectuals: a magnetic charisma the equal of any that ever strode the
land, chained by profession to academic circles. In other circum-
stances there are few heights he could not have achieved through
free exercise of both of his extraordinary talents.

There is yet another, commonly overlooked attribute of doyen
stature, especially of the intellectual type, and that is longevity of
effort. Particularly is this a factor in areas of endeavor, such as

116 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Taylor's, in which no major principles or relationships appear to
remain to be discovered. Stature, then, becomes a product of
prodigious effort over long periods, skillfully utilizing the best of the
techniques available, and exposing voluminous new discoveries in
uncharted territory or where others had overlooked them. Those
who aspire to Taylor's record of achievement cannot falter in effort
as time passes, or submit to early demise. The lesson provided is
that adversity is no excuse for cessation of effort; the work must go
on, it must remain a source of pleasure despite its familiarity through
practice year after year, and wisdom must continue to grow. For
age, reached through many years of unceasing mental activity, is an
asset only as it is marked by progressively cumulative wisdom. In
man, death comes, in effect, not just when life expires, but when
mental growth ceases, and E. H. Taylor is a rare example of the
unceasing growth of wisdom over many years, and of the monu-
mental, unparalleled reservoir it constitutes, unique in content, never
duplicatable, ours to be tapped as long as it remains intact. That
reservoir, ephemeral though it be in the context of the history of
civilization, is to be revered as much as the permanent etchings spun
off by it.

But worship has long been forfeited by Taylor's choice of en-
deavor. In the world of science no quarter can be asked or received,
and in this portrayal no attempt to distort realities can be condoned,
nor would it be expected. Credit must be given where due, but the
model is very human, and humans — even giants — have failings that
keep them forever within the reach of their fellows, albeit only of
those with the longest arms. Preserve us from a perfect human!
However exceptional any person may be, a realistic perspective in
the world of science must eschew deification. To deviate from these
constraints would dishonor the integrity of the scientific eminence
of the man here appraised.

For indeed integrity is, despite some opinions to the contrary, one
of the most unassailably pervasive attributes, almost to a fault, of
E. Ff. Taylor. A lie, deliberate misreoresentation, dishonesty, enrage
him mightily, and woe betide the guiltv one! He has, himself, always
been scrupulously honest, both intellectually and materially, and
would not condone deviation from his strict personal standards in
anyone else. He does not hesitate to test the integrity of his asso-
ciates from time to time, usually without their knowledge. Once
when he had completed the manuscript keys for his epochal mono-
graph of Eumeces, he asked me to test them with a small sample of
soecimens he supplied for the purpose. Unknown to me, he had
changed the locality labels on selected specimens, so that a familiar
Ewneces fasciatus carried a tag for a Chinese specimen, etc. I can
safely say that my whole career unwittingly (to me) depended upon
my response, for had I not admitted that the altered specimens would

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 117

not key out in accordance with locality labels, I would have been
summarily booted, or worse. It was not an easy decision for me at
the time, for accusing the Master of constructing faulty keys could
have, I thought, serious repercussions. I could be grateful for the
strict conditioning of childhood that did not yield at that time to the
fear of recrimination upon truthful exposition of supposed error.
I had yet to learn that Taylor never flinches in the face of construc-
tive suggestions, whatever their source. Ego-trip criticism, however,
arouses his fiery ire as effectively as dishonesty, for he clearly sees
through its false pretenses and indirect dishonesty.

His strong distaste for self-inflating as opposed to constructive
criticism has likely been responsible for his almost complete ab-
stinence from writing reviews. His average is less than one every
ten years over more than a half-century of prolific publication.

One of the most fascinating aspects to watch as the life history
of an individual unfolds is his choler. Many individuals are mild-
mannered and reasonable in their youth, but grow cantankerous and
unreasonable in their old age. Others are just the reverse. One is an
expression of failure, the other either of success or of good-humored
resignation to or contentment with the goals actually reached, even
though they may have been narrowed in scope or reduced in
magnitude since they were originally erected. Taylor belongs to the
progressively mellowing group, as befits a man who surely has
attained most of the goals of his life. In his youth he possessed a fiery
temper and flew into towering black rages that made students and
colleagues alike cower in fear. Despite evidence to the contrary, he
never to my knowledge has allowed his ire to lead him beyond the
threat, to actual physical violence. Indeed, I have marvelled re-
peatedly at his extraordinary control of his emotions, shifting from
suave cordiality to black moodiness, from hypnotic raconteurism to
utter silence, from warm hospitality to cold rejection, in bewildering
succession. In more advanced years he has become rather consist-
ently affable, but he still retains the powers of a skilled showman as
the occasion demands. Indeed, I regard him as perhaps the most
complex personality I have ever known, largely unpredictable, never
really intimate.

Never, for example, in the many years of my association with
EHT, first as a student and ultimately as a colleague, did we wander
far from professional matters in our conversation. We learned about
each other's innermost thoughts by a comment here or there, in-
dividually scarcely noticeable but collectively quite revealing, al-
though always fraught with the hazard of misinterpretation. Ed's
impeccable standards of integrity stem no doubt from his strictly
supervised childhood in a family of simple but strong faith in
Christian ideals. He sometimes belittled his early training, and
angrily denounced a parental supervision that nurtured character-

118 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

istics he regarded as weaknesses. Yet he maintained his basic stand-
ards throughout his life, although his quick and penetrating mind in
the atmosphere of biological study led him to a naturalistic philos-
ophy of life quite different from his early religious training. I am
not aware that he ever entered a church, after parting with his wife,
although he has had many friends among the clergy.

His reluctance to become closely familiar or confiding with any-
one is a logical corollary of his complex personality. He has not
wanted to be transparent as are many simpler folk, perhaps being
cognizant of the probability that understanding is impossible, and
that to attempt to achieve it would only confuse. Even now I doubt
that any can say they fully understand him, however much they
admire or view him with affection.

The complexity of personality is an adjunct of complexity of
talent. Music, history and literature are broadly familiar to him, and
at various times he has toyed with composition of both prose and
poetry. He used to delight in singing, and played a bit on the piano.
It was one of our most delightful pleasures, while graduate students
at KU, to listen in as he skillfully argued in esoteric fields of
scholarship with philosophers on the KU faculty, with their charts
of man's achievements and their prognosis for his future. It is im-
possible to select a topic of knowledge in which he could not express
himself extemporaneously with emphasis, lucidity and reason, quot-
ing sources freely — even the Bible. He has always been a voracious
reader, as well as a cosmopolitan scholar. I was astonished by his
linguistic affinity, and often found him studying strange languages
as well as conventional foreign tongues. He thus accumulated an
extensive and diverse library, although the collecting instinct has
exhibited itself in many other ways, notably in stamps which he
used to accumulate in sheets, essentially unclassified, scorning the
highly commercialized collector's albums of single stamps.

Diversity of interests is reflected in his astonishing breadth of
taxonomic knowledge. I majored as an undergraduate in entomol-
ogy, and prided myself on a broad superficial knowledge of North
American insect taxonomy, yet to my surprise Taylor in the field
could recognize families as well as I, and in addition he knew exotic
families totally unfamiliar to me. He is one of the nearly extinct
breed of "naturalists," knowledgeable in almost every form of macro-
scopic life. Although recognized primarily for herpetological con-
tributions, his "Mammals of the Philippines" is a reprinted classic,
and he had written a comparable monograph of Philippine fishes,
the completed manuscript for which was lost on one of his voyages.

Such breadth and depth of knowledge is as dazzling and incom-
prehensible to the ordinary person as the universe itself, and in some
ways the two are comparable. Galaxies of knowledge, continually
augmented, incomprehensibly vast, are confined unbelievably within

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 119

the recesses of his brain, mysterious and awe-inspiring. One marvels
how such prodigious quantities of knowledge can be accumulated,
for the experience of most people is that knowledge can be acquired
only by dint of concerted efforts requiring bursts of self-discipline
that can be maintained but briefly. The answer cannot, I think, be
found solely within the resources of common man. It is true that
Taylor has always wasted little time, that his efforts are persistent
and long-enduring, but these are qualities many others duplicate,
with but modest results. Unique appear to be the easy retention of
every memory input, and the easy accessibility of the stored infor-
mation. These are the marks of genius that lift the capacity of the
great, like E. H. Taylor, far beyond the most dedicated and astutely-
planned reach of the ordinary mortal.

The clinching consideration in this context is the mental attitude
associated with the growth of Taylor's stature. The ordinary mortal,
hell-bent for immortality, consumed by ambition to reach the highest
possible pinnacle of stature, is typically a neurotic, tense, intense
person, often hounded by a one-track mind, driving unceasingly
until he drops from exhaustion. One would expect some similar sort
of effort to characterize anyone with Taylor's attainments. The
miracle is that this is not so. He is always ready for social indul-
gence, for a bullfest, for a session of bridge. Indeed, bridge has long
been one of his prized diversions, and he was good enough at it to
become one of the state champions in Kansas, with little deliberate
effort. He was far too demanding a player for most of his colleagues,
for his partner would of necessity have to at least approach his skill,
whereas in fact the faultless memory and skillful deduction his game
required exceeded the capacity of all but very few. Had he so
desired, he no doubt could have become a national or international
champion.

His life-long addiction to bridge is but one evidence of the extra-
ordinarily relaxed mixture of work and play that pervades his entire
career. Who else could match his achievements and his knowledge,
and have at the same time so freely played the part of social lion,
have been so invariably free for discussions, of both the idle chatter
and the intellectually probing type, and have become the connoiseur
of movies, plays, drama, bridge, books etc. that he has been? None,
within my experience. He has become truly a giant among men, and
only those with the most exceptional given talents could hope to
approach his achievements. I well remember his kindly remonstra-
tion that I should try to develop an ability to carry on an idle con-
versation, exercising the social graces that came so naturally to him.
After long and unsuccessful effort to nurture it in me, he gave up,
with regret but in resignation to the seemingly inevitable limitation
of ability that to him was so foreign.

A distinctly social life has always been a conspicuous attribute of

120 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

this extraordinary man. He delights in the amenities of a stimulating
association, but as a rule avoids dullards except in a strictly profes-
sional context. When I was his student, in the 1932-1936 era, he led
a diversely exciting life, frequently entertained by others who en-
joyed his quick wit and brilliant conversation, and in turn enter-
taining them, often via "line" parties since his small living quarters
did not permit entertainment of even moderate-sized groups. Thus
scarcely a notable play or movie escaped his attendance, and as an
adjunct of a good conversationalist he devoured insatiably all new
literature or reviews thereof, as it appeared.

As a gracious host or guest Taylor has had no peer. He has been
and is now equally at ease among the great and the small. Through
his entire life he has not infrequently consorted with royalty, top-
level administrators, presidents, the eminent in every field: they
have been accepted in his life, and he in theirs, on essentially equal
terms. Yet with equal ease he opened his doors and all his facilities
to troops of students who would drop by unannounced, hoping for
and receiving hospitality far beyond reasonable expectation. I have
seen his cramped quarters virtually covered wall-to-wall with sleep-
ing visitors on an overnight stop on a collecting trip.

The impact of no luminary can be measured accurately in
reference only to his direct output. Consideration must be given to
indirect but nevertheless often profound effects upon the output of
others. The echoes of Taylor's influences, in this context, are in-
calculable, impinging directly upon colleagues through personal
contacts or through correspondence or even publication alone; upon
students and their professional life styles in formative stages; upon
successors through publication; and indirectly upon those influenced
in turn by the many sorts of direct contacts as here interpreted. The
impacts are those of a figure legendary in his own time.

Although none of Taylor's students have ever approached his
ability and achievements, the magnitude of his student influence
should not be underestimated. Many more embarked upon their
professional careers under his impetus, finishing their doctoral or
other degrees elsewhere, than completed their apprenticeship under
his tutelage. A roster of students who came significantly under his
wing of influence at some time in their predoctoral careers would be
enormous, and would represent an extraordinarily broad spectrum
of scientific endeavor. Any list I could venture would be grossly
incomplete and would risk an injustice through significant omis-
sion. I therefore refrain from presentation of such a list here,
although it is to be hoped that the list nevertheless will be compiled.

Whatever the content of such a list, its most notable characteristic
would be a complete lack of stereotypy. Many powerful personali-
ties in the academic world leave an indelible stamp upon virtually
all who emerge from their mill. Herpetology has had its sources for

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 121

inveterate nit-pickers and hecklers; for paranoids; for secretive
workers unable to trust others; for products who maintain aloofness;
for politically-oriented graduates; for graduates steeped in skills of
one sort, woefully deficient and even unappreciative of others.
Although in recent years the clannish individuality so conspicuous
in many institutions in the past has greatly diminished, it is an
unfortunate fact that in the early decades of the 20th century
herpetology was notably an endeavor marked by a high level of
antagonistic protagonism lending itself to intradisciplinary rancor
and ill-will. As one rather detached herpetologist once told me, he
never met a herpetologist who wasn't an S.O.B., and never met an
ichthyologist who was. It was an intellectual climate no doubt
produced by the predominant amateurism, sometimes nurtured
to professionalism and sometimes not, that has always distinguished
herpetology from ichthyology. Ornithology, although likewise
strongly rooted in amateurism, has not suffered ( at least in the 20th
century) from amateurish bickering as has herpetology, perhaps
because of its considerably greater maturity.

In such a climate Ed Taylor has long been in a position, because
of his own emphatic, unrelenting views, to produce students cut
from the same cloth, stamped with his own trademark. But such
has not been the case. Ed respected each student's individuality
and left it free to develop in its own unique pattern. Most are
marked by a common penchant for industry, but collectively they
exhibit almost every extreme and intermediate state in professional
and personal attitudes, abilities, direction and achievement. Ed's
ability to instill a fire of some sort of ambition, without limiting its
direction or extent of expression is one of his greatest marks of
genius — and because of its lack of obvious attention-getting focus,
one of the least appreciated facets of his greatness.

The era of my student days with Taylor loom in memory as a sort
of Golden Age, as perhaps the greatest of that context for all con-
cerned, when Ed had his most memorable students, as well as we
our most memorable apprentice association. It is probably a strictly
egocentric and erroneous impression for there no doubt were many
other uniquely epochal periods in his long reign as the greatest of
the zoologists at KU, but it is a harmless belief however suspect it
may be. Byron Leonard, Max Elias, David Dunkle and Clarence
Hubbard were outstanding in those days, when many field trips and
bull sessions were shared in a context never duplicated. The spark
and unification of this group, as with others before and after, were
provided by Ed Taylor, for whom all developed a reverence as
durable as life itself.

None of Taylor's students more unreservedly tendered an adula-
tion for him than Claude Hibbard, who owed much of his scientific
impetus to Ed. Indeed, without Taylor, Claude very likely would

122 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

have returned to the farmer's life whence he came, particularly
because of the tremendously traumatic declaration by the Dean of
the Graduate School at The University of Kansas, when Hibbard
was applying for admission, that he was incapable of graduate study
and should return to more physical endeavors. Hibbard's ultimate
admission despite the Dean's objection, and his completion of the
doctorate in angry defiance of the challenge to his intelligence, can
be attributed in large measure to Ed's influence. Hibbard main-
tained throughout his life an unfaltering devotion to Taylor, de-
veloping a scientific eminence and a legendary character that are a
credit both to himself and to his model. His untimely death was
understandably a great personal loss to Taylor as well as a tragedy
for his chosen discipline in vertebrate paleontology.

Part of the reverence tendered in general by his students came
from the fact that, although Ed certainly enjoyed a somewhat syb-
aritic life when convenient, in which we very little shared, it was
not regular or particularly sought; it was not a fixed way of life, in
part at least because he has never been greedy, as evidenced by the
spartan comforts he has regularly maintained. In a culture very
strongly possessions-oriented, he has steadfastly refused to clutter
his life with an abundance of trivia; his living quarters are always
simple and austere, readily shifted from one place to another. Living
flexibility has been the result, avoiding the increasingly firm anchor-
age that the ordinary person forges by acquiring progressively more
belongings. Thus Ed freely passed on to others that which others
often hoard, and has delighted in sharing with others; and, he has
given credit where credit was due. Indeed, he has frequently refused
to accept credit himself where it was plainly due, preferring to give
others an impetus they could consider their own and perhaps main-
tain, not leaning indefinitely on others as a crutch. His interest in
others is almost insatiable, but it has a constructive quality that is
so often lacking among those who relate extensively to their fellow
persons. This attitude has led him on occasion to save human lives
by his own physical efforts, sometimes at severe jeopardy to his own
and under the most desperate circumstance. He talks of these occa-
sions with reluctance, for he does not enjoy beating his own drum
and takes the attitude that he should be judged by what his asso-
ciates see for themselves, not what he tells them is so.

His open interest in others indeed finds the opposite relative to
himself; he has long detested knowledge by others of his affairs, his
plans or personal activities. Personal revelations to specific in-
dividuals for specific purposes were expected to be kept confident,
and failure to maintain such confidences would usually evoke sharp
rebukes. He did not welcome a "press agent" except under strictly
controlled circumstances. Honors have pleased him, but they con-
cern his past professional life which he properly takes as an open

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 123

book; but he has always resisted strenuously any invasion of his
private life, or of professional activities in current progress or
planned for the future. As befits a complex person, he has led several
lives simultaneously, and not all of them are ever likely to be re-
vealed. His associates in one are likely to be no more than vaguely
aware that there are other lives, in different dimensions, unfolding
at the same time. We know but vaguely that after World War I he
spent considerable time ( 1-2 years ) in Siberia for our government,
reaching the Urals from the east. We also know that in World War
II he was active in a role of information-gathering and on-the-spot
policy-direction in the Indonesian and southeast Asia area. But
these activities are shrouded in mystery that only the inspection of
secret files will ever reveal in full.

This is one of the incomprehensibilities, to ordinary folk, of
genius. Another infathomable is the occurrence in genius of some
attributes that appear to be inconsistent with the general pattern.
Ed, for example, has always been of essentially catholic tastes in his
personal associations, from the humblest peon to a haughty ruler,
from laborers to arm-chair philosophers, showing the broadest com-
patibility on at least a superficial, working basis. Yet some con-
spicuous areas of bias and prejudice exist in which his scorn and
revulsion are insuppressible. He used to try to avoid contacts where-
in prejudice would show, and resented being maneuvered into situa-
tions that would reveal them. He would flatly disclaim prejudice,
yet give unmistakable and often painful evidence of it, simply by
mannerisms. To a very considerable degree the parameters of his
prejudice have been dictated by personal rather than group char-
acteristics: by any evidence of greed, incompetence, stupidity or
lack of integrity. His prejudices were revealed largely by the rare,
inadvertent or coincidental mixture of peoples with whom separately
he was compatible but together had little in common. The complex
person wears a different personality for different associates, and the
intermingling of associates calling for different personalities in-
evitably leaves some people injured, for no one personality can fit
them all as they are accustomed. A simpler one-personality person
encounters no such difficulty, for he leads but one life, known to all.
The personal segments rigidly associated to form the separate lives
of a complex person are indeed incompatible when displaced by
some rare event into the improper association.

One group Ed, has long commonly avoided is the health-related
professions, at least in professional contexts. Fortunately he has
been exceptionally healthy throughout his life, but in every illness
he has much preferred his own ministrations rather than those of
professionals. One cannot deny that his minimal contacts have been
quite sufficient. The average person would seem to be far more
ready to seek medical help than necessary or even desirable. When

124 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

he incurred the only bite of which I am aware from a deadly poison-
ous snake (Crotalus cerastes), he continued his collecting with but
brief interruption. Indeed the bite of a rear-fanged Conophis vit-
tatus caused him more protracted discomfort than the rattlesnake
bite.

He fought off severe fevers in the Philippines, but seemingly
acquired an immunity to the wide-ranging scourges that used to
haunt visitors to tropical regions anywhere in the world, including
Mexico: dysentery and malaria. He took few precautions in Mexico
when I traveled with him, and never contracted either disease. We
boiled our water very carefully, but avoided malaria primarily by
keeping our distance from human habitations, and by using mos-
quito nets. We took quinine in those days as a preventative, but he
was quite casual in its use whereas I regularly maintained a pre-
sumably preventive dosage. On our first trip I was not so resistant
to dysentery as he, and was briefly housed on one occasion in a casa
de huespedes managed by a sympathetic owner of considerable
nursing skill. Never again did the occasional infections of similar
nature prove so debilitating or protracted. We both avoided malaria,
but on subsequent trips I was not so fortunate, contracting a recur-
rent infection that was finally subdued several years later with mas-
sive doses of atabrine that irremediably destroyed a considerable
portion of my hearing. In all of this time, and subsequently, Ed's
immunity, however inexplicable, protected him from the disease.

In our culture, however, durability is marked by, as much as any-
thing, a high order of sensitivity and ingenuity of adjustment to
physiological need and endurance. Medical advice sometimes helps,
but over the long haul the struggle for life is extensively a matter of
personal resourcefulness, of which Ed Taylor has long demonstrated
an exceptional supply.

Although the average person may seek medical aid too readily,
on the other hand he is not blessed with the superb physique and
constitution of an E. H. Taylor. I am not aware that Taylor ever
indulged in any deliberate body-building regime at any time in his
life, yet his normal activity seems to have been strenuous enough to
maintain excellent condition. His bodily flexibility is as great now as
ever, if not greater. In the field he never let physical difficulty
stand in the way of obtaining the best results — he would climb the
steepest hills, dive into the most forbidding recesses, turn the largest
stones, hunt in the most miserable weather, maintain a rapid pace
almost impossible for others to equal. He has always been a power-
ful swimmer, and floats with such ease, thanks in part to his barrel-
like chest, that he could readily smoke and read a book while lolling
in total comfort afloat. One could almost believe his avowal that he
would rather swim a mile than walk it. His most dramatic rescue of
another's life came after his boat was sunk far offshore in the western

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 125

Pacific ocean, and he towed a non-swimmer to safety through super-
human effort extended almost beyond the limit of his endurance — a
feat that had its after-effects of sharply limiting his endurance. The
man whose life he saved could scarcely muster a cordial nod when
encountered a few years later — a poor exhibition of gratitude.

Ingratitude for his generosity has been an all-too-frequent re-
sponse, and has been responsible for some bitterness on Ed's part.
Taylor has often carried an aura of remoteness and aloofness even
in proffering aid in one way or another, no doubt in a self-protective
stance guarding against the ingratitude that might come even in
acceptance. It is most unfortunate that the warmth that lies behind
the generosity has not more widely been appreciated.

A person with such high standards of conduct could not be ex-
pected to be accustomed to excessive indulgence. Ed has always
eaten sparingly, although he appreciates good food; he is not, and
never was, particularly a gourmet. He used to enjoy tobacco, almost
invariably in the form of cigarettes, although he rarely permits him-
self this pleasure now. When I was a student he would occasionally
chew a cigarette rather than smoke it; even when smoked a
cigarette would likely have a well-chewed butt. He nevertheless
curbed the habit with seemingly little difficulty, for the addiction
was mild; he was not a chain smoker. In like fashion Ed has always
enjoyed the stimulation of a few cocktails or wine, for he found that
in moderation they sharpen his wit — a pleasant adjunct on a social
occasion. He derives no pleasure from drinking alone, and never to
my knowledge indulged to the extent that his wits were dulled.

Although not exactly neatly organized or meticulous of detail,
Ed is firmly accustomed to a rather high level of presentability on
any occasion. I cannot remember a full beard at any time, although
a moustache made its appearance on occasion. Cleanliness is a
personal fetish, however; on field trips he insisted that we bathe
frequently, wash our clothes regularly and maintain a clean-shaven
appearance. At the time I knew him best his dress at the University
would have been regarded as casual, although today the same
standard borders on the meticulous, as "casual" has come to imply
virtual disreputability of attire.

Although a seemingly intensely virile male, Ed's marriage in 1916
to a beautiful and talented girl, Hazel Clark, was of short duration,
followed by a separation in the 1920's. Neither partner subsequently
married, in keeping with the Catholic influences evident in their
lives. Three talented children were born during his brief marriage,
one deceased, the others Richard Clark and Patricia Anne. Although
the children remained to maturity in the custody of his wife, Ed
always adored the entire family and has frequently visited all its
members over the years. It is in some ways unfortunate that the
family broke up, but it is clear that had it remained intact Ed's career

126 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

would probably have been vastly different, and whether better or
worse is known only to the gods.

One of the most reassuringly human weaknesses of Ed Taylor
has been his abiding impatience with mechanical intricacies and
temperamentality. Gadgets that require sympathetic and under-
standing human ministrations to perform properly — like radios,
fountain pens, recordplayers, cars, almost everything created by
man — have always come to an early demise in his cold expectation
of an efficient operation naturally to be expected of any mindless
mechanism built by humans to serve humans. Failures of these
mechanisms indicate merely that they have a mind of their own,
perversely antagonistic without exception. Their inevitable and
usually prompt malfunction leads Ed in succession to berate them
soundly with fine invective, to give them another chance to behave
properly, and finally to discard them in an exasperated, helpless rage
as a total loss, unworthy of further effort. It is a natural chain of
reactions familiar to us all, but commonly we swallow our impatience
and smooth over the misunderstanding with good-willed attention
to apparent need. Not so with Ed. There is for him nothing but
anger that an object clearly built to provide convenience should have
the effrontery to fail to do so. In the magnitude of his scorn there is
seldom a chance for reconciliation.

On occasion, however, when particularly at the mercy of some
mindless tyrant, like a car far from ready aid, he has been known to
try to soothe the beast with sweet talk. Unfortunately he seldom
managed to control his resentment well enough to assuage the balky
mechanism, and the inexitable solicitation of aid from other, more
empathic humans did nothing to raise the mantle of black resent-
ment. It seems likely that such innate impatience with the inevitable
moments of weakness in even the best of inanimate servants has
extended also to animate ones, at least to a certain degree. It is not
surprising that beasts of burden have never been a favored method
of transportation with him, or that bonds of affection rarely formed
with servants.

In retrospect, some of the most hilariously humorous incidents in
the collecting episodes I shared with Ed in several seasons in Mexico
were a product of his impatience with recalcitrant cars, of which a
rapid succession served brief tenure in his life. There were no auto-
matic transmissions in those days, and thus it was necessary to shift
manually from low gears to high. Not infrequently Ed's total con-
centration upon other matters would deprive the car of a full se-
quence in the series of shifts, so that we would blithely cruise down
a road mile after mile in second gear until finally the car spoke
loudly enough to obtain the final step. On little-used roads where
the light traffic permitted attention to matters other than driving,
Ed would intently scan both sides of the road for likely-looking col-

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 127

lecting sites, paying minimal attention to the road. Following behind
the car of a friend on one occasion, he was searching the countryside
as usual as the road took a sharp turn at a stone fence. His friend
negotiated the turn in stride, but heard a loud crash behind as Ed
continued straight on into the fence. No harm was done, as the road
was too primitive to allow much speed.

If any mudhole was available, it seemed to beckon irresistably
to Ed's car. Commonly his cars fought back against their insensitive
driver by developing clogged or leaky radiators that necessitated
stops every few miles for roadside water. The tube tires of those
days were also a source of endless trouble. Frequent stops made the
motions for wheel removal virtually reflexive, occasionally leading
to complete unfolding of the sequence on an intact tire.

His greatest triumph over a persistently rebellious car came with
me one day in 1932 when, near the end of a long, 3/2-month foray
over mostly atrocious roads, the rear-end gasoline tank loosened and
dropped off in the middle of a seldom-used trail in northern San Luis
Potosi. The noise of its departure was not immediately noted, for
noise of all sorts was our constant companion among 2-liter cans of
specimens and the other paraphernalia of camping that incessantly
bounced and rattled on the rough roads. Not until the car stopped
did we realize in horror what had happened. Naturally the tank had
landed upside down, and from it gurgled our fast-diminishing fuel
supply. We raced back to the tank, carried it back to the car and
placed it solicitously on top of the pile of miscellany on the back
seat, where we inserted a long rubber siphon to carry fuel to the
carburetor. This makeshift device sufficed briefly as I held the
siphon in such a position that a flow could be maintained. Before
long, however, the sloshing gasoline supply lowered to such a point
that a continuous flow could not be maintained. We then poured
the gasoline into a gallon jug which I held in the front seat, high
enough to maintain a flow. We filled the jug several times, but the
ancient rubber siphon soon sprang a leak from persistent bending,
requiring it to be shortened from its former ample length to one that
would reach only by holding the jug out the window. Finally the gas
supply was comDletelv exhausted, and Saltillo was still some 30-40
miles to the north. We had in all the intervened time met no other
cars, but in due time a truck did appear, from which the driver kindlv
allowed us to siphon a few liters of gasoline. We then continued
our slow struggle to reach Saltillo, where the gasoline tank could
be reinstalled, with frequent stops to restore the flow of gasoline, or
to pour more into the jug, or to cut down the leaking rubber tube
as it sprang more leaks. Eventually it was necessary to stand on
the running board, holding the jug as close as possible above the
carburetor, in order to feed gasoline through the siphon to it.
Throughout this long drive Ed was steering with half vision, since

128 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

the hood had to be kept up on one side. This caused some difficulty
once we reached Saltillo, maneuvering around parked or passing
cars, curbs and other obstacles. We eventually reached a garage,
with very little gasoline to spare and the siphon down to about 16
inches, totally nauseated by the endless sucking of gasoline to restore
the flow through the siphon. Had we known then what we now
know — that gasoline is highly toxic, only 4 ounces being fatal — we
might have devised some other solution to our problem. We were
amply aware that the amounts we did ingest "can cause headache,
nausea, vomiting, vertigo, visual disturbances, mental confusion, loss
of coordination," etc., as stated in one recent popular summary.
Eating was a mixed pleasure for some time — a tragedy for me, for it
was rare indeed that we ate at a restaurant rather than preparing
our own food.

Meal preparation on field trips was, of course, an imposition upon
valuable time that could better be spent collecting or preparing
specimens, or cataloging them, or writing a brief journal. On our
first trip through Mexico, we ate rice regularly — morning, noon and
night — varied only with additives in the form of canned evaporated
milk (usually for breakfast), canned meat, fish or vegetables at
noon, and the same at night, polished off with a dessert of condensed
milk on rice. Although it was an austere fare, we came to enjoy it for
its simplicity and sufficiency, and I continue to recommend it, sup-
plemented with vitamins, as a regular field diet. We did vary the
regime with oatmeal, pan dulce and occasionally a fresh chicken,
but the staple remained unchanged. Our primary annoyance was
provision of a fire, for we had no stove. We burned wood, and since
we were travelling in the rainy season most of the time, we carefully
hoarded meager supplies of dried wood whenever we could find it,
carrying a bag of small pieces in the car with us. On later trips we
used a Coleman stove.

Seldom did we stay more than one night in one place — we were
incessantly on the move, and seldom did our clothes and boots dry
out except in desert regions. As a shelter we used a lean-to tarpaulin
slung from one side of the car, under which we spread two army cots
that served as chair and table as well as bed. Conveniences were, in
effect, non-existent. Although travelling much of the time, we set
ourselves a goal of an average of 50 specimens /day, and we achieved
it, bringing back some 5500 specimens from our 3/2-month foray. We
always aimed for and usually achieved the same standard on sub-
sequent trips.

Many memorable experiences arose from the several trips with
Ed, and as time has passed since then they have become largely
disembodied recollections, disjunct in time and often in place. In
1932 the Pan-American highway did not exist south of Ciudad Vic-
toria, but was represented by a single-lane trail on which other cars

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 129

were seldom seen, and beside which we could camp almost at
random. The road from Cuernavaca to Acapulco was likewise but a
trail, and it was impossible to reach Veracruz in the rainy season
along the rutted road through Jalapa. There were very few paved
roads anywhere in the country. Oaxaca was accessible only by train
— we tried diligently to reach it by car but the primitive roads were
simply impassable beyond certain points for anything but a truck.
We deliberately sampled every road radiating out from Mexico City
that we could find, using the very simple road maps then available.
We tried three or four approaches to Veracruz, and didn't make it;
two to Oaxaca, never reaching it; and one to Acapulco, which we
did reach. Exhausting the southern possibilities, we tried to reach
Guadalajara, and could not, and then swung north through Guana-
juato into San Luis Potosi and the famous run to Saltillo, following
with a foray westward toward Durango (unattainable). The free-
wheeling traveller in Mexico today can scarcely imagine the diffi-
culty of travel almost anywhere in the country but 40 years ago.

I well recall the dread mystery of our first entry into the tropics
along the trail south of Ciudad Victoria, where we drove almost all
night, unable to pull off the road as the tropical vegetation loomed
over us from both sides; of our excited discovery the next day of
Aneh/tropsis, in rotten tree trunks not far from our first stop; our
careful negotiation of the one-lane trail through the formidable
Sierra Madre Oriental above Tamazunchale, where chain-gangs
worked the road in preparation for the highway yet to come, and
where the outside car wheels dropped into thin air around sharp
bends as the one-way road skirted precipitious slopes; the nocturnal
drive creeping through the fog at the top of the 3000-ft. sheer slope
above Acultzingo, where we could only feel our way at night into a
camp high on the ridge and could do little better during the day,
until finally the fog lifted and we beheld breathlessly the spectacular
vista from our precarious perch; the sight of snow-covered Popoca-
tepetl, rearing in unearthly majesty from above a canopy of clouds
intervening all the way from our road above Cuernavaca to its
white cone; the murderous sandflies and mosquitoes, one taking up
where the other left off, at the crossing of the Rio Balsas, where a
blessed downpour led to our discovery of dozens of Bipes where they
sought refuge under rocks; the freshly-dropped dagger along a
horse-trail in San Luis Potosi, retrieved in dread of immediate eon-
test, but even now admired for its primitive but consummate skill of
workmanship, wrought from a file; nights spent completely lost, after
hunting for frogs, huddled in a crevice to await the dawn; the casual
capture of a small Bothrops atrox initially thought to be a harmless
Leptocleira, seen in the dim light of a fading Coleman lantern (had
it bitten, as it should, a personal history would have been far dif-
ferent); the successful capture of 17 Crotalus molossus found under

130 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

one rock; and other visions that crowd upon each other as events of
long ago pass in review. The experiences with Ed laid the founda-
tions for many successive personal forays, with David Dunkle, Henry
Thomas, and ultimately with my wife Rozella and our mutual bene-
factors in the field, especially Thomas MacDougall and Dyfrig McH.
Forbes. We all owe our herpetological direction and motivation to
one person, Ed Taylor.

Fig. 4. — E. H. Taylor, about 1936, in the field in Sonora. The famous "lantern
jaw" is particularly evident. Photo by Sutton, courtesy of Kraig Adler.

Although my own horizon never lifted beyond Mexico as an area
of real interest, Ed's continued to expand. Having essentially ex-
hausted the cream of Mexico, that episode closed and was replaced
by a period in Costa Rica, where he spent several seasons, some in

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 131

company with his son, Richard Taylor, who proved to be good
enough a collector to satisfy Ed's exacting standards and even to
merit a few commendations. Even that interlude was exhausted,
however, as he turned to other fields opened up by the second World
War, following a pattern of succession of major periods of interest
in different parts of the world.

For the ambitious field collector, no better model could ever be
found than Ed Taylor. I really believe he is the best who ever lived.
He once said he would rather collect all the time than do anything
else, were it financially feasible. He must have acquired several
hundred thousand specimens through the years of his activity, par-
ticularly of amphibians and reptiles but also of insects, fishes and
mammals. Anyone having collected once with him is spoiled; rare
indeed is anyone acceptably nearly equal. For him, field work has
been the full life; the very thought of wasting any time doing any-
thing else while on a collecting trip was characteristically viewed as
a sacrilege. Diversion in the form of cantinas, restaurants, motels,
or the more notable sights that entrance most tourists, was re-
garded as unthinkable except as necessity demanded. The onlv
diversion needed is collecting itself. He was a veritable whirlwind
in the field in his more active years, when I collected with him. By
extending myself to the utmost I could keep up with him, but it was
a pace few could long maintain, and certainly not I. For him it
seemed no great effort — but of course few are blessed with the
physical strength and endurance to maintain his pace. A collector
need not have Taylor's stamina to be great, however; the mark of
greatness is the ability to be completely absorbed and completely
content with field collecting and observation, recognizing that the
opportunities for work in the field are rarities to be treasured and
savored to the full — let other amenities of life not interfere, and let
them in turn be savored when they are more appropriated sampled
in the intervening epochs of inescapability from the clutches of
civilization. Few collectors rise to such a standard, but they cannot
otherwise truly be great; I doubt that a greater has ever been known.

Taylor was indefatigable through most of his life, but that alone
does not account for his unique success, although it is an essential
ingredient. Equally essential is his sensitivity to the best places
and ways to hunt. He is limitlessly ingenious in spotting sanctuaries
others would not envision — digging with the hands in old stump-
holes, with a spade in seepages, searching in bromeliads, in axils of
leaves, among dead leaves on the ground, watching far ahead and
near at hand for movements, walking with a gasoline lantern, in the
rain, after rains, pawing in mud and leaves thrown onto shore,
examining the foam at the edge of a raging flood, and ceaselessly
seeking in endless other combinations of time and place. It is this
sensitivity to the most favorable circumstances of time and place,

132 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

the knowledge that for every combination there is some inhabitant,
combined with the ceaseless delight in exploitation of that sensitivity,
that raises him far above the ordinary collector.

Although a careful recorder of data for his specimens, he never
developed the art of field records to the extreme that has become
common practice, simply because it seemed unprofitably slavish to
a system. When notes seemed of probable value, he would take
them, even voluminously; when only banalities would result, he did
not waste the time. The training in taking notes just for the sake of
establishing a habit seemed to him superfluous, a useless relict from
the days when naturalists hung on every word of the observer in a
virgin land. In some ways it seems regrettable, in retrospect, that
Ed did not preserve a detailed field log at least in some areas, for
indeed they were essentially virgin lands at the time.

Although eschewing the niceties of a detailed field log, he has
always been well aware of the necessity of assuring without question
the source of every specimen, and the desirability of preparing the
material in as presentable a condition as possible. Every specimen
of amphibian or reptile he separately tags, its locality and related
data recorded in a catalog. In addition, Taylor was the first, I think,
to adopt in this country the "spreading" technique of specimen-
hardening, arranging each specimen in a lifelike position and hard-
ening it in a shallow pan of formalin before dropping it into a larger
container of preservative. Large snakes were neatly coiled. Many
others later adopted these techniques, so that today they are essen-
tially standard. Even commercial collectors, notably W. W. Brown,
adopted his procedures, with beautiful and notorious results.

Not until verv recent vears, with an NSF award for field work on
caecilians, did Tavlor receive financial aid for his field work. Most
was pursued in his spare time, with his own transportation, notably
during summers, completely at his own expense. It is therefore not
surprising that his collections, except as explicitly subsidized on rare
occasion by the University, were considered his personal property,
although containers, preservatives and other facilities essential to
the study of them were University-provided. Essentially such facili-
ties were provided merely for his study of borrowed materials, as
would have been the case had the material actually been borrowed
from other sources. That it was his own collection that was bor-
rowed muddied the issue for numerous University officials, who tried
all devices to persuade him that the material was rightfully Uni-
versity property — all devices, that is, short of paving field expenses.
As a result, in due time his collections were placed on the open
market, with much of his Philippine collections going to the Museim
of Comparative Zoology, and his Mexican collection going two-thirds
to Field Museum of Natural History, and one-third to the Museum
of Natural History at the University of Illinois in Urbana. His were

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 133

the largest private collections of vertebrates ever accumulated,
although their content varied greatly at different times as new
material was collected and as the study of different sections was
completed and those sections were sold.

His private collection undoubtedly was a major source of fuel
feeding the erratically fierce controversies waged over the past
decade or two about the right of institutional employees to possess
personal collections essentially competitive with those of their insti-
tutions. The issue has still not been resolved, although unquestion-
ably the pressure has steadily increased to deny that right, quite in
conformance with the rapid growth of institutionalism itself in
modern civilization. Concomitantly there has been a general in-
crease in institutional support for field work. Situations probably
will never again be conducive to the creation of such a vast personal
collection of preserved vertebrate material.

With so many years, calculated at about 23, actually in the
field — probably more than any other professional herpetologist who
ever lived — predictably Taylor encountered many dangerous situa-
tions from which he emerged largely unscathed because of his quick
and sensible reactions. On one occasion he spoke regretfully of
being a coward, yet no one who ever saw him in action would
entertain such thoughts. The mark of a brave man is not that he
fails to feel fear, which he might call cowardly, in dire circumstances,
but that he devises and executes a successful outcome for all con-
cerned, subsuming if need be his personal welfare to that of his
associates. This he has done on repeated occasions.

The notorious genius for discrimination that has been a hallmark
of Taylor's work has as its greatest monument the universal recogni-
tion of the largely sympatric complex of three species of 5-lined
skinks in eastern North America that had completely baffled many
experts who had previously struggled to make sense of the per-
plexing problem. For several decades the solution he proposed was
tested from every angle, with the ultimate admission by all that his
interpretation was correct. There are numerous other monuments
to his originality of thought and uncanny discriminatory ability, and
indeed their magnitude seems steadily to have increased. However
widely acclaimed his partition of the Eumeces fasciatus complex, his
astonishing and almost unbelievable discoveries among the cae-
cilians, almost doubling the known species, subspecies, and genera,
and even erecting 5 families and subfamilies where there was but
one before, must stand as his most enduring and widely influential
contribution to herpetology. Never has one herpetologist so com-
pletely altered the concepts of such a major group, at every level
from the lower to the higher categories. In addition it was Taylor
who focussed attention upon the fact that the monstrous old sala-
mander genus Oedipus actually represents several genera, and that

134 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

great diversity of species exists in most of them, a good share of
which he first recognized and named. In like fashion his genus
Microbatrachijlus, although subsequently subsumed in the unwieldy
genus Eleutherodactylus, is a group in which he first discovered
virtually all species, recognizing that they were not simply juveniles
of some larger species. Even today most specimens in museums of
these species were collected by him and his companions. His recog-
nition of the family Anomalepididae, although immediately attacked
from several sides, has led to a major realignment of concepts of
classification of the blind snakes, and to revival of his family.

The art of seeking consistently meaningful differences is a projec-
tion of personality. Taylor's personality in every way exhibits evi-
dence of the keen sensitivity to and awareness of innuendos or
characteristics others overlook completely. The personality of others,
insensitive to minute differences, may be expressed through em-
phasis upon broad relationships equally easy to overlook. Not sur-
prisingly, Taylor became known as a "splitter," to the despair of
those at the opposite extreme, the "lumpers."

Two comments upon the polarization are pertinent. First, Ed
Taylor is a prime example of the fact that discriminators can also be
equally effective in the field of broad relationships, where "lumpers"
are supposed to hold sway. On the other hand, many "lumpers" are
essentially ineffective in discrimination. Secondly, it is obvious that
"truth" requires both fine discrimination and broad generalization;
there is a place for both. Some rare workers can work effectively in
both ways, and Taylor is such a one. Recognition of the quality
of his contributions, and potential, has been seriously hampered by
common acceptance of the validity of categorization of all workers
as splitters or lumpers — comparable to the tendency to see every-
thing as black or white. A broader realization is long since due that
any worker may at any given time or circumstance, or even gen-
erally, see fine differences or, conversely, broad generalities; that
most workers are not invariably one or the other, but at different
times or under different circumstances exhibit either capacity; and
that if either capacity is notably missing, it is fine discrimination.

It is true that Taylor's discriminatory ability occasionally has led
him to recognize conspecific morphotypes as valid species, but even
in these cases the discrimination was both valid and novel, over-
looked by others; it was only the interpretation of the differences
that went astray. The erroneous picture of Ed as a compulsive split-
ter is totally inconsistent with the scorn he bestows personally upon
multiplication of taxa at the subspecific level. Geographic variation
of recognizably single species inspires no enthusiasm in him, with
the clear implication that he views such variation as relatively minor
compared with variation at interspecific and higher levels. I am not
aware that he ever described a subspecies as such, and only with

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 135

great reluctance has he admitted that any taxa originally named as
species are in reality subspecies. It is obvious that he suffers no
compulsion to split, else he would be equally as ardent in segrega-
tion of subspecies as in ferreting out species and higher-category
taxa. His is a genius of discrimination, a talent that should not be
confused with the psychoses of the imperative splitter or lumper; the
discriminator is sensitive to relationships, both broadly synthetic and
finely analytical, as they really exist, whereas lumpers and splitters,
or the acts of lumping and splitting, are best regarded as the prod-
ucts of compulsive bias that prevent detached evaluation even
though they coincidentally at times lead to correct conclusions.
Taylor is a confirmed discriminator in the best sense of the word;
to label him a splitter does him a gross injustice.

Realist that he is, however, whatever his conviction might be in
any given case that he had correctly interpreted the available data,
he has never been imbued with the belief that his conclusions were
immutable, a product of divine revelation. He is always keenly
aware of his human limitations. Nevertheless, he seems to prefer that
if he errs, and when he errs, he do so toward over-discrimination, not
toward under-discrimination. Obviously, some other workers prefer
to risk error in the other direction, but they have no justification in
assuming that they thereby are somehow superior to he who risks
error toward the opposite extreme. Each helps to offset the other
in the crucible of repeated reappraisal.

Taylor's all-pervasive personal integrity is reflected in his per-
sonal attitude toward the practice in general of taxonomy. It is
inevitable that he views taxonomy as an extremely objective science,
in which one must draw conclusions strictly in conformance with
facts as they exist, or are seen, with total disregard for convention or
currently popular concepts. These are the makings of an iconoclast,
although Ed does not qualify for that category in the sense of
deliberately seeking concepts to destroy. He hesitated little, how-
ever, in promoting drastic conceptual revisions where facts justified
them. His philosophy in this context I risk paraphrasing as follows.

Two major objectives of taxonomy are, first, to indicate nomen-
claturally the approximate evolutionary stage currently attained by
each different population, and, second, to devise the classification
scheme that most closely approximates the true relationships dictated
by the phylogenetic history of those populations.

Of course, such goals require agreement upon implication of
nomenclatural categories and arrangements — an agreement which is
slowly being achieved but has been elusive in the past, making the
goals of taxonomy, as now understood, completely unattainable in
past eras. Indeed, the goals themselves of taxonomy have inevitably
shifted as understanding has broadened; only in recent decades
could such grandiose goals as those cited above be entertained, for

136 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

in earlier times the focus of attention perforce fell primarily upon
elaboration of a mere catalog.

The routes to our modern goals have clearly been vastly im-
proved by a clarification of objectives, but they are even yet beset
with almost insurmountable difficulties in procuring adequate data.
Scouring all fields for every relevant bit of evidence, much remains
unknown, first because a total, fully complete survey would require
examination of every individual of any given population — a patently
impossible undertaking — and second because direct information on
the vast succession of individuals that led to existent populations is
largely inaccessible. Fossils, casts, and tracks provide limited direct
information, bolstered by indirect extrapolation from the nature of
extant populations and individuals.

Thus, even in these enlightened times, attainment of the ob-
jectives of taxonomy requires exercise of a good deal of judgment,
or in other words guesswork. The guesses are often highly educated,
but guesses they remain, to varying degrees of probability. Taxon-
omists by and large are, to a considerable degree, inveterate
gamblers, placing their personal bets on this interpretation or that,
risking their professional reputations on the ultimate agreement, by a
jury as it were, of their colleagues on the validity and significance of
their conclusions. Seemingly few indulge in conventional gambling,
perhaps because in large part their gambling instincts are fully satis-
fied by their unique professional opportunities.

Be that as it may, taxonomists take great personal comfort, as do
other scientists, from the security afforded by the wide recognition
of impartial objectivity that characterizes science in general. They
speculate with circumspect freedom, but as scientists their specula-
tions are assumed to be largely unbiased.

Any notably speculative scientific field, however, is vulnerable to
all influences upon thought — not from facts alone, but also from the
quirks of individuality ( certainly not a strictly human trait, although
obviously most readily observed in humans ) that give rise to a pre-
dilection for given sorts of interpetation — in other words, to bias.
The famed categorization of taxonomists as "splitters" or "lumpers"
is a tacit recognition of bias at work.

Freedom from bias is universally recognized as a necessary ideal
in science. The most effective step ever taken to reduce bias in
taxonomy was introduction of the "numerical" revolution, in the form
of "numerical taxonomy." Its chief contribution was the new focus
of attention upon facts and their distribution, leaving as little as
possible to personal bias in the interpretation of those facts. Paren-
thetically this most objective technique of taxonomy was introduced
in company with some of the most blatantly biased precepts imagi-
nable, with the result that wide acceptance was regrettably delayed

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 137

while the basic concepts were divested of their trappings of biased
premises.

Despite the gradually expanding influence of numerical methods,
and the objectivity they demand, personal bias remains a major
force in herpetological taxonomy today. Much and perhaps all of it
is essentially unwitting, but it is nonetheless real and pervasive, to
the discredit of the field. Examples of recent date are almost limit-
less, and they take extremely varied forms, sharing in common
largely the neglect of factual implications — of objective interpreta-
tions— and the undue weight placed upon personal preference in
drawing conclusions, sacrificing or distorting the unvarnished im-
plications of the facts themselves.

Objectivity remains a goal, an ideal, in taxonomy, and progress
toward it seems very slow, despite the impetus provided by the
numerical revolution. Perhaps it can never be universally attained,
and perhaps freedom for a certain degree of individuality of inter-
pretation should be recognized as outweighing the goal of universally
repeatable objectivity. Even thus qualified, objectivity remains a
desirable goal, for in its current state at least herpetological taxon-
omy allows so much freedom for exercise of personal bias that the
diverse conclusions are unduly disruptive and greatly stultify its
growth as a science.

This is, as I understand it, the guiding philosophy of Ed Taylor.
His impeccably unbiased taxonomic works are a model of objec-
tivity, letting the chips fall where they may, irrespective of the
images that might be destroyed in dispassionate observation. It is a
level of detachment that merits much wider emulation than it
receives in a progressively evolving world.

The genius for broad generality is perhaps nowhere more con-
spicuously evident in Ed Taylor's work than in his dealings with
Comparative Anatomy. He deplored texts that lost sight of the
forests formed by the trees of that discipline, and for that reason
extrapolated from that notable generalizer, H. H. Wilder, in his
"History of the Human Body." For many years Taylor daily exer-
cised his powers of generalization by inductive reasoning from the
vast variety of facts of Comparative Anatomy, to the enchantment
of his students. Indeed, my own textbook in that subject drew
heavily upon the broad perspectives painted by Taylor in his lectures
in that course. This is not meant to imply that he minimized detail,
for the laboratory work he required was truly formidable and cer-
tainly far beyond that which can be expected of students at the
present time. This was detail, with a vengeance, but it was not
allowed to obscure generality.

Vision and experience on exceptionally broad scales were part of
the syndrome that made Taylor an inspiring teacher. Equally im-
portant was his hypnotic powers of speech. He could transport his

138 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

listeners bodily into another dimension, completely captivating their
minds, so that they returned to the immediate world of reality with
a start, abashed by their susceptibility to the power of suggestion,
and awed by the ability of the speaker to so manipulate them. It
takes a direct experience on the scene to appreciate its reality and
power; description alone cannot convince. Ed's ability as a speaker
led in 1932-3 to the presentation of a series of ten highly successful
radio talks reflecting his experiences and herpetological knowledge.

Starting his herpetological career before herpetology began its
exponential growth, Taylor continued to amass the literature of
the field in a way that can never again be duplicated, exchanging
reprints with most of the active specialists of his time, thereby
including the most significant contributions to the field. In WPA
days, before xerox and similar copying devices were available, and
when photocopying was too expensive and laborious, he kept many
typists, funded by WPA, busy typing word for word the works of
earlier herpetologists. By these means, and by purchasing whole
libraries and separate works when available, he created one of the
greatest herpetological libraries in existence. It was his habit to
collect and bind all the works of any given author in chronological
sequence, thus minimizing loss or misplacement of individual papers.
Some 125 authors are thus immortalized in his library, which in
1968 was acquired by the University of Kansas library (see Books
and Libraries at the University of Kansas, vol. 8, no. 2, Dec, 1970,
p. 2).

Such a dynamic celebrity could not be overlooked by publicity
media indefinitely. Among many newspaper accounts, there is one
in the University Daily Kansan for April 16, 1963; a full page in the
Kansas City Star for Jan. 17, 1965; and more than a page in the
Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Dec. 3, 1969. He received a
Distinguished Service Citation from the University of Kansas during
the Commencement ceremonies May 16-17, 1971; and he is one of the
few explicitly honored in the University of Kansas Centennial Medal-
lion of 1966, with a salamander denoting his herpetological contribu-
tions (see Kansas Alumni, vol. 64, no. 4, Dec. 1965-Jan. 1966, p. 11).
These articles, and his radio talks (see bibliography), embrace
accounts that document much of the preceding material, but are
too voluminous to be repeated here, and are appropriate for in-
corporation with the autobiographical material of this volume.
Other honors have been received from fellow herpetologists, mam-
malogists, ichthyologists and entomologists who have named some
25 taxa for him, mostly on material he collected.

Most scientists enjoy the stature of authority in one small area of
endeavor, or at most two. Each lifetime embraces but one or two
epochs. On the contrary, E. H. Taylor can be said to have had at
least six eras of activity: (1) 1915-1928, Philippine herpetology;

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 139

(2) 1929-1936, the Eumeces era; (3) 1937-1948, the Mexican era;
(4) 1949-1956, the Costa Rican era; (5) 1957-1964, the Thailand era;
and (6) 1965-date, the Caecilian era. The astonishing aspects are
first that each era was marked by one or more monumental, mono-
graphic works, each era paralleling a lifetime's work for most
people; and second that along with most eras came numerous unre-
lated, incidental yet major contributions. Although Taylor has pub-
lished a few small accounts, much of his work has been monographic
in scope. No herpetologist who ever lived has produced such a
combination of variety and bulk of major works. Even Cope and
Boulenger, and in still earlier times Dumeril and Bibron, do not
match Taylor's work, in the indicated contexts. And only one
herpetologist of all time, Boulenger, can be said to have been more
broadly influential upon the field as a whole. His studies have con-
cerned every major continent, although Australia he dealt with the
least. In most cases he was the first really good collector to visit the
regions concerned. His interests have extended over not only living
but also extinct species of modern orders of amphibians and reptiles,
about which he published nine sizeable accounts.

The significance of Taylor's work is enormous in the herpeto-
logical field. In sheer bulk alone it outweighs anything produced by
any other herpetologist who ever lived, running to some 15,000
pages, which would equal about 25-30 good-sized volumes. Again
in sheer volume, the number of new species-group taxa exceeds an
incredible 500, new genera number over 25, and new family-group
taxa number seven. Major works have spanned 50 years and more,
with the earliest appearing in 1921, as the Amphibians and Turtles
of the Philippines. Monographic surveys continued to appear in a
bewildering succession, with four volumes on the Philippine herpe-
tofauna, one on Eumeces, three on Mexico, two on Ceylon, four on
Costa Rica, four on Thailand and one on caecilians. All are classics
of enduring value, standards within their scope for many years yet
to come, and indeed the earlier ones have already been reprinted
in recognition of the abiding interest they generate. But in addition
to these, numerous other large but less synoptic works appeared;
small accounts never dominated his output as is true of so many
other workers.

Likewise it may be noted that few of Taylor's publications have
been co-authored. This fact is a product of two qualities of per-
sonality already pointed out: his generosity and his integrity.
Numerous monumental dissertations have been completed by his
students, often with his extensive participation; yet not a one was
ever published under joint authorship with him. It is commonplace
for an advisor who has closely supervised and directed dissertations
to join as at least junior author, and occasionally even as senior
author, in publication of them. Had he done so on every justifiable

140 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Fig. 5. E. H. Taylor in his office in Snow Hall, The University of Kansas.
January, 1936. Photo courtesy of Howard K. Gloyd.

occasion his list of publications would be considerably longer, and
his real contributions would be more readily evident. In a way it is
unfortunate that he did not thus record for posterity the remarkable
influence he has had upon a wide variety of herpetological researches
beyond that derived from his strictly personal work. In another way

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 141

it is refreshingly consistent with his impeccable standards and
generous support for his fellow man. However slighting history may
be of the real impact Taylor has had upon herpetology, through his
reluctance to share authorship credit even where it was overwhelm-
ingly due, he is the greater a man for it, true to himself in a con-
sistent pattern of highest ethical standards. Certainly Ed must be
viewed as ambitious, striving for the highest goals of achievement
and expecting some recognition of his ability and attainments (al-
though that recognition has never been at a level commensurate
with merit ) , yet he has refused consistently to climb on the backs of
anyone, student or colleague; his achievements are strictly his own,
and that is the way he wanted them. It has been pointed out ( Smith
& Smith, Synopsis of Herpetology of Mexico, 2:xxv) that coauthor-
ship of technical publications has become a strong trend in recent
decades, especially in the Americas, because of academic influences
in an atmosphere of team efforts grossly different from the older,
museum and continental climates wherein collaboration proved
difficult. Ed was not a conspicuous member of that trend, but only
because he encouraged his potential co-authors to stand alone in
receiving credit for what they had actually done jointly. Most com-
monly he has accepted coauthorship only where he has done most
of the work, and as a gesture of generosity a contributor is invited
to share the honor. When someone else does most of the work, his
attitude is that to join in authorship, even when his participation has
been absolutely critical, would detract from the credit coming to the
other — and this he could not do, however justified it might be, as I
have learned in exasperation on repeated occasions.

The classic status of much of Ed's work does not represent fully
the magnitude of significance of the whole. Many a taxonomic
tangle was unravelled through his work, and his discoveries on scale
structure of caecilians will make all biologists his debtors forever.
Modern critics may complain that much of his work is preliminary,
hastily conceived and executed, and therefore unworthy of admira-
tion. It is true that his works are not polished gems of finality, but
they have etched a permanent place in the history of herpetology
by being a durable framework which, although requiring fleshing-
out and remodelling to various degrees over succeeding decades,
nevertheless stimulated many times the activity than would have
existed without it. Any major contribution is soon tested to the
limit by workers who would never have ventured into creativity
without something to "shoot at." It is all too easy for snipers, upon
finding errors or weaknesses, to judge the creator harshly, forgetting
that no progress would have been registered at all without a pace-
setter. Let not the essentially trivial lapses that are an inevitable
companion of prodigious output diminish appreciation of the
progress generated by E. H. Taylor's incomparable activity. Its

142 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

effects will never cease to be felt, wittingly or not, however fervent
the attacks by self-promoting hecklers on the sideline, incapable
themselves of such creativity.

A remarkable attribute of Taylor's work is its originality. Very
little of the "scissors and paste" type of contribution has been in-
volved. His numerous synopses and monographs have, to be sure,
summarized knowledge in pertinent areas, but all descriptions and
illustrations are new. He has consistently abhorred compilations
alone, however useful they might be. Expressed in another way, one
might recognize three sorts of scientific activity in herpetology, with
a number of subdivisions, as follows:

I. Field study

a. Acquisitive (Collecting)

b. Observational (unmolested)

c. Experimental
II. Laboratory study

a. Anatomical (external as well as internal)

b. Behavioral (unmolested)

c. Experimental
III. Library study

Taylor has excelled in acquisitive field study and in anatomical lab-
oratory studv, has made some contributions in observational field
study and in behavioral laboratory study, but has explored little in
the experimental areas, either in the laboratory or in the field. Like-
wise, although his knowledge of the literature is encyclopedic, he
has never written any work based largely or entirely on library
scholarship alone. Thus he has never ventured to produce textbooks
or lists derived from the literature; his voluminous output has been
extensively original, and thereby all the more remarkable, for
library research is the most fruitful source for many other abundantly
productive workers. Regurgitation of recorded knowledge, even in
new arrangements, perspectives and contexts, has never appealed to
him. Obviously he has not sought to "pad" his publication record
with an output that might be regarded as "easy" from strictly library
work. On the other hand one could wish that he would provide, as
he could, an excellent supplementary text in herpetology, drawing
primarily upon his first-hand experience.

The extraordinary output of new taxa is not likely to be matched
in the future, except possibly by workers in the lesser-known tropical
regions, simply because the herpetofauna in most parts of the world
has become so well known that novelties will be uncovered with
increasing rarity. He worked in an exploratory era that is rapidly
drawing to a close. Certainly a great deal remains to be learned of
the systematics of the herpetofauna of South America and the East
Indies, but probably only these areas can provide the materials that
would support another E. H. Taylor.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 143

Despite Ed's personal rejection of the "digest" type of research,
he maintains a kindly attitude toward others who are, in the absence
of ready access to specimens, reduced to literature research if any-
thing were to be done at all. For those who do not exhaust the
means at their disposal, however, including talent and specimen
material as well as the literature, his scorn could be withering. The
occasionally hasty, prematurely produced work by Dunn, however
inspired and visionary it often was, formed the ultimate source of
the most notorious professional conflict in herpetology of the 20th
century.

It is a sad commentary upon the bias of the intellectual com-
munity that such outstanding genius for achievement constituted by
E. H. Taylor was never formally recognized at the national level,
e.g. by election to the National Academy of Sciences. Certainly the
influence of his achievements far exceed those of some others in the
National Academy, whose activity centered in more prestigious areas
of expertise. Unfortunately, systematics has never enjoyed much
prestige relative to other disciplines, and even among systematists a
hierarchy of snobbery exists, fostered to a considerable degree by
discrimination of alpha, beta and gamma levels of taxonomy.

Taylor and many other systematists extensively practicing alpha
taxonomy have been soundly criticized for ready description of
either species or subspecies on the basis of single specimens. The
criticisms reveal an unseemly intolerance. Obviously students ac-
customed to an autecological approach to an understanding of inter-
relationships would find erection of taxa on the basis of single
individuals to be personally intolerable; yet a systematist analyzing
populations from an evolutionary point of view could find a single-
specimen taxon just as vital to his analysis as taxa known from many
specimens. The criteria of justification, in other words, vary greatly
in accordance with the aims, background, personality and per-
spectives of the specialist. There is no categorical "right" or "wrong"
to a policy of erection of single-specimen taxa; it depends upon the
circumstances. In some contexts it would be egregiously wrong, in
others equally proper, and in most, equivocal. I have ample faith in
the systematic expertise of Ed Taylor that when he practices such
discrimination, he has ample justification for doing so, and that the
accusation of "wrong!" is based upon insufficient knowledge or out-
right intolerance. Although Taylor rarely has described subspecies
as such, it bears noting that erection of single-specimen taxa is
fundamentally the same in subspecies as in species, since they differ
not at all in degree of distinctness, but only in reproductive isolation.

The lack of National Academy of Sciences or other comparable
recognition may in part be attributed to the fact that Ed Taylor's
career, varied as it is, does not include service in a prestigious ad-
ministrative post. Indeed, this is perhaps one of the few personal

144 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

ambitions this remarkable person did not achieve. It is a travesty of
circumstances that prevented him from holding important posts at
least at The University of Kansas, particularly as Director of the
Museum of Natural History.

However thwarted in some respects his career may have been, it
is yet a masterpiece of accomplishment. It is inconceivable that it
could have been more productive — it could only have been differ-
ently productive.

The trail blazed by Edward Harrison Taylor can of course never
be travelled again, for it is unique in time as well as place; times
change, and new trails to fit the modern world must be hewed, each
to its own time. To compare one person's achievements with
another's is impossible, on a realistically valid basis, for each person's
journey through time is unique; the heritage and circumstances are
different throughout. Nevertheless it is apparent that the mark of
E. H. Taylor is of heroic proportions, and although not duplicatable
can yet serve as a test of achievement for his successors for many
generations. Whether approached or exceeded, time will not alter
the knowledge that he has carved the image of a unique, unparal-
leled giant among men, scientist as well as human being.

Acknowledgments. Dr. Kraig Adler and Dr. Howard K. Gloyd
kindly provided the photographs reproduced in this volume. The
preceding account was instigated by Dr. William E. Duellman, who
very kindly provided numerous suggestions and valuable editorial
aid. Dr. A. Byron Leonard aided in establishment of the scope of
coverage, avoiding extensive overlap in our respective efforts. To all
I am greatly indebted.

IV

THE PUBLISHED CONTRIBUTIONS OF
EDWARD H. TAYLOR

By

George R. Pisani

Edward Taylor's formal research career began in January of 1912
when, after completing his A.B. degree, he accepted a civil service
post in Manila, Philippine Islands. The voyage to Manila began a
series of research-associated travels spanning close to 300,000 miles
and cumulatively totalling nearly a year of sea time. In the past 62
years, he has published 198 pieces of scientific research, which range
from 1 to over 800 pages in length and total 9,295 pages. These
works have been published in 25 journals (with most in the Uni-
versity of Kansas Science Bulletin) and have been illustrated with
2,140 figures and plates.

Taylor's publications reflect his changing research interests and
also give some indication of the extent of his travels. Between 1915
and 1928 he produced an extensive survey of the herpetofauna of
the Philippines, followed by a lengthy review of Philippine land
mammals in 1934. The period 1929-1935 represents a transition
period, with Taylor's publication emphasis being mainly on the
herpetofauna of the south-central United States; this period also
marks the beginnings of his publications on the lizard genus
Eumeces and the herpetofauna of Mexico. Nineteen thirty-two to
1936 saw the intensive investigation of the genus Eumeces, culminat-
ing in 1936 with a monographic study of these lizards. By 1937,
Taylor was publishing heavily on his Mexican research, an emphasis
which was to continue to 1950.

In 1947, Taylor's first publication on the herpetofauna of south-
eastern Asia (a study of Ceylonese snakes) appeared, followed a
year later by the first two of his Costa Rican papers. Between 1952
and 1958, Taylor published lengthy treatises on Costa Rican herpe-
tology, and extensively reviewed most of the herpetofauna of Thai-
land over the following seven years. The concluding paper in the
series on Thailand appeared in 1970 (turtles and crocodilians).

Since 1960, Taylor's research has focused heavily on the caecilians
(Amphibia, Gymnophiona). His interest in these animals was
aroused during a collecting trip on tiny Brasilian Island in the Sea of
Celebes. Taylor was collecting large earthworms for a colleague
when he noticed that one "earthworm'' seemed very different from
the rest. Subsequent investigation showed it to be a new species of
caecilian. Recognizing the poor state of taxonomy of the Gymno-
phiona, Taylor undertook a long series of studies on the order. His

146 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

1968 review of these unique animals is a major landmark in the
scientific knowledge of the group.

Thoughout the major phases of his career, Taylor's work can be
characterized as pioneering. His publications on the Philippines,
Mexico, Costa Rica, and Thailand all provided extensive treatments
of poorly understood herpetofaunas. The studies on Eumeces and
the Gymnophiona delve deeply into the taxonomy of complex
groups. In the course of time a number of the taxa proposed by
Taylor have fallen, as is typical with advances in the methodology
of systematics; yet, much has withstood the scrutiny of subsequent
investigations and his work remains of fundamental importance to
systematists following in his path.

There has been considerable interest in reprinting Taylor's works.
The tripartite checklist and key to the amphibians and reptiles of
Mexico (Taylor is second author behind his renowned student
Hobart Smith) have been available as reprints for several years, and
his extensive Costa Rican and Philippine material has recently been
reproduced by two Dutch publishers. Sources of all reprinted ma-
terial are coded in the body of the bibliography ("R-l", etc.) and
referenced in Appendix A.

While the bulk of Taylor's writing has been of taxonomic orienta-
tion, his interests have produced much material encompassing anat-
omy, behavior and natural history. Nine paleoherpetology papers
appeared scattered throughout the years 1936-1951. At 84 years of
age he shows little sign of slowing his research pace as evidenced by
his work in press and in preparation.

Sincere thanks are due to Ed Taylor and William Duellman for
their help throughout compilation of this material, and to Virginia
Aldridge for typing parts of the manuscript.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
EDWARD HARRISON TAYLOR

1915
New species of Philippine lizards. Philip. J. Sci. 10(2), Sec. D:89-
109, 1 pi.

1916
The lizards of Kansas, with notes on habits. Unpublished thesis
(Master of Science), University of Kansas.

1917
Brachymelas, a genus of Philippine lizards. Philip. J. Sci. 12(5), Sec.

D: 267-279, 1 pi., 7 figs.
Snakes and lizards known from Negros, with descriptions of new

species and new subspecies. Philip. J. Sci. 13(6), Sec. D:353-

381, 2 pis., 2 figs.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 147

1918

Reptiles of Sulu Archipelago. Philip. J. Sci. 13(5), Sec. D:233-267,

3 pis., 11 figs.

Two new snakes of the genus Holarchus with descriptions of other
Philippine species. Philip. J. Sci. 13(6), Sec. D:359-369, 2 pis.

1919

New or rare Philippine reptiles. Philip. J. Sci. 14 ( 1) : 105-125, 2 pis.,

4 figs.

Ipon fisheries of Abra River. Philip. J. Sci. 14(1) : 127-130.

1920

Philippine turtles. Philip. J. Sci. 16(2) : 111-144, 7 pis.

Philippine Amphibia. Philip. J. Sci. 16(3) :213-259, 10 pis., 9 figs.,
errata pp. 649-650.

1921
Amphibians and turtles of the Philippine Islands. Dept. of Agricul-
ture and Natural Resources, Bureau of Science (Manila) Pub.
no. 15, 193 p., 17 pis., 9 figs. (R-l)

1922

The snakes of the Philippine Islands. Dept. of Agriculture and
Natural Resources, Bureau of Science ( Manila ) Pub. no. 16, 312
p., 37 pis., 32 figs. (R-l)

Additions to the herpetological fauna of the Philippine Islands, I.
Philip. J. Sci. 21(2):161-206, 7 pis. (R-l)

Additions to the herpetological fauna of the Philippine Islands, II.
Philip. J. Sci. 21(3):257-303, 4 pis. (R-l)

The lizards of the Philippine Islands. Dept. of Agriculture and
Natural Resources, Bureau of Science (Manila) Pub. no. 17,
269 p., 23 pis., 53 figs. (R-l)

Herpetological fauna of Mount Makiling. The Philippine Agricul-
turist 11(5): 127-139.

1923
Additions to the herpetological fauna of the Philippine Islands, III.
Philip. J. Sci. 22(5):515-557, 3 pis. (R-l)

1924
(with Noble, G. Kingsley, second author) A new genus of disco-
glossid frogs from the Philippine Islands. Amer. Mus. Nov. 121:
1-4, 1 fig.

1925

Additions to the herpetological fauna of the Philippines, IV. Philip.
J. Sci. 26(1):97-111. (R-l)

148 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

1928

An incident. Social Science 3(1) :29-31.

Amphibians, lizards and snakes of the Philippines, in, Distribution
of life in the Philippines. Dept. of Agriculture and Commerce,
Bureau of Science (Manila) Monograph no. 21:214-242, 6 pis.,
6 figs.

1929 (all distributed 1930)
A revised checklist of the snakes of Kansas. U.K.S.B. 19(5) :53-62.
List of reptiles and batrachians of Morton County, Kansas, reporting

species new to the State fauna. U.K.S.B. 19(6) :63-65.
A species of lizard new to the fauna of the United States: Enmeces

caWcephalus Bocourt. U.K.S.B. 19(7):67-69.

1931
Notes on two new specimens of the rare snake Ficimia cana, and the

description of a new species of Ficimia from Texas. Copeia 1931

(l):4-7.
The discovery of a lizard Sceloporus torqaatus cijanogenys Cope, in

Texas, new to the fauna of the United States. Proc. Biol. Soc.

Wash. 44:129-132.

1932

Leptodactylus albilabris (Gunther): a species of toad new to the

fauna of the United States. U.K.S.B. 20 ( 11) :243-245.
(with Wright, John S., second author) The toad Bnfo marinus

(Linnaeus) in Texas. U.K.S.B. 20 ( 12) : 247-249.
Enmeces inexpectatus: a new American lizard of the family Scin-

cidae. U.K.S.B. 20(13) : 251-259, 1 pi.
Eumeces laticeps: a neglected species of skink. U.K.S.B. 20(14):

263-271, 2 pis.

1933
Two new Mexican skinks of the genus Eumeces. Proc. Biol. Soc.

Wash. 46:129-138, 2 figs.
Notes on type specimens of reptiles and amphibians in the "Alfredo

Duges" Museum, Guanajuato, Mexico. Copeia 1933(2) :97.
New species of skinks from Mexico. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 46:175-

182, 2 figs.

1934
Notes on Chinese reptiles and amphibians. Lingnan Sci. J. (Canton,

China) 13(2):297-310.
Zoological results of the third DeSchauensee Siamese Expedition,

part III. Amphibians and reptiles. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila.

86:281-310, 1 pi., 4 figs.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 149

Philippine land mammals. Dept. of Agriculture and Commerce,
Bureau of Science (Manila) Monograph no. 30, 548 p., 25 pis.,
25 figs.

Notes on two collections of Hainan reptiles and amphibians. Ling-
nan Sci. J. (Canton, China) 13(3) :465-474.

A new species of lizard from Mexico. U.K.S.B. (1933, issued 1934)
21(5):257-267, 2 pis.

Observations on the courtship of turtles. U.K.S.B. (1933, issued
1934) 21(6):269-271.

1935
A new skink from Mexico. Zool. Ser. Field Mus. Nat. Hist. 20(10) :

77-80, 1 fig.
Coleonyx fasciatus, a neglected species of gecko. U.K.S.B. 22(9):

203-205.
Arkansas amphibians and reptiles in the Kansas University Museum.

U.K.S.B. 22(10) :207-218.

A new species of the genus Eumeces from New Mexico. U.K.S.B.
22(ll):219-223, 1 fig.

1936
Notes on a small herpetological collection from western Australia.
Trans. Kans. Acad. Sci. (1935, issued 1936) 38:341-344.

Proposed changes in the nomenclature of the scincoid lizard genus
Eumeces. Trans. Kans. Acad. Sci. (1935, issued 1936) 38:345-

.347.

The rediscovery of the lizard Eumeces altamirani (Duges) with
notes on two other Mexican species of the genus. Proc. Biol.
Soc. Wash. 49:55-58.

A taxonomic study of the cosmopolitan scincoid lizards of the genus
Eumeces with an account of the distribution and relationships
of its species. U.K.S.B. (1935, issued 1936) 23(l):l-643, 43 pis.,
84 figs.

Una nueva fauna de batracios anuros del Plioceno Medio de Kansas.
Anales Inst. Biol. (Mexico) 7(4) :513-529, 2 pis.

Notes and comments on certain American and Mexican snakes of
the genus Tantilla, with descriptions of new species. Trans. Kans.
Acad. Sci. 39:335-348, 6 figs.

New species of Amphibia from Mexico. Trans. Kans. Acad. Sci. 39:
.349-363, 2 pis.

1937
Two new lizards of the genus Leiolopisma from Mexico, with com-
ments on another Mexican species. Copeia 1937(1) :5-ll.

150 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

New species of hylid frogs from Mexico with comments on the rare
Hyla bistincta Cope. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 50:43-54, 2 pis.

A new snake of the genus Sonora, with comments on S. michoaca-
nensis. Herpetologica 1:69-72, 2 pis.

1938
Notes on the herpetological fauna of the Mexican state of Sonora.

U.K.S.B. (1936, issued 1938) 24(19) : 474-503, 1 pi.
Notes on the herpetological fauna of the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

U.K.S.B. (1936, issued 1938) 24(20) : 505-537, 3 pis.
Does the amphisbaenid genus Bipes occur in the United States?

Copeia 1938(4) :202. '

1939
On North American snakes of the genus Leptotyphhps. Copeia

1939(1) :l-7, 1 pi.
Two new species of the genus Anomalepis Jan, with a proposal of a

new family of snakes. Proc. New England Zool. Club 17:87-96,

lpl.
(with Smith, Hobart M., second author) Miscellaneous notes on

Mexican snakes. U.K.S.B. (1938, issued 1939) 25 ( 13) : 239-258,

1 pi., 4 figs.
Concerning Mexican salamanders. U.K.S.B. (1938, issued 1939)

25 (14): 259-313, 6 pis.
Notes on the Mexican snakes of the genus Leptodeira with a pro-
posal of a new snake genus Pseudoleptodeira. U.K.S.B. ( 1938,

issued 1939) 25( 15) :315-355, 5 pis., 7 figs.
On the Mexican snakes of the genera Trimorphodon and Hi/psiglena.

U.K.S.B. (1938, issued 1939) 25(16) :357-383, 4 pis., 1 fig.

New species of Mexican tailless Amphibia. U.K.S.B. ( 1938, issued

1939) 25 (17): 407-419, 4 pis.
A new anuran amphibian from the Pliocene of Kansas. U.K.S.B.

(1938, issued 1939) 25(18) : 407-419, 4 pis.

Frogs of the Hyla eximia group in Mexico, with descriptions of two
new species. U.K.S.B. ( 1938, issued 1939) 25(19) : 421-445 3 pis.

A new bromeliad frog. Copeia 1939(2) : 97-100, 1 fig.

A new species of the lizard genus LepidopJujma from Mexico. Co-
peia 1939(3) : 131-133, 2 figs.

1940
A new eleutherodactylid frog from Mexico. Proc. New England
Zool. Club 18:13-16, 2 pis.

Anew Rlu/acosiredon (Caudata) from western Mexico. Herpetolog-
ica 1(7): 171-176, lpl.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 151

Two new snakes of the genus Thamnophis from Mexico. Herpeto-
logica 1(7):183-189, 1 pi., 2 figs.

A new bromeliad frog from northwestern Michoacan. Copeia 1940
(l):18-20, lfig.

Two new anuran amphibians from Mexico. Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus.
89(3093): 43-47, 3 pis.

A new Syrrhophus from Guerrero, Mexico. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash.
53:95-98, 1 pi.

Palatal sesamoid bones and palatal teeth in Cnemidophorus, with
notes on these teeth in other saurian genera. Proc. Biol. Soc.
Wash. 53:119-124, 1 pi.

(with Knobloch, Irving W., second author) Report on an herpeto-
logical collection from the Sierra Madre Mountains of Chi-
huahua. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 53:125-130.

New species of Mexican anura. U.K.S.B. (1939, issued 1940) 26
(ll):385-405, 2 pis., 8 figs.

New salamanders from Mexico, with a discussion of certain known
forms. U.K.S.B. ( 1939, issued 1940) 26 ( 12) :407-439, 4 pis., 5 figs.

Mexican snakes of the genus TijphJops. U.K.S.B. ( 1939, issued
1940) 26 (13): 441-444, 2 figs.

Some Mexican serpents. U.K.S.B. (1939, issued 1940) 26(14):445-
487, 4 pis., 9 figs.

Herpetological miscellany no. I. U.K.S.B. (1939, issued 1940) 26
(15): 489-571, 10 pis., 7 figs.

A new frog from the Tarahumara Mountains of Mexico. Copeia
1940(4) : 250-253, lfig.

A new Lampropeltis from western Mexico. Copeia 1940 ( 4 ): 253-255,
2 figs.

1941

New plethodont salamanders from Mexico. Herpetologica 2(3) :57-
65, 5 figs.

Extinct lizards from Upper Pliocene deposits of Kansas. Univ. Kans.
Publ. State Geol. Surv. Kans., Bull. no. 38, Reports of Studies,
pt. 5:165-176, 6 figs.

Extinct toads and salamanders from Middle Pliocene beds of Wal-
lace and Sherman counties, Kansas. Univ. Kans. Publ. State Geol.
Surv. Kans., Bull. no. 38, Reports of Studies, pt. 6:177-196, 7 figs.

A new plethodont salamander from New Mexico. Proc. Biol. Soc.
Wash. 54:77-80.

Two new species of Mexican plethodontid salamanders. Proc. Biol.
Soc. Wash. 54:81-86.

Some Mexican frogs. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 54:87-94.

152 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

(with Smith, Hobart M., first author) A review of the snakes of

the genus Ficimia. J. Wash. Acad. Sci. 31(8) : 356-368, 1 pi., 1

map, 16 figs.
Two new ambvstomid salamanders from Chihuahua. Copeia 1941

(3):143-146, 2 figs.
A new anuran from the Middle Miocene of Nevada. U.K.S.B. 27, pt.

l(4):61-69, lpl„ lfig.
Herpetological miscellany no. II. U.K.S.B. 27, pt. 1(7): 105-139, 4

pis., 7 figs.
New amphibians from the Hobart M. Smith Mexican collections.

U.K.S.B. 27, pt. 1(8): 141-167, 5 pis., 1 fig.

1942
Tadpoles of Mexican anura. U.K.S.B. 28, pt. l(3):37-55, 3 pis.
The frog genus Diaglena, with a description of a new species.

U.K.S.B. 28, pt. 1(4): 57-65, 2 pis.
New tailless Amphibia from Mexico. U.K.S.B. 28, pt. l(5):67-89,

4 pis.
Some geckoes of the genus Phylhdactylus. U.K.S.B. 28, pt. 1(6) :91-

112, 6 figs.
Mexican snakes of the genera Adehphis and Storeria. Herpetologica

2(4):75-79.
"Island" faunas on the Mexican Plateau. Proc. 8th Amer. Scientific

Congress 3:503-504.
Extinct toads and frogs from the Upper Pliocene deposits of Meade

County, Kansas. U.K.S.B. 28, pt. 2( 10) : 199-235, 7 pis.
(with Smith, Hobart M., second author) Concerning the snake

genus Psendoficimia. U.K.S.B. 28, pt. 2(12) :241-251, 1 pi., 4 figs.
New Caudata and Salientia from Mexico. U.K.S.B. 28, pt. 2(14):

295-323, 5 pis.
(with Smith, Hobart M., second author) The snake genera Conopsis

and Toluca. U.K.S.B. 28, pt. 2(15) : 325-363, 6 pis., 2 figs.

1943

(with Hesse, C. J., second author) A new salamander from the

Upper Miocene beds of San Jacinto County, Texas. Amer. J.

Sci. 241:185-193, 1 fig.
A new Hylella from Mexico. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 56:49-52.
A new ambystomid salamander adapted to brackish water. Copeia

1943(3):151-156,3figs.
An extinct turtle of the genus Emys from the Pleistocene of Kansas.

U.K.S.B. 29, pt. 2(3):249-254, 1 pi.
The Mexican lizards of the genus Enmeces, with comments on the

recent literature of the genus. U.K.S.B. 29, pt. 2(5) : 269-300.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 153

(with Smith, Hobart M., second author) A review of the American
sibynophine snakes with a proposal of a new genus. U.K.S.B.

29, pt. 2(6):301-338, 5 pis., 9 figs.

Skin shedding in the salamander Amphiuma means. U.K.S.B. 29, pt.
2(7):339-341.

Herpetological novelties from Mexico. U.K.S.B. 29, pt. 2(8):343-
361, 2 pis.

1944

A new genus and species of Mexican frogs. U.K.S.B. 30, pt. 1(3):
41-45.

Two new species of crotalid snakes from Mexico. U.K.S.B. 30, pt. 1

(4):47-56.

A new ambystomid salamander from the Plateau Region of Mexico.
U.K.S.B. 30, pt. 1(5):57-61.

The hylid genus Acrodytes, with comments on Mexican forms.

U.K.S.B. 30, pt. l(6):63-69.
Present location of certain herpetological and other type specimens.

U.K.S.B. 30, pt. 1:117-187.

The genera of plethodont salamanders in Mexico, Part I. U.K.S.B.

30, pt. 1:189-232.

1945

(with Smith, Hobart M., second author) Summary of the collections
of amphibians made in Mexico under the Walter Rathbone
Bacon Travelling Scholarship. Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. 95:521-613,
14 pis., 2 figs.

(with Smith, Hobart M., first author) An annotated checklist and
key to the snakes of Mexico. U.S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 187:1-239.

(R-2)

1947

Comments on Ceylonese snakes of the genus Typhlops with descrip-
tions of new species. U.K.S.B. 31, pt. 2(13) : 283-298, 3 figs.

A review of the Mexican forms of the lizard genus Splwerodacti/lus.
U.K.S.B. 31, pt. 2( 14) :299-309, 2 figs.

A bibliographv of Mexican amphibiology. U.K.S.B. 31, pt. 2(17):
543-589.

Publication dates of Kelaart's Prodromus Fauna Zeylanicae. Herpe-
tologica4(l):26.

1948
(with Smith, Hobart M., first author) An annotated checklist and
key to the Amphibia of Mexico. U.S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 194:i-iv,
1-118. (R-2)

154 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

A new hylid frog from eastern Mexico. Univ. Kans. Publ. Mus. Nat.
Hist. 1(15): 257-264, 1 fig.

New Costa Rican salamanders. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 61:177-180.
Two new hylid frogs from Costa Riea. Copeia 1948(4) : 233-238, 2
figs.

1949

A preoccupied name in Hyla. Copeia 1949 ( 1 ) :74.

A preliminary account of the herpetology of the State of San Luis
Potosi, Mexico. U.K.S.B. 33, pt. 1(2) : 169-215.

Costa Rican frogs of the genera Centrolene and CentroleneUa.

U.K.S.B. 33, pt. 1(4) .-257-270.
Two new teiid lizards from Costa Rica. U.K.S.B. 33, pt. 1(5):271-

278, 2 figs.

New salamanders from Costa Rica. U.K.S.B. 33, pt. 1(6) :279-288.
New or unusual Mexican amphibians. Amer. Mus. Nov. 1437:1-21,

6 figs.
A new hylid frog from central Veracruz. Copeia 1949 ( 4 ): 272-274,

lfig.

1950

(with Smith, Hobart M., first author) Type localities of Mexican
reptiles and amphibians. U.K.S.B. 33, pt. 2(8) :313-380.

Second contribution to the herpetology of San Luis Potosi. U.K.S.B.
33, pt. 2(ll):441-457, 6 pis., 1 map.

Ceylonese lizards of the family Scincidae. U.K.S.B. 33, pt. 2(13):
481-518, 8 figs.

A brief review of Ceylonese snakes. U.K.S.B. 33, pt. 2( 14) :519-603,
14 pis., 1 map.

A new bromeliad frog from the Mexican State of Veracruz. Copeia
1950(4) : 274-276, 1 pi.

(with Smith, Hobart M., first author) An annotated checklist and
key to the reptiles of Mexico, exclusive of the snakes. U.S. Nat.
Mus. Bull. 199:i-iv, 1-253. (R-2)

1951

Two new genera and a new family of tropical American frogs. Proc.
Biol. Soc. Wash. 64:33-37.

Egg laying behavior of an Oriental agamid lizard. Herpetologica
7(2):59-60.

The rediscovery of the toad Bufo simus Schmidt. Copeia 1951(2) :
134-137, 1 pi.

A brief review of the snakes of Costa Rica. U.K.S.B. 34, pt. 1(1):
3-188, 23 pis., 7 figs. (R-3)

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 155

A new Veracrucian salamander. U.K.S.B. 34, pt. 1(2) : 189-193, 1

fig-
Concerning Oligocene amphisbaenid reptiles. U.K.S.B. 34, pt. 1(9) :
521-579, 10 pis., 8 figs.

1952

The salamanders and eaecilians of Costa Rica. U.K.S.B. 34, pt. 2
(12): 695-791, 13 pis., 14 figs.

Third contribution to the herpetology of the Mexican State of San
Luis Potosi. U.K.S.B. 34, pt. 2(13) :793-815.

A new Panamanian tree frog. Breviora (Mus. Comp. Zool. ) 1:1-4,
lpl.

A new hylid of the genus Agahjchnis from southwestern Mexico.
Copeia 1952(1) : 31-32, lpl.

A review of the frogs and toads of Costa Rica. U.K.S.B. 35, pt. 1

(5):577-942, 69 figs.

1953

Early records of the seasnake Pelamus platurus in Latin America.

Copeia 1953(2): 124.
A review of the lizards of Ceylon. U.K.S.B. 35, pt. 2( 12) : 1525-1585.

Fourth contribution to the herpetology of San Luis Potosi. U.K.S.B.
35, pt. 2 (13): 1587-1614.

A report on a collection of Cevlonese serpents. U.K.S.B. 35, pt. 2
(14): 1615-1624.

(with Cochran, Doris, second author) Frogs of the family Centro-
lenidae from Brasil. U.K.S.B. 35, pt. 2(15) : 1625-1656, 7 figs., 1
map.

1954

Frog-egg eating tadpoles of Anotheca coronata Stejneger ( Salientia,
Hylidae). U.K.S.B. 36, pt. 1(8) :589-596, 3 figs.

Additions to the known herpetological fauna of Costa Rica, with
comments on other species. No. I. LT.K.S.B. 36, pt. 1(9):597-
637, 12 figs. (R-3)

Further studies on the serpents of Costa Rica. LT.K.S.B. 36, pt. 2(11):
673-801, 40 figs. (R-3)

1955
Additions to the known herpetological fauna of Costa Rica, with
comments on other species. No. II. U.K.S.B. 37, pt. 1(13):499-
575, 19 figs. (R-3)

1956
Spliaerodacti/lus lineolata (Reptilia: Lacertilia) in Mexico. Herpe-
tologica 12(4):283-284.

156 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

A review of the lizards of Costa Rica. U.K.S.B. 38, pt. l(l):3-322,
76 figs. (R-3)

(with Leonard, A. Byron, second author) Concerning the relation-
ship of certain neotropical gekkonid lizard genera, with com-
ments on the microscopic structure of their glandular scales.
U.K.S.B. 38, pt. 1(12): 1019-1029.

1957
(review of) A colored atlas of some vertebrates of Ceylon, by
P.E.P. Deraniyagala. Copeia 1956(4) :262-263 (issued in 1957).

1958

(with Elbel, R., second author) Contribution to the herpetology of
Thailand. U.K.S.B. 38, pt. 2(13): 1033-1189.

(with Weyer, D., second author) Report on a collection of am-
phibians and reptiles from Harbel, Republic of Liberia. U.K.S.B.
38, pt. 2(14): 1191-1229.

Additions to the known herpetological fauna of Costa Rica, with
comments on other species. No. III. U.K.S.B. 39(1) :3-40. (R-3)

Notes on Costa Rican Centrolenidae with descriptions of new forms.
U.K.S.B. 39(2) :41-68, 13 figs.

1960
A new caecilian genus in India. U.K.S.B. 40(3) : 31-36, 4 figs.
On the caecilian species Ichthyophis monochrous and Ichthyophis
glutitwsus and related species. U.K.S.B. 40(4) : 37- 120, 38 figs.

1961
Notes on Indian caecilians. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 58(2) :355-365,
2 figs.

Some factors influencing distribution and speciation in the lizard
genus Eumeces. Proc. 9th Pacific Sci. Cong. ( 1957, publ. 1961 )
19:5-6.

1962
New oriental reptiles. U.K.S.B. 43 ( 7 ): 209-263, 18 figs.
The amphibian fauna of Thailand. U.K.S.B. 43(8) : 265-599, 107 figs.

1963
New and rare oriental serpents. Copeia 1963(2) : 429-433.
The lizards of Thailand. U.K.S.B. 44 ( 14) : 687- 1077, 98 figs.

1964

A new species of caecilian from India ( Amphibia :Gynmophiona).

Senck. Biol. (Frankfurt am Main) Band 45 ( 1-12) heft3/ 5:227-
231.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 157

1965

The serpents of Thailand and adjacent waters. U.K.S.B. 45(9) :609-
1096, 125 figs.

New Asiatic and African caecilians, with redescriptions of certain
other species. U.K.S.B. 46(6) :253-302, 28 figs.

1968

The caecilians of the world. A taxonomic review. Univ. Kansas
Press, Lawrence, Kansas. 848 p., 425 figs.

1969

(with Dryden, G. L., first author) Reptiles from the Mariana and
Caroline Islands. U.K.S.B. 48(8) :269-279.

Miscellaneous notes and descriptions of new forms of caecilians.
U.K.S.B. 48(9) :281-296, 9 figs.

A new family of African Gymnophiona. U.K.S.B. 48(10) : 297-305,
5 figs.

A new caecilian from Brasil. U.K.S.B. 48 ( 11) :307-313, 4 figs.
A new Panamanian caecilian. U.K.S.B. 48 ( 12) :315-323, 4 figs.
Skulls of the Gymnophiona and their significance in the taxonomy of

the group. U.K.S.B. 48 ( 15) :585-687, 55 figs.
On the status of Caecilia occidentalls. U.K.S.B. 48 ( 19) :785-790.

Wiegmann and the herpetology of Mexico, in Wiegmann, A.F.A.,
Herpetologia Mexicana. Facsimile Reprints in Herpetology no.
23. p. iii-vi (Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles).

Early foundations of Mexican herpetology. Copeia 1969(4) : 865-866.

1970

An aquatic caecilian from the Magdalena River, Colombia, S.A.
U.K.S.B. 48(22): 845-848, 2 figs.

A new caecilian from Ethiopia. U.K.S.B. 48(23) : 849-854, 3 figs.

Notes on Brazilian caecilians. U.K.S.B. 48(24) : 855-860, 3 figs.

The lateral line sensory system in the caecilian family Ichthvophiidae
(Amphibia: Gymnophiona). U.K.S.B. 48(25) : 861-868, 5 figs.

The turtles and crocodiles of Thailand and adjacent waters. U.K.S.B.
49(3):87-179, 17 figs.

On the status of the caecilian Indotyphlus battersbyi Taylor.
U.K.S.B. 49(5):337-344, 3 figs.

1971
Scale and cranial characteristics of the caecilian Brasihotijphhis
braziliensis (Dunn). J. Herp. 5(3-4) : 181-183, 2 figs.

The caecilian fauna of Thailand, with an examination of scale char-
acters. Nat. Hist. Bull. Siam Soc. 24(1-2) : 33-39, 6 pis.

158 SPECIAL PUBLICATION MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

1972

Squamation in caecilians, with an atlas of scales. U.K.S.B. 49(13) :
989-1164, 127 figs.

1973
Caecilian miscellany. U.K.S.B. 50(5) : 187-231.

1974

(with Peters, James A, second author) The caecilians of Ecuador.
U.K.S.B. 50(7) :333-346.

Appendix A
Sources of Reprinted Publications

R-l. A. Asher & Co. B.V., Keizersgracht 526, Amsterdam 1002, The

Netherlands.
R-2. Eric Lundberg, Natural History Books, Augusta, West Virginia

26704. U.S.A.
R-3. Linnaeus Press, P.O. Box 4307, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Appendix B
Journals

Abbreviations (if any) used in the bibliography appear in parentheses following
the journal name. Place of publication is given for each journal.

American Journal of Science (Amer. J. Sci.), New Haven, Connec-
ticut, U.S.A.

American Museum Novitates (Amer. Mus. Nov.), New York, New
York, U.S.A.

Anales Instituto de Biologia (Anales Inst. Biol.), Mexico, D.F.

Breviora, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Copeia, Lawrence, Kansas, U.S.A.

Herpetologica, Lawrence, Kansas, U.S.A.

Journal of Herpetology (J. Herp.), Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.
Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society (J. Bombay Nat.
Hist. Soc. ), Bombay, India.

Lingnan Science Journal (Lingnan Sci. J.), Canton, Republic of
China.

Natural History Bulletin of the Siam Society (Nat. Hist. Bull. Siam
Soc), Bangkok, Siam [Thailand].

Philippine Journal of Science (Philip. J. Sci.), Manila, Philippines.

Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
(Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila.), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Proceedings of the 8th American Scientific Congress (Proc. 8th
Amer. Sci. Cong.), Washington, D.C., U.S.A.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN HERPETOLOGIST 159

Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington (Proc. Biol.
Soc. Wash.), Washington, D.C., U.S.A.

Proceedings of the New England Zoological Club ( Proc. New Eng-
land Zool. Club), Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Proceedings of the 9th Pacific Science Congress (Proc. 9th Pacific
Sci. Cong.), Bangkok, Thailand.

Senckenbergiana Biologica (Senck. Biol.), Frankfurt-am-Main, Ger-
many.

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u.s.a!

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