NATURALIST AT LARGE
Photo b\' D. Faircliild
The author and J. C. Greenway, Jr., ^^•ith a Bahama Barn Owl,
at the mouth of a cave near Landrail Point,
Crooked Island, Bahamas
y^aturalist at Lar^e
A
THOMAS BARBOUR
ILLUSTRATED
An Atlantic Monthly Press Book
Little, Brown and Company • Boston
1944
COPYRIGHT 1942, 1943, BY PHILLIPS KETCHUM, TRUSTEE UNDER
AN INDENTURE OF TRUST MADE BY THOMAS BARBOUR FOR
THE BENEFIT OF MARY B. KIDDER, JULIA A. BARBOUR
AND LOUISA B. BARBOUR, DATED JULY I9, I943
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT
TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK OR PORTIONS
THEREOF IN ANY FORM
Published September ig4j
Reprinted September 1943
Reprinted October 194s
Reprinted November 1943
Reprinted January 1944
ATLANTIC-LITTLE, BROWN BOOKS
ARE PUBLISHED BY
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Dedicated to
ROSAMOND P. BARBOUR
With great affection and respect
A wai-m salute to Edward Weeks
and Dudley H. Cloud for guiding
the clumsy feet of a tyro
Peresrlnation charms our senses with such
unspeakable and sweet variety that some count
him unhappy that never travelled — a kind of
prisoner — and pity his case; that from his
cradle to his old age, he beholds the same —
still, still the same.
— Robert Burton
'■--i.
\
Contents
PART I THE MAKING OF A NATURALIST
1. Confessions of a Naturalist 3
2. The Family 6
3. The Mind's Eye 13
4. "For Richer for Poorer" 22
5. Wallace and the Dutch East 41
6. Flying Fish and Turtles 58
7. The Sea and the Cave 6$
8. Cuba 87
9. The Bahamas, Old and New 103
10. Reptiles in the West Indies 1 19
PART II THE SEDENTARY NATURALIST
11. Naturalists in Dispute 135
12. Three Friends 140
13. Mr. Justice Holmes 150
14. Lifework 157
15. The Glory Hole 168
16. Those Who Help 181
17. Panama 193
18. Scientists and Philosophers 208
j-7^6 3
X . Contents
PART III THE LEISURELY NATURALIST
19. Florida and Some Snakes 221
20. The Tests of Evolution 2 37
21. Whales 245
2 2 . Latin America 250
23. Africa 2^4
24. In Retrospect 279
APPENDICES
I For Zoographers Only 299
II Render unto Caesar 3 ^ ^
Illustrations
The author and J. C. Greenway, Jr., with a Bahama
Barn Owl, at the mouth of a cave near Landrail
Point, Crooked Island, Bahamas Frontispiece
Sarah Elizabeth Barbour, about 1890 14
Rosamond and Thomas Barbour, by John Singer Sar-
gent, 19 19 22
The big cobra killed near Lucknow on the fifteenth
of November, 1906 32
The women's canoe with no outrigger, only used on
short journeys; The men's canoe, used for trips to
sea. Humboldt Bay, 1907 42
The Great Karriwarri at Tubadi Village, Humboldt
Bay, New Guinea 46
Two Karriwarris at the village of Tubadi in Hum-
boldt Bay; Communal long houses over the water
at Ansus, Japen Island, in Geelvink Bay, Dutch
New Guinea 48
R. P. B. at Monokwari; Natives of Humboldt Bay 54
Utowana in Port Castries Harbor, St. Lucia; Three
deep-sea fish drawn by Alexander Agassiz 58
Dancing Girl Orchids recall the market at San Sal-
vador 68
The tropical forest primeval along the upper Jesusito
River, eastern Panama 76
xii Illustrations
The Harvard Garden, Soledad, near Cienfuegos, Cuba 88
The author and "Lizzie" at Soledad, 1941; On the
steps at the Aula Magna, University of Havana,
March 1930 100
David Fairchild and William Morton Wheeler at
Barro Colorado Island, 1924; Henry B. Bigelow
aboard the Grampus, 191 3; John C. Phillips, 1934 144
Three of George Nelson's finest fossil reptiles: A sail-
back lizard, Edaphosaurus; Unique mount of Ophi-
acodon; Unique type of Dynodontosaurus oliveroi
Romer from southern Brazil 166
The Hunter home from the kill. Churima rests after
bringing in a peccary to camp; The author and
Juicio, the chief of all the Chokoi Indians with
whom we came in contact 182
The author with three Indians near Garachine, west-
earn Panama, 1922; The Laboratory at Barro Colo-
rado Island 194
One of the giant Bombacopsis on Barro Colorado
Island; Shore-line vegetation at Barro Colorado
Island 196
Our tent by an almost dry stream in eastern Panama;
Churima's house, where we hung our mosquito bars
on various occasions 200
Alexander Agassiz and the Sultan of the Maldive
Islands aboard the Amra, 1901 214
A yearling Greater Kudu in the Kruger Park 266
Bird Island, forty miles off southeast Africa 274
T. B.'s office in the Agassiz Museum 290
PART I
THE MAKING OF A NATURALIST
CHAPTER I
Confessions of a Naturalist
JLO USE a witty simile of William Morton Wheeler's
in a sense in which he did not use it, I may say that in the
home I am a poor Peruna-soaked Methodist, but in the
Museum I am a High Church port-wine-drinking Epis-
copalian. I came to Boston a little too late in life really to
enjoy the iteration and reiteration of Back Bay society gos-
sip. I am inclined to creep off by myself when Vincent
Club politics hold the floor. To be sure, I supply a presi-
dent and vice-president to the Club. These are daughters
whom I see occasionally at eventide. I am old-fashioned and
eat my breakfast early; also, I have insomnia and go to bed
early. My more socially-minded housemates arise for a cup
of black coffee and a cigarette, timed so as not to spoil the
appetite for luncheon. (I'll confess this was written before
the war changed many habits.)
I recall once taking a distinguished Southern Bishop of
my Church to a meeting of the Saturday Club. As we
walked away, he said, "The talk at that table has canceled
out an awful lot of banality." I have also enjoyed the
Wednesday Evening Club and the Wintersnight. Being
the only male in a household composed of singularly mas-
terful women, I have, for the sake of peace, apologized
and confessed to about everything from mayhem to men-
dacity—perhaps most often to intemperance. My trans-
gressions along the latter line, however, have been pitifully
4 Naturalist at Large
moderate and puny compared to what I often observe and
hear about in others.
Now in the Museum all is different. My staff does not
laugh at my jack-of -all-trades inclinations. They might,
for I have collected and described mammals, birds, rep-
tiles, amphibians, fishes, and have collected countless in-
sects and marine invertebrates which others have described.
I have been by inclination an old-fashioned naturalist, many
tell me perhaps the last of the breed. My colleagues prefer
to know more and more about less and less and so are in-
finitely more erudite than I.
No man has ever had more fun with his chosen tasks.
When I am taxed with, "You never do anything that you
don't want to do," my answer is, "Not if I can help it."
Father, bless him, left me well endowed with this world's
goods and with a nervous, high-strung desire to hurry
about whatever I am attempting to do. This has been my
chief source of strength — and perhaps of weakness, too.
I have loved the three Museums in Boston, Cambridge, and
Salem, which, from time to time, I have been permitted to
correct as if they were human friends.
I do not think I am guilty of conceit, as was Rafinesque.
He wrote at the close of his autobiography: —
Versatility of talents and of professions, is not un-
common in America; but those which I have exhibited
in these few pages, may appear to exceed belief: and
yet it is a positive fact that in knowledge I have been a
Botanist, Naturalist, Geologist, Geographer, Histo-
rian, Poet, Philosopher, Philologist, Economist, Phi-
lanthropist. ... By profession a Traveller, Mer-
Confessions of a Naturalist 5
chant, Manufacturer, Collector, Improver, Professor,
Teacher, Surveyor, Draftsman, Architect, Engineer,
Pulmist, Author, Editor, Bookseller, Librarian, Sec-
retary . . . and I hardly know myself vv^hat I may
not become as yet: since whenever I apply myself to
anything, ivhich I like, I never fail to succeed if de-
pending on me alone, unless impeded and prevented
by lack of means, or the hostility of the foes of man-
kind.
God gave one ever-useful attribute — realistic apprecia-
tion of my own limitations. This has saved me from taking
positions which I knew I could not fill acceptably and
generally from biting off more than I could chew.
CHAPTER II
The Family
A
STRONG family likeness runs through our family.
My brother Robert looks extraordinarily like our Great-
Uncle Robert, for whom he was named. I went into the
State House in Richmond one day with my friend, Cotes-
worth Pinckney, to see whether there might not be por-
traits of James Barbour and Phillip Pendleton Barbour
there, since both had been Governors of Virginia long ago.
We had barely entered the room when Cotesworth said,
"Well, there's one of them all right," and pointed to a
picture which turned out to be labeled '']2Lmts Barbour."
And yet these were distant kin.
My three brothers and I present four types. My brother
Robert, who is two years younger than I am, is the mathe-
matician of the family. His facility with figures is amaz-
ing to me, for I am hopelessly incompetent in this respect.
He also has marked mechanical ability, coupled with
manual dexterity, and even before he went to the School
of Mines at Columbia he had a workshop on top of Father's
New York house — now the Museum of Modern Art,
II West 53rd Street. This workshop was fitted up with
lathes and all sorts of mechanical tools. There with David
Dows he built an automobile, one of the first in the city,
which actually ran when it was lowered into the street.
One of the more amusing aspects of that feat was the con-
fidence David showed in their combined abihty. He bought
The Family 1
the horn before they began work on their contraption.
Robert has now retired to well-earned leisure, after a use-
ful career in charge of the manufacturing department of
the Linen Thread Company.
My brother Warren, four years younger than I am,
started out as a chubby, rolypoly little boy. Just as he was
about to enter Princeton, the death of one of my father's
business associates made an opening which Father thought
was too good to pass up, so Warren went into the office.
Early in life he developed tuberculosis and spent some time
in the Adirondacks where Father had a big hunting pre-
serve, in the care of Grandmother's friend. Dr. Edward
Trudeau. He was entirely cured, went to Bermuda, and in
less than no time became well known as an amateur boxer.
He became amateur champion heavyweight of the United
States in 19 lo and could at this time probably have out-
boxed anyone in the country; but Mother did not take
kindly to the idea of his fighting and naturally he gave it
up. He is now United States Senator from New Jersey,
having piled up a greater number of votes than any other
RepubHcan candidate in the last election, which means
something in New Jersey, where election practices are still
what they were in other parts of the country fifty years
ago.
My brother Frederick, born in 1894, has now inherited
the presidency of the Linen Thread Company, but, to my
mind, shows great good sense in taking time off for the
field sports which he loves. This has given me an oppor-
tunity of late years to see rather more of him than of my
other brothers, since we both love to hunt and to fish.
Frederick is the finest hand with a wet fly for salmon that
8 Naturalist at Large
I have ever seen. He can tlirow a fly a prodigious distance
with absolute accuracy and then at the end of the cast have
the fly just touch the water as if it were a bit of falling
thistledown.
My brothers and I owe Father several different debts of
gratitude. He left us not only with the means but also the
opportunity to take up our several totally different ways of
living. I was enabled to build up a fine Hbrary and to spend
my life as a volunteer servant of Harvard College. Father
loved the out-of-doors and was a good observer himself
in the field, but I do not think he was particularly pleased
that I became a naturalist. He hoped that I would follow
him in his business.
He delighted, however, in the fact that for many years
he had my other brothers in association with him in either
the executive, the seUing, or the manufacturing ends of
the Linen Thread Company and the American Net &
Twine Company. During the last years of his fife he ex-
tended himself dangerously, acquiring a locomotive works
in Chicago and other scattered interests which were diffi-
cult to supervise adequately. I owe a deep debt of grati-
tude to my brothers who at his death unwound the tan-
gled skein of his affairs, something at which I was incap-
able of giving more than a small share of assistance. By
injudicious handhng of his enormous outstanding loans
they might easily have landed me in the poorhouse,
but they were well equipped to make their way in the
world.
No two persons were ever more completely unlike than
my mother and father. My mother loved New York, and
by this I mean the city itself. None of her younger days
The Family 9
had been spent in the country, for her father — my grand-
father — had moved up from Charleston, South Carohna,
to New York a short time before the Civil War, taking
with him his slaves. He was left impoverished and died
shortly after the war was over. He was a Southern sym-
pathizer, and suffered deeply as a result of his convictions
during the last few years of his life in New York. My
grandmother Sprague moved with her young brood to
Geneva, Switzerland, where one could live at small cost.
After three years, when the financial outlook was a bit
brighter, they sailed back to America and entered New
York Harbor to see a column of smoke rising from the
lower end of Manhattan Island. It was the storage ware-
house containing all their earthly belongings — everything
they owned was lost.
Mother was a tall and stately person to the very end of
her life. She was tall for a woman, for she was slightly
over six feet. I have no doubt that in her youth she was
very handsome.
Mother had a deeply religious character, Calvinistic and
fundamentaHst, but utterly sincere in her belief. I never
knew a person who tried harder to be just and fair. She
leaned over backward in this respect. Brought up as she
was, it was a little difficult to convince her that there was
no essential difficulty in accepting such modern scientific
behefs as the theory of evolution without jeopardy to the
faith which she treasured so sincerely.
She and my father's mother did not particularly care for
each other and I think the reason really was that the male
members of Grandmother's family on both sides, the War-
rens and the Sayreses, were officers in the Union Army,
10 Naturalist at Large
whereas Mother's family were not at all convinced of the
righteousness of the Northern cause. They were in fact
Copperheads.
While Mother did not play any musical instrument, she
had a lovely soprano voice and took music lessons to well
within the years of my memory. She and Father had the
same seats at the Opera for many years and I remember
particularly the pleasure she derived during the last years
of her life from the Bagby Concerts which she attended
very regularly.
Mother was just, as I have said, but she had a sharp and
flaring temper and she thrashed us youngsters on number-
less occasions. I remember that she had a giant hairbrush
which had belonged to Grandfather Barbour which was
specially reserved for spanking. Warren terminated its use-
fulness permanently when he surreptitiously slipped a flat
stone inside the seat of his pants and the hairbrush was
shattered once and for all, to our great joy.
She went to the Adirondacks with Father from a sense
of duty and while she liked to row a boat about the lake
herself for exercise she never fished or hunted, nor do I
believe that she could have told a beet from a carrot when
they were growing in the garden. She had no knowledge
of or interest in the country — no interest in nature, in
birds or flowers, nor in woods or fields.
Father on the other hand inherited his mother's love of
outdoor life, her love of shooting and fishing, and a very
considerable knowledge concerning the birds and animals
which he, came across from time to time. He passed this
enjoyment of shooting on to his sons. His father acquired
The Family 11
a share In what was called the Tupper Lake Club in north-
ern New York, and went there to shoot and fish with
Grandmother when Father was a little boy. Gradually the
members died off and Father acquired the property. This
consisted of about 145 acres on the southeasterly shore of
Big Tupper Lake. And Paradise Point, on which the famous
Coleman's Spring was the outstanding feature of the prop-
erty. Here Father built a camp where for years he came
for relaxation and enjoyment after the hard life so char-
acteristic of the businessmen of his day, who speculated
daringly albeit successfully, but certainly to the peril of
their nervous system. Father had his father's passion for
acquiring land. Grandfather bought tracts of land scat-
tered over New Jersey, usually because there was a pretty
view over some attractive pond, whereas Father kept add-
ing to his Adirondack holdings until at his death he had
at least 45,000 acres.
Father was not skillful with his hands any more than I
am, although his handwriting was superb. Nevertheless,
he loved to watch work and the work he liked best was
the building of stone walls. I often drove oxen hitched to
a stone boat and hauled rocks with him. My brother
Robert, the mechanic, ran the big stone crusher, and every
year we built roads and stone walls. When it was time to
knock off Father went for his evening bout of fishing
with Dan Hinkson, who simply adored him. Father had a
stately figure, and was possessed of great personal beauty
and dignity. He was six feet three inches tall and often
said, "I and my four boys are just a half inch shy of being
thirty-one feet of Barbour." Unfortunately for me I was
the tallest of the lot, and I have suffered from colliding
12 Naturalist at Large
with chandeliers and low doonvays, and from short sleep-
ing-car and steamer berths, all my Ufe.
A flood of pleasant memories surround the stories of our
life at Tupper Lake. I can close my eyes and see the great
flock of lovely swan swimming past Warren Point just a
mile or so north of Father's Paradise Point camp, where
for several summers I had a lovely home of my own, thanks
to his generosity. He took the greatest pride in his swan,
his peacock, his Kerry cattle, his oxen, and his bees, and
in the ever-changing beauty of the scene which unfolded as
summer changed to autumn in the north woods.
My three brothers and I were a fortunate crew.
After Father's death it was quite obvious that the reserve
at Tupper Lake was more than we four could swing.
Father's estate, cut in quarters and the death duties paid,
was of a quite different order of magnitude from what
it had been when he was alive. Fortunately the State of
New York needed lands for a forest reserve and to pro-
tect watersheds which, in the future, may have to be drawn
upon for the use of the City of New York. They bought
all of the unimproved acreage. The farm and its various
buildings, Father's camp and my camp, were purchased
by the American Legion as a tuberculosis sanatorium. I
have often wondered whether the convalescent Legion-
naires have appreciated the beauty spread before their eyes.
Mount Morris, one of the handsomest domes in the whole
Adirondacks area, lies right directly across the lake from
these camps, and when the autumn foliage is richest the
reflection in the lake is frequently one of breath-taking
beauty.
CHAPTER III
The Mind's Eye
I
WAS born August 19, 1884, on the island of Martha's
Vineyard. My mother went there to visit her mother, and
I arrived unexpectedly. When I was six weeks old my
father and mother went to Ireland on business, and I went
along in a bureau drawer of the old Cunard liner U?nbria —
my peregrinations began early. Father went back and
forth to Europe several times a year. He had succeeded
his father as a director of William Barbour and Son,
the firm founded by his great-grandfather, which had linen
mills near Lisburn in Ireland.
When I was eight years old we made a long tour through
Europe. I remember vividly the terror caused by the chol-
era outbreak in Hamburg that year. We were visiting at
Mr. Fritz Krupp's house at Essen, an extraordinary estab-
lishment. The house was a palace, the gardens enormous.
The place was entirely self-contained, Mr. Krupp even
having his own fire department. I think his Arab horses
impressed me more than anything else, although I remem-
ber staring with wonderment at a room stacked high with
Oriental rugs. Mr. Krupp, who had been an old friend and
schoolmate of my father in Germany, explained that the
Sultan of Turkey was often short of cash and occasionally
paid for his munitions in commodities. We had a wonder-
ful time pestering our governess by doing everything mis-
chievous we could think of; my brother Rob and I tipped
14 Naturalist at Large
the young Crown Prince of Bavaria into a rather deep
fountain, and for this, naturally, we got the devil.
I recall that when we visited the Zoo at Frankfurt am
Main, the keeper reached into a cage, opened a tiny box,
parted the cotton wool — and there, curled up, was a
pigmy lemur. He said it was the smallest of all the mon-
key family. I can see the little beast now in my mind's
eye — a tiny, gray, fuzzy ball scarcely larger than a
mouse. The event came back to my mind the other day
when I put a lovely little mounted specimen of Microcebus
on exhibition.
The cholera got so bad that we hurried back to America,
and I cannot think of any events that played much part in
my wishing to become a naturalist by profession until
1898, when I had typhoid fever. My brother Rob and I
both had typhoid fever twice. In those days, no one knew
the difference between typhoid and paratyphoid — which,
I suspect, accounts for our unusual misfortune.
After the first of these illnesses I was shipped to Eau
Gallie, Florida, where my grandmother had a winter home.
Grandmother, born Sarah Elizabeth Warren, was an ex-
traordinary character. She was the best shot with rifle or
shotgun I ever knew, and she threw as pretty a salmon or
trout fly as my brother Frederick. She was devoted to
Thoreau, and went to Keene Valley to hear Dr. Thomas
Davidson lecture on philosophy. I once met him at her
house in Paterson, New Jersey. He said, "Where there are
two Toms together, the older is a fool." I felt sheepish but,
curiously enough, remembered the remark.
Grandmother was a born naturalist. She loved the out-
of-doors, and with her I made my first memorable excur-
Photo by Pack Bros.
Sarah Elizabeth Barbour
About 1 8 go
The Mind's Eye 15
sions. We went to Lake Washington, at the head of the
Saint Johns River in Florida. We put a boat on a wagon,
Gene Kinniard drove the team, and I rode a marsh tacky
alongside. We used to leave the house at two o'clock in
the morning and get to the lake about daylight. We built
fires and cooked our meals at the Cabbage Mound, a tall
grove of cabbage palm trees, high and dry in the midst of
a quaking bog, which extended for miles after a heavy rain.
TTie fishing was good, and the birds were a sight to behold.
I never go near this part of the world now without driv-
ing from Eau Gallie out to the Mound, a drive of about
half an hour by motor; but every inch of the road, indeed
of that whole country, is loaded with golden memories.
My grandmother was not particularly tall but she was
strikingly beautiful, even in her old age, and entirely aware
of the fact. She was inordinately proud of her hair, which
reached almost to her heels when she let it down. She was
usually as brown as a gypsy and was as restless as I am.
It was nothing for her to slip quietly away and then send
us a letter from Stavanger in Norway, where she had gone
salmon fishing, or from Cuba, or from Gaspe.
Her father was a clergyman, the Reverend Dr. David
Allen Warren, who started as a Presbyterian but got into
a row with the Synod because he declared that the Lord's
Prayer was incorrectly translated — it was insulting to ask
the Lord not to lead us into temptation because, naturally,
He would not be so unkind as to do any such thing. The
congregation, being very fond of him, slid with him over
into the Congregational fold with its complete autonomy,
and he continued to preach in Verona, New York, until
his death.
Verona was near an Indian reservation, and Grand-
16 Naturalist at Large
mother thrilled me with tales of how, as a little girl, she
would come down early in the morning to dig out the pine
knot which was buried in the embers each evening so that
the fire could be easily kindled the next day. She would
sometimes find three or four Indians sleeping on the floor
in front of the hearth. They would leave a haunch of veni-
son, or fish from Oneida Lake, or berries, out of gratitude
for the hospitality. The time, of course, was well over a
hundred years ago.
Grandmother and I went down to Miami from Eau
GaUie. The railroad had only been built a short time
before, and we stayed at the Royal Palm Hotel, which was
then only partly built. A day or two after we arrived, a
gray-haired gentleman in the dining room came over and
spoke to Grandmother. He was Henry M. Flagler, who had
been an usher at her wedding. He suggested that we go
with him to Nassau, where he was to buy some property.
So it happened that I got in Nassau my first glimpse of
the tropics — an iron which entered so deeply into my
soul that it is still completely embedded. The specimens of
snakes and lizards which I secured at that time became the
nucleus of my own collection and are now part of the
collections of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at
Harvard. Imagine a timid, introspective youngster thrown,
at the most impressionable moment of his life, into the one
spot most ideally framed to arouse imagination to the
fullest. Grandmother was as keen as I to sail over the Sea
Gardens and peer at their wonders through a water glass.
I don't remember glass-bottomed boats in Nassau at this
early date. We sailed among the little cays which surround
New Providence Island, picnicked, and collected shells.
The Mind's Eye 17
Grandmother made herself extremely unpopular by col-
lecting and taking back with her to Eau GaUie one John
Sumpter, who had been Lady Blake's gardener — and Sir
Henry Blake was Governor of the Bahamas. He took care
of her garden till he died.
I can thank Grandmother for starting me on the road
to being a naturalist — she was the only member of the
family who thoroughly encouraged me all the time. Father
and Mother were perfectly fair and believed that I had
the right to decide about my own career, but they were
utterly unenthusiastic. I think the only time Father ever
came to the University Museum — it must have been early
in my freshman year — he walked up to Alexander Agas-
siz and asked if he knew where I could be found. At this
time, of course, Mr. Agassiz didn't know me from Adam.
But he asked Father, "What is your son interested in?"
and Father answered, "Pickling toads." So Mr. Agassiz
steered him down to Samuel Garman's quarters where he
found me.
I was no stranger to the Museum, for the reason that I
had been previously under the spell of an ardent lover of
Harvard, Theodore W. Moses of Exeter. Dr. Moses, a
friend of my father, tutored me when I had trouble at
school because of an attack of typhoid fever which knocked
me flat in the middle of the school year. He asked Father
to allow him to take me to Cambridge when he went up
for his twenty-fifth reunion in June 1 899. I had been des-
tined for Princeton, but this visit to Cambridge changed
the course of my life. I did not want to hsten to the tire-
some speeches on the afternoon of Commencement Day, so
I sneaked off and visited the Museum. Here I wandered
18 Naturalist at Large
alone for hours, completely entranced. I had been often to
the natural history museums in New York and Washing-
ton, but here was something entirely different, and I soon
discovered that this was essentially a museum for the edi-
fication of naturalists rather than for the great urban public
which the museum in New York had to cater to.
I spotted some specimens which I thought were wrongly
labeled — and as a matter of fact they were. I wrote with
all the dignity of my thirteen years to Dr. Woodworth,
then Acting Custodian of the Museum, who was rather in-
furiated by my temerity. As I look back on it, I don't
blame him. I suspect that my letter was as fresh as green
paint. I made up my mind that very day that if I lived I
would be Director of the Museum. I had to wait until 1927.
Mr. Lowell wanted me to take office earlier, but I begged
him not to push matters. I was perfectly willing to wait
out of consideration for my predecessor. No consideration
was ever more completely wasted, or more ill-conceived,
for my predecessor left the Museum in a huff and never
entered it again or spoke to me as long as he lived — and
he lived to the ripe old age of ninety-one.
I came to college as complete a social misfit as ever
breathed. I was abnormally shy, suffered from a bad in-
feriority complex, was tall and gangling. But fortune fa-
vored me. I had spent the summer of 1 90 1 at a boys' camp
near Bridgewater, New Hampshire. There I had a won-
derful time puttering with a tiny museum of natural history
and writing a list of the reptiles of New Hampshire and
something of their habits. Dr. Glover M. Allen had been a
counselor in this camp the year before, and in some way I
The Mind's Eye 19
learned that he was a kind and friendly person. So he
proved to be.
When I came to college I chose a room in the corner of
Conant Hall, because there was no place where I could be
nearer the Museum. I chose Professor Robert T. Jackson
as my Freshman Adviser, to my great good fortune, for
he and I have been good friends from that day to this.
I soon found that Allen roomed in Perkins Hall, directly
across Oxford Street from my lodgings, and as soon as I
was settled and had an evening clear, I went over and
knocked at the door of 28 Perkins Hall. I found him and
his roommate, Austin H. Clark, both at home and intro-
duced myself. One thing led to another. Austin Clark in-
troduced me to Garman in the Museum. Allen introduced
me to Henry B. Bigelow, who was preparing to take his
doctor's degree, as was Glover. Gradually I found myself
at least a tolerated member of a small congenial group of
men of the highest intellectual quality, whose conversa-
tion was infinitely more enlightening and educational than
most of the courses which I took during my not particu-
larly distinguished undergraduate career.
It was while I was in college that my brother Warren
contracted tuberculosis and Dr. Trudeau cured him at
Saranac. Then he advised Warren to go to Bermuda for
the winter. I joined him for the Christmas holidays. As
usual, I was infatuated with the chance to collect. The
coral reefs at Hungry Bay were easily reached at low tide,
and everything was new and enchanting.
I stayed in Bermuda long after I should have been back
in Cambridge. On my return I got more or less caught up,
but my marks were not very good. The next spring Dr.
20 Naturalist at Large
Bigelow and I went to Bermuda with Professor Mark to
open the Bermuda Biological Station for Research, an
organization which still exists. While in Bermuda on this
second trip I got word that Professor Shaler had done the
unprecedented and had given me a D in Geology 4. This
made me a dropped freshman when I returned to college,
and I had to report like a convict on parole to Dean George
H. Chase. Then I began to work at my studies. Next term
I was again in good standing and got good marks for the
rest of my undergraduate years. But when the time came
to take my A.B. degree I asked the registrar, Mr. George
Washington Cram, whether it could not be granted cum
laude as I had the requisite number of A's and B's. I found,
however, that my sins were not to be forgiven me, and I
got no such thing.
I did not take my A.M. until after I had come back from
the East Indies, nor my Ph.D. until after I had been to
South America as a member of the North American dele-
gation to the First Pan-American Scientific Congress, held
at Santiago, Chile, in 1908. Professor Archibald Cary
Coolidge was a member of our delegation. Probably I
should never have met him if we had not been thrown
together in this way, for I took no history or economics,
or indeed anything, during those days of free electives,
except zoology, botany, and languages. Archie and his sec-
retary, Clarence Hay, became dear and valued friends.
On the Santiago trip, Archie would come up to me at
sea with two pads and pencils and we would see how
quickly we could write down the names of the nineteen
provinces of China or the twenty-three states of Mexico,
or bound the province of Uganda or Togoland, or name
The Mind's Eye 21
the Grenadine Islands. It was good practice in learning
geography, and a knowledge of geography is infinitely use-
ful to a museologist. I don't say that I always won at these
games, but I held my own pretty well, and Archie made me
feel proud by saying that he had never known any other
person who knew so many place names and their loca-
tion. It was simply the vagary of a peculiar type of mem-
ory. But this, with an ability to remember the names of
animals, thousands and thousands of them, has been use-
ful; and I have more luck in holding onto the names of
more different kinds of animals than anyone I have ever
met. I feel perfectly certain, however, that my friend El-
mer Merrill can name more plants at a glance than I can
animals.
While I was an undergraduate I was too shy to make
any friends among my classmates. I came to know some of
them very well later on, I am proud to say, the most dis-
tinguished of them being Herbert Winlock, noted Egyptol-
ogist and former Director of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art in New York. I Hterally did not know that there were
any such things as clubs in Cambridge. I had heard some
names, but they meant nothing to me. I joined the Harvard
Natural History Society and attended its meetings quite
faithfully, becoming president in my senior year. Many
years later I was made an Honorary Member of the Signet
and was much touched at the compliment, as I was when
elected an Honorary Member of Phi Beta Kappa.
CHAPTER IV
95
" For Richer for Poorer
E
VEN before I entered Harvard, one of the greatest
stimulants to my career had come to me in the course of
my schoolboy visits to the New York Zoological Park,
where I used to spend my Saturdays. I knew Professor
Henry Fairfield Osborn, the President of the Zoological
Society, because one of his sons was a schoolmate of mine.
To me, a shy fifteen-year-older in those days, he seemed
very awesome, but one Saturday afternoon he did some-
thing which enriched my life more than he ever realized.
On this occasion he sat down beside me in the train going
back from the Bronx to Grand Central Station. He asked
me what I had been reading and then said, "There are four
great books for boys who like natural history." And he
named them: Wallace's Malay Archipelago, Belt's The
Naturalist in Nicaragua, Bates's book on the Amazon, and
Hudson's on the La Plata region. Well, I read them in this
order. Wallace's book, coming first, made the greatest im-
pression; I read it over and over again until I knew it almost
by heart. And my desire to see the Dutch East Indies be-
came so all-consuming that I must have seemed a veritable
monomaniac to my parents.
I was married on the first of October, 1906. When I
had won a yes from Rosamond, in the face of countless
competitors, I soft-pedaled the fact that I planned to leave
for the Dutch East Indies as soon as we were married. This
Rosamond
and
Thomas Barbour
By John Singer Sargent, 191^
'''For Richer for Poorer' 23
news, when It broke, caused a bit of a surprise. My wife
had once been west of the Adirondacks, once south to New
York, and once north to North Haven.
She had lived in Brookhne, surrounded by untold cohorts
of Bowditches, Higginsons, and Cabots, all kin, and many
of them what in Charleston would be called "kissin' kin."
I do not have to enlarge upon the fact that she is a strong-
minded and masterful person; if you belong in these clans
you are that automatically. I cry at funerals and at movies
and at certain types of music, particularly "The Flowers
of the Forest" on a good pipes band. She always has her
emotions completely in hand. She is as bold and daring,
especially in facing misfortune, as I am shrinking and cow-
ardly.
The day after Rosamond and I were married we sailed
on the Ivernia for Queenstown. My father's family came
from Northern Ireland, and in 1906 a number of his uncles
were still alive and were keen to have a look at my bride.
I cannot remember now which one gave the party, but a
celebration was staged in honor of our arrival. A big bar-
rel of Jamieson's, not too old, was put out on the lawn
for the benefit of all and sundry. The next day I met Danny
Ferris, one of the gardeners, and asked him if he had had
a good time. He said, "Oh, God, Mr. Tommy, I could
neither stand up, nor sit down, nor roll on the ground."
He must have been really tight. Pat Dooley told me that
his wife had bitten him. And he added, "I was only bit
but twice in me life, once by me ass and once by me
woman. And yesterday I wished to God the ass had swal-
lowed me."
My Uncle James's two old gardeners, bosom friends,
24 Naturalist at Large
walked down the road after the party, one saying to the
other, "Don't say it," and the other muttering, "I must!
I must!" This was repeated over and over again until one
blurted out, "To hell with King William." And his col-
league, who was a Protestant, promptly picked up a cob-
blestone, knocked him on the head, and kicked him into
the gutter. For those are fighting words indeed in that
lovely land.
The blame for the fighting is evenly divided. On the
anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne the Orangemen pa-
rade with the whole idea of insulting their Catholic neigh-
bors. They sing: —
Teeter, totter, milk and water,
Slaughter the Catholics every one;
We will take them to battle
And kill them like cattle,
And pile them up under
The Protestant's drum.
Of course preparation has been duly made and the house-
tops are well piled with cobblestones and brickbats. The
great Linen Thread Works, which have been operated by
my family since the middle of the eighteenth century, ex-
pect to close down for a few days twice each year — once
after the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne and again
after St. Patrick's Day.
Father told a story which well illustrates the unbeliev-
able agility of the Hibernian mind. It ran something like
this: —
Ireland is a rainy country, but there are spells of dry
weather. At such times an elderly retainer was employed
* 'F(9r Richer for Poorer ' 2 5
to bring water from a pond near by for the garden or for
sprinkling the driveway. Father asked this old man in a
bantering way what capacity his cart had. The old man
told him. "How many trips do you have to make in the
course of a year?" And the old man told him how many.
"Well," said Father, "I have a sovereign for you if you
can figure out how many gallons of water you haul from
one end of the season to the other." "Oh," replied the old
man, "that's too easy. I haul all the water you don't see in
that pond there now."
We are inclined to laugh at the Irish, to be impatient
with them sometimes, but deep in our hearts we love them
and admire them for their bravery, their loyalty, their love
of poetry and flowers, their kindness to animals, and their
unfailingly warm hearts. In the words of the old song,
"Who then can blame us if Ireland is famous for murther
and whiskey and beauty and love?"
After our visit to Ireland, we crossed over to London
for a few days before taking the express from Calais to
Brindisi to catch the boat for Egypt. At London I went to
the office of Thomas Cook and bought a skeleton ticket
which covered a good many of the inevitable steamship
runs, such as Port Said to Aden, Aden to Bombay, Calcutta
to Rangoon, Yokohama to San Francisco. This consisted
of a mass of coupons pinned together which were to be
exchanged for steamship tickets. These coupons I inadvert-
ently put in Rosamond's trunk. Then this trunk caused our
first marital argument. It was a veritable leviathan of a
trunk. I have never seen another one so large. I said, "Buy
ten little trunks that can be easily handled and let's ship
that white elephant of yours home.'*
26 Naturalist at Large
Rosamond finally agreed. Our warm clothing and heavy-
overcoats, which we had needed for the North Atlantic
crossing and were not likely to need again, and sundry
purchases made in England filled it up. Father's agents in
London arranged to handle its transfer to Boston, and I
mailed the key about two hours before train time. Just as
we were ready to leave for the station, it occurred to me
that all those coupons were in the trunk. I rushed down-
stairs in a frenzy. In the old Metropole Hotel, where this
affair took place, there was a letter box right by the door
of the elevator. By inexpressible good fortune I reached
the bottom step just as the postman, key in hand, was un-
locking the box. I spotted the letter and made a grab for it,
pushed a half sovereign into the bewildered postman's palm,
and jumped for the elevator. Before the postman could yell
"Stop thief," I had the key extracted. We just made the
train.
By nature I am a timorous person. Physical bravery is
no part of my make-up and all my life I have dodged trou-
ble rather than looked for it. For this reason, while I have
traveled a good deal, I have few adventures to recount.
My friends often counter with the statement, "But you
catch poisonous snakes with your hands." This, of course,
is only partially true. You need the right sort of stick and
then, when you know how, picking up snakes, whether
harmless or poisonous, is no trick at all.
My wife and I, however, made one trip in 1906 which
for some reason was crowded with thrills. A family friend,
Sir Frederick Palmer, Chief Engineer of the Port of Cal-
cutta Authority, gave us one of the Survey vessels for a
'"'For Richer for Poorer' 27
trip to the Sunderbunds. At certain times of the year,
when the water is high, the shifting sands of the Hooghly
River make it necessary to revise pilot charts every few
days, and a number of vessels are constantly employed in
this work. But in the dry season they are not so busy, and
one was available for our use.
We sailed from Calcutta down into the vast network
©f waterways which make up the double delta, for the
Hooghly River and the Brahmaputra River flow into the
Bay of Bengal near together. This region, called the Sun-
derbunds, is a maze of islands, and at low water each of
these is fringed by wide marginal flats grown with grass
and bushes, which are flooded at the height of the rainy
season.
On these open maidans, as they are called, the axis deer,
or chital, swarm at night to graze. Tigers abound and feed
on the chital, and there is an abundance of wild life of
other sorts. We spent several nights in a machan, a platform
high in a tree, with tethered goat for bait. We wanted to
kill a tiser, but there was too much wild food about, and
while we saw fresh tracks and heard tigers, we never saw
one.
Late one morning, after we had slept for some hours
following our night's vigil, I took my net and Rosamond
her box of papers, and we set to collecting butterflies.
There were clumps of flowering shrubs three or four feet
high, the plants looking something like our buttonbush. A
good many butterflies were coming to these flowers, and
the collecting was good. A boy followed us with my dou-
ble-barreled Manton Express rifle on his shoulder. I looked
back to speak to him for some reason, and saw that he had
JS Naturalist at Large
disappeared. Just then a perfectly magnificent tiger walked
out from one of these clumps of bushes and stalked away-
over the open grass as if he were crossing a lawn, his tail
straight in the air, its tip flicking from side to side. Since
there was no particular object in running away, nor any
place to run to, we stood and watched him walk majes-
tically out of sight behind another thicket.
A few days later the captain of our little vessel went
out with us to get some snipe for the pot. We got widely
separated, and I heard him shoot from time to time, but
naturally I paid no particular attention. Later on, circling
about to return to our meeting place, I heard a snort, and
a giant wild boar which he had wounded charged me on
three legs with an unbelievable alacrity. I realized, how-
ever, that I held a deadly weapon in my hand if I only shot
straight. I waited until he was about ten feet away and then
put a charge of snipe-shot straight in the middle of his fore-
head. He fell dead and skidded almost to my feet. The
charge of shot entered his skull like a soHd slug, and the
pressure on his brain popped out both his eyes, so that they
hung by their optic nerves. He never moved. Then our
gunbearer turned out to be a Mohammedan, so I had to
skin out the saddle and hindquarters and carry them back
to the boat. Luckily we had a Hindu cook of a caste which
allowed him to handle pig. In due season we dined sump-
tuously.
The third event — and mind you, all this happened within
ten days — almost ended tragically. I was standing in a flat
skiff called a panchi, the butt of my double-barreled Ex-
press rifle resting on the thwart in front of me. The search-
'''For Richer for Poorer'' 29
light of our boat played on a group of chital, and I was
being paddled up under the beam of light with the idea
of shooting one. The skiff liit a submerged stump, and
bounced the stock of the heavy gun off the thwart. As it
dropped, the hammers caught. The weight of the gun
sprung them enough to fire both barrels.
The great lead slugs passed through my hands as they
slid off the barrel of the gun, burning my palms badly, and
cut the brim of my pith helmet, curiously enough, without
knocking it off. My face was filled with black powder
grains. I sat down, considerably shaken, and went back to
the boat, where my wife and the captain helped me aboard.
The gun, was badly damaged, so there was nothing to do
but return to Calcutta, which we did at once, and there
Major Camalliri, surgeon of the Coldstream Guards, picked
the powder grains out of my face. A few days' rest set
everything to rights. In my usual hypochondriacal way, I
wasted a lot of mental energy awaiting tetanus, but in due
time there was too much else to think about and this non-
sense got pushed out of mind.
While Rosamond and I were resting at Darjeeling, after
I had pretty nearly blown my head off in the Sunderbunds,
we met an interesting character, a Mr. Mueller, He col-
lected all sorts of objects, from Tibetan bronzes to butter-
flies, and was in touch, by correspondence, with museum
directors everywhere. He had for sale some of the ma-
terial picked up by members of the Younghusband expe-
dition to Lhasa, and Rosamond proceeded to get a few
mementos of our visit.
He remarked casually to me that this was the season of
30 f Naturalist at Large
year when his professional butterfly collectors worked
most successfully. These men were Lepchas, a tribe
of hillmen from Bhutan who were born naturalists.
I had often heard of the wonderful variety of butter-
flies to be found in the deep tropical valley of the Teesta
River.
The upshot was that he agreed to hire for me several
of his very best collectors, and Amir Hassein immediately
set out to get ponies and suppHes. We set forth early one
morning, I on a sturdy gray pony, for I was slender and
light in those days. Collecting along the road as we went,
we arrived at nightfall at the Dak Bungalow near the bridge
over the Teesta River.
On this trip I first had a chance to see really fine, high
tropical rain forest. I also had my first sight of a troop of
monal pheasants with an enormous cock leading his harem
across the narrow road — a glittering mass of metallic
golden bronze and green, the sun striking his back as he
moved proudly on his way. He certainly topped my ex-
perience observing wild life up to that moment.
Then, of course, there were many other birds, jungle
fowl, and other species of pheasants, and lastly, the but-
terflies. These were in astonishing variety. The Lepchas
were keen as mustard and extraordinarily skillful with their
long-handled nets. We caught and papered butterflies until
we had a magnificent collection.
After several days of continuous excitement and enjoy-
ment we returned to Darjeeling, where I joined Rosamond,
who was waiting for me there. I supplemented the collec-
tion we had made ourselves with material purchased from
our friend Mr. Mueller and sent the whole collection back
"Fcr Richer for Poorer' ' 3 1
to the Museum. There, by the most inexcusable careless-
ness, it was mislaid and so badly eaten by Dermestes that
few of the specimens ever finally reached the collection.
At Lucknow, in India, we went out to a village with a
friend of our bearer, Amir Hassein. This friend lived in a
village within easy driving distance. Amir had spoken of
the fact that his master (meaning me) was obviously crazy,
as he was interested in snakes and other loathsome crea-
tures. It seemed that a giant cobra lived in an abandoned
rodent burrow near a path between the friend's village and
a stream where the women went to draw water. In passing
along this way at night, because it was cooler then, several
people had trod on this cobra. Only a few days before, a
child had been bitten and had died.
Now of course they could not kill the cobra. You re-
member that when Buddha was asleep under the Bo tree,
the cobra came up and spread its hood to shade his sleep-
ing eyes. The Master blessed the cobra then; and if you
don't believe it, how do you explain the fact that the two
finger marks are to be seen on the cobra's hood? So nat-
urally the cobra is sacred, and no native was going to risk
his prospects of the hereafter by killing it. But no one
cared a rap about my chances in the hereafter, and if I
killed the cobra, so much the better.
We trudged out across the dusty plain and came at last
to the little hole where the villagers said the cobra lived.
I had an old entrenching tool which I used to dig insects out
of rotten logs, and with this I commenced to enlarge the
hole, cutting down in the hard-baked earth. I got down
about a foot before I saw what was obviously skin of either
32 Naturalist at Large
a lizard or a snake. I strongly suspected snake. I gave it a
poke with the tip of my digger and out came the most
magnificent cobra you ever saw.
We subsequently preserved any number of them for
specimens, but none so "manner-gorgeous" as this one. It
came out, reared up, its beady eyes peering from side to
side as it moved its head inquiringly, its tongue flashing.
I had to have a picture of it. I had no long-focus camera in
those days and I wanted a picture of this cobra which
would fill the whole plate. I got it (I have the picture
framed on my wall at this moment) by lying down on the
ground and edging up until I was right in front of the
snake. My wife stood by with an open parasol, and when
he saw fit to make a nip at the camera, which meant com-
ing pretty close to my face and hands, she would lower
the parasol in front of him and he would sway back and
straighten up again. I took a number of excellent snapshots
and then carefully shot the snake with a charge of dust-shot
in a .38 cartridge so as to damage him as little as possible.
We got an earthenware jar from the village near by,
coiled our treasure down in it, and went back to Lucknow.
Rosamond refused to have the snake in our room because,
as she wisely maintained, snakes have a way of coming to
life after they have apparently been killed. The upshot was
that a jackal sneaked up on the low clay porch in front
of the room and carried off the cobra while we were hav-
ing supper. But I still have the photograph, and I am still
just as convinced as I was then that I am fortunate in
having a wife who is not only beautiful but brave. I had
stepped into great good fortune.
. \*
^^
i-«f ♦■»■■
^ '. *
,«*,',•
•Mi
t..
^^'f^^-^'-^-i:^^.
1' 7". Bill hour
The big cobra killed near Liicknow on the fifteenth of
November, 1906
''''For Richer for Poorer'' 33
Forty years ago India was a travelers' Mecca, but rela-
tively few thought Burma worth more than a glance. They
would sail from Calcutta to Rangoon, look at the great
pagoda, rush up to Mandalay and see the sights of the
city, interesting enough to be sure, and then call it a day
and move on. We decided to do a Httle differently.
We crossed from Calcutta to Mandalay and found some-
thing which I have never forgotten and which really
whetted our appetites for more. This was not Shwe-Dagon,
astounding as that great temple is, but rather a row of big
trees of Amherstia nobilis encircling the lake in the city
park. Amherstia is certainly the A number i flowering
tree of the whole world and this is its homeland. The indi-
vidual blossoms look like tiny hummingbirds each mounted
on a slender wire and all tied into a long dropping cord,
so that the dozen or more little birdlike flowers stick out
quite evenly in all directions. The individual blooms are
scarlet with big blobs of gold symmetrically placed and
as sharply defined as if each one were hand-painted. The
fohage of the tree, especially the new shoots, is delicately
tinted, and with the leaves makes up a combination of
color and form which is superb. After driving out re-
peatedly to look at the Amherstias, we decided to post-
pone our trip to Java, where we had a real job to do, in
order to see a little more of this fascinating country. For
the more we heard of it the more we wanted to see. And
naturally we took time to watch the elephants a-piUn' teak
and all that sort of thing while we were making plans. Late
one afternoon a comfortable train landed us in Mandalay,
where we did the ordinary sightseeing of palaces and
shrines. Rosamond reveled in the silk market and I went
34 Naturalist at Large
snipe shooting: snipe were plentiful in the rice fields and
the sport was excellent.
Comfortable and reasonably rapid express steamers car-
ried the mails from Mandalay to the head of navigation
on the Irrawaddy, and on these most of the few visitors
desiring to take the trip usually traveled. We, however,
to our great good fortune, found that the Irrawaddy Flotilla
Company was planning to send a bazaar boat up the river
in a few days and that this would offer a comfortable and
leisurely way to see this long stretch of water. My wife
has never had much inclination to explore, so that this was a
compromise proposition. Because I have had few trips of
this sort, this pleasant river trip probably looms larger in
my memory than it would have done otherwise. Never-
theless, since no American will take it again for many a
long day, some of the high lights may be worth setting
forth.
The boat on which we traveled was like a gigantic
pumpkin seed with a great stern wheel. She had a fine
upper deck giving forward, an airy dining room and quite
comfortable cabins, with the beds well screened. She was
built to draw very little water because the river Is shallow
and the bars shift constantly. Lashed alongside was an even
larger flatboat or scow, roofed over but with open sides.
On this great barge space was rented out to merchants who
sold almost everything. This meant that we traveled slowly,
did not run at night, and tied up at innumerable little vil-
lages where the people on shore would come piling down
to bargain and chaffer with the merchants on board the
flat. We had time for many pleasant walks In the woods,
for opportunities to observe birds and animals, and even
* ''For Richer for Poorer' ' 3 5
the chance to do a little collecting of reptiles, although
the season was unfavorably dry. Occasionally, moreover,
we shot ducks to vary our everlasting diet of curry, and
we did pick up a fair number of lizards and the like.
Rosamond had a regular busman's hoHday when we
stopped at Thaybeitkyin, which is the river port for Mogoc
where the famous ruby fields are located. Of course the
officials in charge of the mines take great care to see that
bootlegging of rubies does not take place; nevertheless,
the natives are very shrewd and it is possible to pick up
tiny but lovely colored stones at low rates. And this place
was sufficiently remote so that there was little danger of
having imitation stones offered to us.
We stopped in many strange little towns. I remember
particularly Mingoon, where there is the largest hanging bell
in the world. (The great bell in Moscow is a little larger
but has a chunk knocked out of it and it is set down on
the pavement in the city.) The great bell at Mingoon is
about two feet clear of the ground and as you creep under
it and look up twelve feet or more into the beautiful pol-
ished inner surface, you can but wonder what would hap-
pen if it dropped while you were inside. In the East great
bells are usually struck with staghorns or with a heavy
billet of teakwood hung in the middle with a tail of rope
that you can haul back and then let go. The noise is not
overwhelming when you are right beside the bell, but it is
tremendously impressive at the distance of a mile or so.
One day while sitting on the lower deck — and this was
but a few inches above the water level — away out ahead
I could see a good-sized snake swimming out from shore.
I figured that we should probably meet at the rate we both
36 Naturalist at Large
were traveling. I seized a broom handle or something of
the sort — I may even have snatched him up with my
hand — anyway he came right alongside the bow as we
went by and I pitched him up on the deck. He was a lovely
iridescent Burmese python about seven feet long, skin
freshly shed and an ideal size to preserve. Most specimens
are enormous and require too much alcohol. I had no con-
tainer on board which would hold this fellow, so I put
him in a pillowcase and kept him in my room until we got
back to Mandalay. Rarely will a snake strike while in a
bag and if he does his fine needlelike teeth will catch in the
fabric and indeed often fetch loose. This fellow as usual
made no attempt to escape. He rests in the museum at
Cambridge to this day as a souvenir of our journey.
I think that the most amusing^ siojht we saw was one
which was repeated on a number of occasions. This was
a chance to watch the enormous droves of macaque mon-
keys working along the riverbank. They moved slowly
along, industriously turning over stones, pulling sticks and
logs about, the old individuals appearing very serious, while
the myriad youngsters gamboled about the tree tops over
the heads of the traveling band. Every once in a while a
young monkey would come down and sit on a branch
which was near the ground, and waiting for the crowd
to pass beneath him would seize one of the elders by the
tail and give it a mighty twitch. This would set all hands
to scolding and bickering and chasing one another, as
punishment was passed out down the line.
Once we saw a smallish elephant come down to drink
and once up near Katha a giant cow. This big elephant
was so tame and paid so little attention to our clumsy-
'''For Richer for Poorer' • 37
looking flotilla that I thought she must have been a tame
elephant which had wandered off from some lumber opera-
tion. I found that there was no lumbering going on in the
area and that she was unquestionably a wild animal and
a very fine one to boot. Birds were a great source of in-
terest — pigeons and paraquets especially — and the occa-
sional pairs of hornbills crossing the river were always im-
pressive. Their heavy wing beats were accompanied by a
noise like the puffing of a locomotive on a heavy grade a
mile or so away.
In most of the villages there were little monasteries
where the yellow-robed Buddhist monks ran what might be
called their parochial schools, and of course these people
never killed anything. Hence the great Tokkay geckos
which lived in the thatched roofs were always undisturbed.
Sometimes the monks frowned upon our catching these
lizards to preserve them, albeit not very actively. We
learned that the gentle monks sitting around in the evening
would make pools and gamble moderately on the number
of times that these lizards would call, for their name "Tok-
kay" is taken from the sound which they make, and it is
usually repeated from five to nine times at each bout of
singing.
The trip ended at Bhamo, where the caravans outfitted
and loaded up to carry the goods of British India to Teng-
yueh or Talifu in China. We were impressed by the hand-
some mules and by the singularly good-looking muleteers,
for these Chinese were tall and sturdy. They were well
dressed in blue and their queues, which they all wore in
those days, reached down almost to their heels. The people
around Bhamo are not Burmese but Kachins, a primitive
38 Naturalist at Large
folk, picturesque, rather offish, and dressed gaily in red
and blue. We succeeded in getting some of their swords
and other artifacts for the Peabody Museum. After leav-
ing Bhamo we slipped downstream, the current carrying
us along quite quickly, and in a few days were back again
in Mandalay.
This excursion had proved so enjoyable and to our no-
tion so instructive that we decided to try one more Bur-
mese expedition. We had heard of the Gokteik Gorge. This
was to be reached by the railroad which runs out into the
Shan states. It is from the end of this railroad that the
Burma Road runs. We went first to Mamyio, a pleasant hill
station, and then on to the gorge where there was a ddk
bungalow, just a short distance before the railway ended
at Lashio. The last stage of the journey was made in a
somewhat primitive railroad coach: I remember finding
the sliding door which led into the wasliroom completely
covered, and I mean loo per cent covered, with the largest
and most ablebodied cockroaches I have ever seen. They
scattered about when they were disturbed but before long
crawled back and took up their old roosting places.
The extremely deep Gokteik Gorge through which a
stream ran was very narrow and the cliffs which formed
its walls were so close together, and both "slantindicular"
in the same direction, that the effect was just like being in
a cave. We looked up and saw no sky. Here there was an
enormous colony of cave swifts of the genus Collocalia,
a genus abundant, widespread, multitudinous in species,
and distributed all over southeastern Asia and the islands.
It is from one species of the genus, in the East Indies, that
the nests made of the swifts' dried saliva are gathered to
* 'For Richer for Poorer ' 3 9
make Chinese bird's-nest soup. The owning and leasing
of these caves is native high finance.
The country about us swarmed with game. Tracks of
bear, deer, and leopard were literally everywhere. I asked
my bearer to gather some beaters and we tried a drive,
but since the vegetation was so thick and since we could
post only one watcher, myself, there was only a small
chance that whatever game they moved would come in
sight. Plenty of game was moved — of that there was no
doubt, as I could hear both it and the excited shouts of our
beaters. Unfortunately we saw nothing.
From the bungalow everything which went on in the
neighborhood, however, could certainly be heard. It was
a little building set up on high posts with a good roof but
more or less open on all sides. I knew well the inordinate
racket made by peacocks where they were really common,
for I had heard them abundantly in Jeypore in India. This
was just another place where the constant noise made by
the peacocks was well reinforced by numbers of jungle
fowl. These wild chickens would crow in the morning
with high, shrill calls like those of leghorns multiplied a
hundredfold; all these birds saw to it that there was no
oversleeping. We got butterflies and some other insects but
our Burmese collections were by no means outstanding.
We were just loafing and enjoying ourselves to the very
fullest.
I shall always think of this country in vivid contrast to
India. When we were there, the people were singularly
friendly. The wide variety of gay costumes worn by Shans,
Kerens, Kachins, and Burmese made up a satisfying va-
riety. The Burmese young men and girls were especially
40 Naturalist at Large
gay and attractive to look at. I am sure the universal land
clearing has greatly changed those gloriously forested
banks.
The variety of native craft both rowed and propelled
by sail was a constant source of interest. Some of the boats
were beautifully decorated and wonderfully carved. Enor-
mous rafts of teak would come down the river, each with
a whole encampment of rivermen housed on their artificial
island. Every log of teak was made to float by having
bundles of giant dry bamboos lashed fast to its length.
These rafts made running at night difficult and dangerous.
Today Rangoon is a ruined city, as is also Mandalay.
It must have been impossible to bombard and to bomb
these towns without destroying their superb examples of
old Burmese architecture, with the gorgeous teakwork
carvings and the strangely ornate roofs. Gone too must be
the myriad pagodas, ranging in size from lovely little ala-
baster structures, which were to be found literally by
hundreds around Mandalay, to the great Shwe-Dagon
at Rangoon. This temple, plated with gold from top to
bottom, looked as high as the Washington Monument,
though I suppose it was not. Forty years ago Burma was a
land of romance and charm. It is a pity that war had to
come to it.
CHAPTER V
Wallace and the Dutch East
I
N MY pocket at the start of our journey I had the best
of all passports to the Dutch East Indies. It was a letter
of introduction from Mr. Agassiz to Dr. Treub, the fa-
mous botanist, head of the Gardens at Buitenzorg and
Minister of Agriculture. After our mild zoological ad-
ventures in India and Burma, we finally fetched up in
Batavia. Major Ouwens, the charming and friendly direc-
tor of the Zoological Museum in the Buitenzorg Gardens,
passed the word along, and all day streams of men and
boys — and girls too, for that matter — Uned up either at
the museum or at our lodgings near by with hollow joints
of giant bamboo carefully plugged with wads of grass and
leaves. Each contained a treasure — snakes of countless
sorts, frogs, toads, lizards, insects, and fishes. We pickled
and shipped unceasingly. I had been for a long time sur-
reptitiously learning Malay, so that when I reached Java
I could bicker and bargain, and consequently acquired a
great collection very reasonably.
We had some weeks on our hands in Batavia before the
trim little steamship BotJo made one of her three-a-year
voyages to the eastern islands of the far-flung empire of
Insulindia. After deep cogitation, we had picked out this
voyage as offering a chance to see the greatest number of
locaHties mentioned by Wallace. There were numberless
voyages to choose from, as the little steamers of the K.P.M.
42 Naturalist at Large
(Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij) poked their noses
in and out of scores upon scores of out-of-the-way har-
bors. Finally, on January 24, 1907, we set forth.
Our passage was leisurely, loading and unloading was
slow, and there were always letters to be waited for or
merchants whose affairs dragged on, as always when one is
dealing with Orientals. First came Bali, a very different Bali
from the island as it is, or was a short time ago. The Dutch
had just conquered it, and the natives were still pretty well
unpacified. Then Lombok, chiefly memorable as producing
a new toad which I named Biifo cavator. Then Macassar,
Buru, Ambon, Ceram, Obi, and lovely Ternate.
Here came a real thrill, for I was stopped in the street
one day as my wife and I were preparing to climb up to
the Crater Lake. With us were Ah Woo with his butterfly
net, Indit and Bandoung, our well-trained Javanese col-
lectors, with shotguns, cloth bags, and a vasculum for car-
rying the birds. We were stopped by a wizened old Malay
man. I can see him now, with a faded blue fez on his head.
He said, "I am Ali Wallace." I knew at once that there
stood before me Wallace's faithful companion of many
years, the boy who not only helped him collect but nursed
him when he was sick. We took his photograph and sent
it to Wallace when we got home. He wrote me a delightful
letter acknowledging it and reminiscing over the time
when Ali had saved his life, nursing him through a terrific
attack of malaria. This letter I have managed to lose, to my
eternal chagrin.
The voyage continued all the way around the great
spidery mass of the island of Helmahera, one of the love-
liest in all the world. The only rough night I remember
The women's canoe with no outrigger, only used on short
journeys
1' hot us bv R. P. Barbour
The men's canoe, used for trips to sea. Humboldt Bay, 1907
Wallace and the Dutch East 43
was when we anchored way offshore at Supu Bay. I had
been told that we should catch the mischief there, but
slept on deck as usual and mighty nearly got rolled over-
board before I woke to what was going on. Actually I al-
most rolled" into our meat supply. Since we had no refrig-
eration, this came on board on the hoof in Bah and stood
in a row, tied to the ship's rail. Hitched to the other rail
were the Orang nanti (the Chain People, prisoners of
war), shackled together. They had been captured by the
Dutch in the Achinese war in Sumatra and were going to
build roads in Ceram. The fact that the beef had to be
butchered on deck — and there was not very much deck
at that — meant that my wife sat sewing in the opposite
direction, so to speak, waited till she heard the hose which
washed the gurry overboard, and then turned about to
find the table being set up. The ship's officers and the three
or four passengers on board all ate together on the open
deck. There was no ice aboard: our meat was fresh for
just one day.
The absence of ice made photography difficult. The film
of thirty years ago softened easily and disintegrated in
warm water. Fresh water on the ship was coolest late at
night, so that is when we had to develop our pictures. Some
were lost, but luckily we saved the best of them by putting
a little formalin in the water to harden the film.
At Ternate w^e were boarded by a Mr. Sedee, who had
agents in numberless little outposts and who dealt in rat-
tan, dammar gum, and bird-of-paradise plumes. He was a
mine of information — knew all about Wallace, though he
had never actually seen him. And he said one day, "To-
morrow we land in Ake Selaka and there fives Mr. Duiven-
44 Naturalist at Large
boden." The next day we found Mr. Duivenboden and
were introduced. He was dressed in immaculate white,
spoke perfect Enghsh. His father had been Wallace's host
and his mother a Javanese lady: as a small boy he had seen
Wallace and remembered him. He took me into the woods,
sat beside me on a giant fallen log, and whistled in a pe-
culiar way. In a few moments, hopping down the long
snaky trunk of a climbing palm, appeared a bizarre-look-
ing brown bird. Here was I, sitting at the very spot where
Wallace had collected the extroardinary-looking bird of
paradise which bears his name. Wallace speaks of the elder
Duivenboden as the scion of "an ancient Dutch family, but
who was educated in England and speaks our language per-
fectly." He was a very rich man, possessed many ships
and more than a hundred slaves. "He was, moreover, well
educated and fond of literature and science — a phenome-
non in these regions."
The next day at Galela, a neighboring village and the
seat of a rather cocky ruler, as it turned out, I went shoot-
ing at dawn. The island fairly swarmed with parrots, lories,
and cockatoos of all sorts. I saw a giant cockatoo in the
top of a tall tree. I shot it. Down it came, fluttering and
flapping through the foliage, to fall at my feet. I picked
it up and, to my utter astonishment, dangling from its leg
was about eighteen inches of gilt chain. Of course, it had
to belong to the Rajah — a favorite pet which had escaped
that morning. There was the devil to pay. I paid a con-
siderable amount of hush money, and I never even got the
bird.
We had a little launch on board, called by the Malays
"Child of the Fireboat" {Ajiak Kapal Apt). When we
Wallace and the Dutch East 45
were anchored near shore and she was not needed to tow
cargo lighters, we were generously allowed to use her. In
her we explored the rivers and bays which studded this
extraordinarily indented coastline. The Kali Weda ran in-
land, twisting and turning for a good many miles behind
the town of Weda. The forest here was sumptuously mag-
nificent — great masses of pandans and canes and bamboos
along the banlc, and then the high woods. At times the little
river ran through a green tunnel. We could hear pigs and
deer crashing in the underbrush, but never got sight of
them.
What we did get, however, were some enormous lizards
— they were three feet long — with a great fanlike sail on
their backs and tails, like Permian Pelycosaurs in miniature.
To my joy, on coming home, I found that this creature
was entirely unknown, and I named it for Professor Max
Weber of Holland, who had shown a kindly interest in
our journey {Hydrosaiinis iveber'i). I cannot for the life
of me understand how Wallace missed finding this crea-
ture. We took it at Piru in Ceram as well as here, and it
was conspicuously different from allies known from the
Philippines and Amboina. It is hard to convey to a person
who is not a naturahst by profession the extraordinary feel-
ing of satisfaction which overwhelms one at handling a
great, conspicuous creature which has hitherto eluded
notice by one's colleagues.
Fortunately, we approached New Guinea through the
narrow passage between Batanta and Salawatti rather than
through the more ample Dampier Strait which afforded
Wallace approach, but he was sailing in a schooner. We
had steam and could buck the swift current, albeit slowly.
46 Naturalist at Large
Wallace said, as he drew near, "I looked with intense in-
terest on those rugged mountains, retreating ridge behind
ridge into the interior, where the foot of civilized man had
never trod. There was the country of the cassowary and
the tree kangaroo, and those dark forests produce the most
extraordinary and the most beautiful of the feathered in-
habitants of the earth — the varied species of the bird of
paradise." Wallace was not given to hyperbolic expres-
sion, for he had been collecting commercially in the Indies
for years before he approached Papua, and had had his
senses somewhat benumbed by a long stay in Amazonia
before that.
Think, then, what were the feelings of a youngster just
of age, whose previous tropical experience had been a single
voyage to the Bahamas and something of India and Burma
on the way east. As we moved slowly through the strait,
with the billowing mountains of green near at hand, the
little villages of thatched huts borne on high stilts by the
Waterside, catamarans and sailing prows constantly moving
along the shore, I was completely overcome. I am ridicu-
lously emotional by nature, and when the first mate, who
stood beside me in the bow, pointed ahead and said, "That
is Papoea," as the Dutch call New Guinea, a lump which
I could hardly swallow came in my throat.
Then followed unforgettable days indeed. Sorong pro-
duced a spiny anteater which we kept alive and were able
to observe. A dish of ground coconut soon accumulated
enough ants, which we thought would keep it happy. They
didn't, and I am quite sure now its principal food is earth-
worms and not insects. The great, bird-winged butterflies
of the genus Ornithoptera were abundant. They flew so
Ilioto b\ A. p. Ba>hoi
The Great Karriwarri at Tubadi Milage, Humboldt Bay,
New Guinea
Wallace and the Dutch East 47
high that we shot them with dust-shot and got a good
series, which satisfied us entirely until we found a lot of
pupae, which we strung up against the curtains of a vacant
stateroom. Here they emerged, and we got perfect speci-
mens.
On to Doreh Bay, Wallace's old headquarters. I sent him
photographs of the natives here and he wrote me that he
was sorry I had, for he disliked them so. They may not
have been friendly to him, but they were to us in 1907,
and went with us into the forest. On every fallen log beau-
tiful metallic weevils swarmed, just as they had in Wal-
lace's day, and we had unbelievably good collecting. I came
back to the ship one afternoon, Rosamond having been
left on board, and found that she had done something for
me which touched me greatly. A native had brought aboard
a big green snake about four feet long, hitched by rattan
fore and aft to a piece of stick. She purchased the snake
for a stick of tobacco and a small mirror and then, feeling
that it might get away, opened the top of our big alcohol
tank, cut the snake loose from the stick, and herself forced
the reptile into the pickle. She firmly believed that the
snake was a poisonous one. It was not, but hers was a brave
and kindly act, since she loathes snakes as much as most
people do. And she had garnered the first specimen of
Chondropytho7i viridis, which had certainly never before
been collected by an American.
By an arrangement with the K.P.M. authorities in Sura-
baya, we were allowed to delay the itinerary of the Both
for a very reasonable indemnity. This, and the fact that
Mr. Sedee had much trading to do, gave us a chance to
see a good many points of interest along the north coast
48 Naturalist at Large
of New Guinea, among them Windessi, where Mr. Van
Balen had been immured as a missionary for years. He and
Mr. Van Hasselt, located on Mansinam Island in Doreh
Bay, were the only Dutchmen in New Guinea at that
time. Van Hasselt had tried to translate the Bible into
Numfoor, the most widely spoken of the Papuan idioms.
A knowledge of Hawaiian will carry you from Hono-
lulu through all the Polynesian Islands to New Zealand
with only a few consonantal changes, but most languages
in New Guinea won't carry you across the street, since
almost every village speaks its own tongue. I understand
Mr. Van Hasselt had to give up his task because the presen-
tation of abstract ideas in Numfoor was utterly impossible.
I report this, however, on hearsay.
Pom, Wooi, and Ansus were the towns we visited on
Japen Island. Here the natives were distinctly non-co-opera-
tive and Ah Woo would not go on shore, saying that too
many Chinese had been eaten there in the past. We did
try a landing at the little town of Meosbundi on Wiak
Island, but when we went ashore and tried to buy some
drums and other objects for the Peabody Museum, we
saw the women sneaking off into the thick bush and climb-
ing away up into their httle houses set up fifty or sixty
feet above the ground. The first officer allowed that this
was a bad sign and we had better pull out. And we did,
quite obviously just in time, for a cohort of yelling, mop-
headed natives thronged the beach. Perhaps they were
simply showing ofT, but the officers of the ship had no
desire to encounter the inquiry which would perforce have
been held had we been killed, even though we had signed
waivers of responsibility before we left Java.
„^Sif«*«-*>--
Two Karriwarris at the village of Tubadi in Humboldt Bay
Plwto bv R. P. Barbour
Communal long houses over the water at Ansus, Japen Island,
in Geelvink Bay, Dutch New Guinea
Wallace and the Dutch East 49
We pushed on to Humboldt Bay, now Fort Hollandia
and the base which Richard Archbold used for the great
aeroplane which in 1938 carried his expedition to the
mountain lakes. Sir John Murray, the oceanographer, told
me that when the ship Challenger visited Humboldt Bay
in February 1873, it was absolutely impossible to land. The
natives met them with such showers of arrows that they
sailed away. We landed on Metu Debi Island in the mouth
of the bay amid swarms of natives. We found them stark
naked but, on the whole, quite jolly and congenial. They
were a little short-tempered if they were crossed, as, for
instance, when they somewhat indiscreetly wanted to see
whether my wife was white all over. She was the first
white woman they had ever seen. In fact, we were so com-
pletely disassociated with their idea of human beings that
not only at Djamna, but here in the village of Tubadi,
she was allowed to enter the Karriwaris, where the sacred
paraphernaha are stored. Native women, under pain of
death, are forbidden to enter there.
These people were most bizarre in appearance. The
women were buxom and not unpleasing in mien; they
wore a short skirt of beaten bark shrunk about their waists
while the bark was wet and allowed to dry there. In their
ears were several dozen rings made of tortoise shell, about
four inches in diameter. The whole ear margin was pierced
with a row of holes. Their heads were covered with little
braids of hair, each weighted, to hold it in place, with a
tiny ball of dried clay.
The men wore bands of fiber tightly bound around their
arms. In these were stuck flowers or bunches of brightly
colored leaves, and often also a dagger, made of a casso-
50 Naturalist at Large
wary's thighbone or a human thighbone, chipped to a
point. Many carried stone axes, and almost all had bows
and bundles of arrows. We photographed their arrow re-
lease for Professor E. S. Morse, who was studying the
evolution of archery. In their noses they wore the tusks of
wild boars, one pushed up through the nostril and through
a hole pierced in the side of the nose on each side, a sort
of glorified Kaiser's mustache, quite striking when seen
from a distance. They wore their hair in great, luxuriant
mops, with a comb stuck in it. This was made from the
spiny, coarse wing feathers of the cassowary and was used
to keep the hair fluffed out symmetrically. They not in-
frequently wore a band around their brows decorated with
hibiscus or other flowers. They either wore no clothes at
all or bizarrely shaped little gourds decorated with patterns
burned on them, in which a small round hole was cut. All
in all, they were highly satisfactory savages and looked
just as they should have.
Rosamond and I have been to the Island of Amboina
twice, for the Both stopped there for several days on the
way to New Guinea and on the return voyage. We went
out to Batu Gadja to see the tomb of old Rumphius,^ whose
^For anyone who may be interested, I can recommend
Professor George Sarton's fascinating biographical sketch of
Rumphius, who went to Java in 1653 and to Amboina the next
year. His drawings were lost there in a disastrous fire on Janu-
ary 1 1, 1687, but his manuscript was saved. Luckily, Governor
General Camphuys had this copied before he sent it to Holland,
since the ship Waterla?zd, carrying the original manuscript to
the homeland, was sunk by the French. Rumphius continued
his work until May 1670, when he completely lost his eyesight.
Wallace and the Dutch East 51
A?72bonsche Rariteitkamer, published in 1705, first made
known to the world the natural wonders of the Moluccas.
A queer old hermit of a Frenchman lived up in the
forest not far from where Rumphius was buried. He made
a precarious livelihood selling natural-history objects to
museums hither and yon. We got a lot of interesting things
from him, including a fine batch of cocoons of the local
bird-winged butterfly, a giant species, black and metallic
velvety green, related to one we had taken in New Guinea
and which flew so high, here in Amboina, that we had no
luck collecting specimens. We pinned up the cocoons in a
vacant stateroom, separate from such others as we had
secured so that there would be no mixing of localities,
and long before we were back in Java they had emerged
and are all now safely pinned out in the collection here in
Cambridge.
There was a cave in the hills not far from this same spot.
This yielded a few bats of families poorly represented in
American collections. But the exciting high light of our
visit to Amboina was, of all things, an eel. In 1887 the
Reverend B. G. Snow sent some fishes to the Agassiz Mu-
seum from Ebon in the Marshall Islands. Amongst these
was a single specimen of an extraordinary eel with curious
extensions to its nostrils like folded leaves sticking far out
He worked on, helped by friends, and finally died on the fif-
teenth of June 1702. He left two great manuscripts, the one I
have mentioned and the Herbarmm Amboinense, neither of
which was published until after his death. Rumphius was one
of the great naturalists of the seventeenth century and he de-
serves to be better known. Sarton's brief account of his life
was written in his for August 1937, and a longer and a more -
elaborate biography will some day be forthcoming. ^v
52 Naturalist at Large
in front of its snout. Garman called this astonishing eel
Khinojmiraena quaesita. It was long and slender and
brown. For some reason or other I remembered exactly
how it looked. No second specimen has ever been found,
so far as I know.
While frogging about on an Amboina reef at low tide,
I saw a sky-blue eel, long and slender and quite active
when we rolled over a slab of coral rock. By great good
luck I caught it, and in a second I said to myself, "That's
another Rhinomuraena and a new one" — and it was. I
described it and called it R. amboinensis and have it well
preserved to this day. No other specimen has ever been
reported. Is it not an extraordinary coincidence that the
only two examples of this unique eel should both have
found their way to Cambridge — one shipped in by the old
missionary ship The Momijig Star in 1887, the other found
by me exactly twenty years later more than a thousand
miles from Ebon?
Our visit to Humboldt Bay was the climax of the trip
and our leisurely return a pleasant aftermath. All along
the line we picked up objects which had been collected
and saved for our return. We stopped at just as many
places on the way back as we did going out. Several un-
expected delays caused by waiting for dammar gum to be
brought down from the interior gave us a chance to garner
a great store of ethnological objects for the Peabody Mu-
seum. It was well that we did, for in those days Papua
was still unspoiled. Of course, I have Uved in hope that
by some chance I might once see the interior.
It was at Hong Kong that we met Mr. Daniel Russell
of the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs. He came from
Wallace and the Dutch East 5 3
near Belfast and knew a lot of the members of Father's
family, but I think our real bond was the fact that he
was translating Bowditch's Practical Navigator into Chi-
nese. He was certainly interested when he found out that
"The Navigator" was Rosamond's great-grandfather. He
was going to take charge of the customhouse in the great
city of Wuchow, a city which had only recently been
declared open for foreign commerce. He asked us to
join him on the trip upriver. Wuchow is several hun-
dred miles inland from Canton up the west river, or the
Si-kiang to give it its proper name. The experience in get-
ting here was a most interesting one and the section of
China through which we passed was completely unspoiled.
We journeyed in a small, shallow-draught river steamer,
locked in an enormous iron cage. This cage enclosed the
bridge, a little dining saloon just aft the bridge, the offi-
cers' cabins and a few tiny cubbyholes for passengers, and
a small open area of deck. The boat sailed under the British
jflag; she was spotlessly clean, the food was good. We had
several tall, bearded Sikhs and three or four Malays on
board, all heavily armed, as guards. All this because the
Chinese pirates still abundant in those days used to come
aboard a few at a time disguised as passengers, and then,
when enough of them had assembled, they would produce
their hidden arms and try to take the ship. This was no
idle rumor, for even the big passenger steamers from Hong
Kong to Canton caged their first-class passengers. It was
widely reported that pigtails were interwoven with fish-
hooks to discourage anyone from trying to make a cap-
ture by seizing a pirate's cue.
The country through which we passed was framed in
ridges of high hUls, with ancient temples and lovely pa-
54 Naturalist at Large
godas against the sky line. I don't think we saw a tree
during the entire journey. This long-overpopulated land
has been deforested for ages and we often saw women out
on the river in sampans gleaning sticks and even straws
from the flotsam and jetsam of the river for fuel.
The little stern-wheeler on which we traveled made
many stops. I remember one place of some importance,
Sam Shui, which apparently was greatly famed for its culi-
nary art. Long before we arrived there our Chinese pas-
sengers were lined up along the rail licking their chops,
and no sooner had we tied up to the bank than swarms of
sampans came out, each with one man to row and another
to dispense the chow. Each carried a hook on a long rope
which they threw up for one of the passengers to hang
over the hand rail. The chef stood aft surrounded with
innumerable little dishes sizzling over a charcoal brazier
like a battery of tiny stoves, and with a big tub of rice,
which was the foundation for each meal served. In re-
sponse to yells from the passengers, he would grab a large,
grayish, and rather thick pottery bowl, throw into the
bottom of it a handful of rice, and then toss in on top little
dabs and gobbets of bean curds, bean sprouts, diced ome-
lette, diced eggplant, fried duck, fried pork from chit-
lins to diced ears and bits of crisp fried pigskin, white
grubs, and what looked like fried angleworms blanched,
evidently having been kept in water until they were clear
of grit. Not infrequently a little frog would be added, too
small even, to my notion, to be worth sucking, but it must
be remembered that all food in China has to be prepared
for use with chopsticks. As we were leaning over the rail
one of the Malay guards said to me, ''Sabaya tida mau
Photo by T. Barbour
Photos hv R. P. Barbour
UPPER RIGHT: R. P. B. at Alonokwari
OTHER three: Natives of Humboldt Bay
Wallace and the Dutch East 5 5
mackan kodok ya?ig kechil sekali,''^ which indicated not
that he was disincUned to eat frogs but rather that he
scorned such Httle ones.
The days passed Hke winking, the river traffic was so
extraordinarily interesting to watch. There were a few
steam launches towing barges of all sorts, but more often
the boats were propelled by paddle wheels operated by
men working treadmills, and how tired the poor devils
looked is vivid in my mind's eye to this day. The floating
duck ranches and even the occasional great easy-going
junks being towed upstream made this journey a vivid pic-
ture of Chinese life as it had been since time immemorial.
Our little white stern-wheeler Shui Hing was the only
foreign note.
Finally we reached Wuchow. Walking about the city
was not pleasant. Strangers were too conspicuous and the
people did not mind showing their distaste of our presence.
However we saw some heart-rending but quite character-
istic sights. I remember a woman sitting beside a large
pottery jar which had to be set into a niche in the hillside,
no doubt the spot which the Fengshui man had told her
was auspicious as a burial place, for the jar contained her
husband's bones sent back from some far land, and if her
grief was not genuine I never saw any that was. China is
a land of poverty and sorrow yet the sturdy good qualities
of her people have kept her a great nation for a greater
length of time than any other nation on earth has been
able to survive.
Poor criminals standing in tall tripods with the tips of
their toes resting on bricks — the penalty being that if they
kicked one over they would strangle — were a frequent
56 Naturalist at Large
sight and no one even paused to throw a glance their way.
We were told that the previous Tao Tat, not the present
incumbent who came to meet Mr. Russell, for he seemed
to be a kindly old gentleman, had often snipped off crim-
inals' eyelids and then blew quicklime into their eyes before
they were put into the tripod. The collar was made large
enough so that their hands could not get to their faces.
Of course everywhere in China at the time of which
I write, criminals were seen walking about wearing the
cangue, a great broad wooden collar, sometimes very
heavy, on which their sins were detailed in large painted
characters.
Mr. Russell spoke mandarin Chinese fluently but the
Tao Tai came from the Province of Fokien and, as our
friend said, had "a thick Fuchow manner of speech," so
that they did not chin glibly one with the other; however,
Mr. Russell gleaned the impression that the old gentleman
had some pirates in a cage uptown and he would gladly
have them trundled down to the beach and have their heads
chopped off for our delectation. Rosamond thought we
could pass this up and I agreed.
We lived on board the boat, which was tied up to the
riverbank. I have no doubt we could have found a Chinese
inn but the city was an extraordinarily stinking and filthy
one, although far from ugly when seen from a distance.
It had obviously been a place of great importance and I
think at one time was the capital of the Province of
Kwangsi. At this time, however, Nanning was the capital.
Unfortunately the river was too low for us to get up there
so, bidding good-bye to our friend, with whom for years
I carried on a desultory correspondence, we slipped back
Wallace and the Dutch East SI
down river to Canton. Thus ended a journey memorable
to be sure, but as different in every fundamental detail
from our voyage to the head of the Irrawaddy as any
journey could possibly be.
CHAPTER VI
Flying Fish and Turtles
F,
ROM NOW ON the reader will hear again and again
of Allison Armour, a friend of many years' standing.
Shortly after the First World War, he converted a small
Swedish tramp steamer into the most luxurious floating
laboratory in the world, and renamed her the Utoiuana.
He did this primarily to aid his friend David Fairchild in
transporting useful plants for introduction into the United
States. Happily on several occasions he asked me and my
family to go along and to add zoological collecting to the
botanical work.
On one of these voyages I had a unique opportunity of
observing flying fish. The Utoivana was anchored off
Mathewstown on Watlings Island, or San Salvador. Allison
and I entered one of the ship's launches to go to a cay off
the north end of the island where iguana lizards were said
to be found. Where the yacht lay at anchor it was per-
fectly calm, but when we got clear of the point an enor-
mous oily swell was rolling. We were running along with
the swell abeam. Now we would be running aloncr the
crest of one of the great rollers and the next moment be
in the trough. On these occasions we could look right into
the great clear swells as they loomed up on each side of
the launch.
All of a sudden the water broke and a couple of flying
fish, frightened by some larger fish which I never saw,
4
Photo by Allison Armour
Utoii\mc! in Port Castries Harbor, St. Lucia
Three deep-sea fish drawn by Alexander Agassiz
Flying Fish a?jd Turtles 59
flew directly across the launch, right before my eyes. Had
I known the fish were coming, I could have caught them
with a net or touched them with my outstretched hand. I
had thus an unrivaled opportunity to kill once and for all
the notion that they move their fins in flying. As is well
known, this has been a moot point amongst naturalists,
though it never should have been. No flight muscles are
revealed on dissection of the fish, yet the fact that their
fins do move has been insisted on time and time again. I
have watched them on so many hundreds of occasions that
I believe the observational error is to be explained in this
wise: The wings are very thin and delicate and sometimes
when flying fish are chased out of water and there is a
good sharp breeze blowing, their wings appear to move,
being caused to flutter by the angle at which the fish takes
the wind. Flying fish fly most freely in fairly calm weather.
I imagine that then they are swimming nearer to the sur-
face. In a heavy storm I have never seen fish fly at all. Once
I saw one caught in the air by a canary-yellow dolphin fish,
which rose at least three feet out of water to snap up its
prey.
It was in the Bahamas on another occasion that I saw an
interesting sight. A giant loggerhead turtle, floating lazily
on the surface, would swim up to and gulp down Portu-
guese men-of-war, or Physalias, which were floating about
abundantly. The old turtle would ease up to the Physaha,
close his eyes, and make a snap for it. I suspect that the
hard, horny jaws and the tough skin were impervious to
the painful stinging caused by the nettle cells of the Si-
phonophore's tentacles, but that probably the tender skin
60 Naturalist at Large
about its eyes offered no such protection and the blind
gulps were to protect these areas.
The loggerhead, not being fit to eat, is still an abundant
sea turtle all through the West Indian area. Green turtles
have grown scarce because they have been hunted so
constantly. They are brought to Limon in Costa Rica for
shipment to the aldermen's feasts in London, being carried
in individual tanks on the forward deck of the Fruit liners
crossing the ocean. Kindhearted persons often are hurt by
seeing the turtles kept lying on their backs. They little
realize that if they were kept lying plastron down, which
would be their natural position, they would soon die, the
lower shell being weakly constructed and incapable of
long supporting the weight of the turtles. I am sure this
would not apply to small individuals, but I have been in-
formed by many turtlers that it is dangerous to leave big,
heavy turtles on their stomachs for very long.
Once, climbing up a high cliff overlooking clear, still
water along the shore of New Providence Island, I fright-
ened two turtles which had been grazing on seaweeds on
the bottom quite close to shore. One was a green turtle
and one a so-called Ridley, another species altogether. Both
turtles raced away, the green turtle quite deliberately and
the Ridley with an astounding burst of speed. My friend
Dr. Archie F. Carr, Jr., of the University of Florida, who
is an authority on turtles, has noticed this same fact on a
number of occasions, and he tells me that, unlike all other
sea turtles, the Ridley when brought ashore snaps about
in such a blind rage that it tires itself out and would
probably fidget and worry itself to death in a short time
if allowed to do so. Sea turtles are fascinating critters
Flying Fish and Turtles 61
and It is a pity that the demand for tortoise shell has
brought one magnificent animal as close to extinction as
the delicacy of its flesh has brought another.
Georgetown, Grand Cayman, which we visited on sev-
eral occasions, is the center of the green-turtle industry.
The Cayman Islanders are expert boatbuilders, and their
fast-sailing schooners comb the cays of British Honduras
and Nicaragua, turtling for soup meat. I have been told
that most of the turtles are caught with a bullen, an iron
hoop to which is attached a deep net. The schooner
anchors. The small boats set out with one man to scull in
the stern and another in the bow peering down into the
clear water with a bucket having a glass bottom, called
a water glass. When a green turtle is spied resting on the
bottom the bullen is let down as close to it as possible, a
rope being attached to the apex of the net. The instant the
iron ring strikes bottom the turtle gives a surprised leap
upward, pushes its four fins out through the coarse mesh
of the net and, thus entangled, may be drawn to the sur-
face. Turtles, of course, are also "pegged" with a harpoon
having a little head which comes loose, with a line at-
tached. But this is less satisfactory in that turtles may be
badly injured, hence less likely to survive the long voyage
to market.
They seem pitiful objects, with their great fins folded
across their breasts made fast with a bit of binder twine
rove through holes cut in their flippers. But I suspect that
this really doesn't hurt the turtle very much, as they seem
to pay little attention to much more shocking injuries.
Individuals are often seen that have lost a large part of one
or more flippers, so that in some cases they can swim only
62 Naturalist at Large
with difficulty. This is commonly supposed to be the work
of sharks. But I think it is much more likely that the in-
juries are caused by fighting with other turtles. There is
always great excitement when the turtle schooners come
to Key West. One Cayman vessel will often carry a hun-
dred or more turtles stacked up in its hold. They probably
average 200 pounds apiece and the cargo is a very valuable
one.
I landed one morning from the Utoivana on the Island
of Saona, off the coast of Haiti. It is a rather flat, unin-
teresting little island and I was not prepared for what I
found. I knew that there was a high degree of endemicity
on all these islands around the Haitian coast. I knew, also,
that Saona had never been visited by anyone in search of
reptiles, so I walked around the confines of a small open
garden patch, knowing that this was the sort of terrain
where one might expect to find Ameiva lizards. Lizards
of this genus have a way of splitting up, so novelties may
be expected.
I hunted a long time before I heard a noise in the dead
leaves. Ameiva lizards are anteaters and scratch with their
paws among the leaves, throwing them about in their search
for the insects which may be below them. I approached
the sound as stealthily as possible and could scarcely beUeve
my eyes when I saw a perfectly typical Ameiva, and by
the same token one utterly unlike any which I had ever
seen. I have collected countless numbers of lizards of this
genus. I shot this lizard on April 8, 1934. It was lilac gray
on the back, washed with fawn color on the head and
turning to pale blue on the tail. A black band, beginning
Flying Fish and Turtles 63
with the eyes, ran along the side of the body and the tail,
which was azure blue beneath, while the undersurfaces of
the body were glaucous blue, suffused anteriorly with
cream color. The sides of the head were buff yellow. All
in all, it was one of the most beautiful and strikingly col-
ored reptiles which I have ever seen.
I sent the specimen to Miss Cochran of the National
Museum in Washington, who was writing a herpetology
of the Island of Hispaniola, although I fairly itched to
describe it myself. I realized it was new the second I saw
it, as I have said before, and I asked her if she would name
it for my wife. She not only named this species Ameiva
rosamojidae, but without my knowing it she named the
Ameiva from La Gonave Island for me.
The Haitian peasants are so poor that they will struggle
hard to catch lizards, snakes, frogs, and toads — which they
do not really like to do — if they can sell them for five
cents each, and I mean five cents of a Haitian gourde,
which is only worth fifteen cents to start with. V/e often
had as many as a hundred people collecting for us. In this
way, on the islands that were populated of course, it waa
possible to secure in a few days as much material as a single
person could have gotten during a long stay, so that while
we stopped at innumerable different localities during these
voyages on the Utoivana and never had very much time
at one place, all around Haiti and in the Bahamas we got
big collections. You can do this in Jamaica, but not in Cuba.
We stopped on one occasion at Isle Tortue. I went
ashore in the morning and passed word around that we
would be back in the latter part of the afternoon prepared
to purchase what might be forthcoming, explaining what
64 Naturalist at Large
we wanted. I had a sack of Haitian five-cent pieces on
board the yacht. We found that we got much better re-
sults from our collectors if we ourselves did not stay where
they could watch us. It was so much more fun to stand
and stare at strangers than it was to do anything else that
the temptation was quite overwhelming. But if we went
ashore in the morning and spread the news of what we
were prepared to do, then disappeared on board and
hauled up the gangway, by the middle of the afternoon
we could go ashore and be overwhelmed by a rabble of
men and women, boys and girls, with snakes and lizards
dangling at the ends of dozens of little lassoes which they
fashioned cunningly from shredded palm leaves.
On one occasion a poor old man came up to us with a
gourd full of fat white grubs. These he had dug out of a
rotten palm trunk. I recognized them at once as the larvae
of a big weevil which lives in decayed palm wood. Of
course he brought them feeling sure we would buy so
succulent a dainty, for the Haitians are extremely fond
of these grubs fried. Rosamond was utterly disgusted by
their very appearance and I was not allowed to take them
on board and eat them, which I should have greatly en-
joyed doing. I have no right to complain, however, for
the family did not relish the intimacy with a wide variety
of reptiles which they patiently endured.
CHAPTER VII
The Sea and the Cave
s
*OME of the most delightful incidents of my life have
happened at sea. I recall a still, calm morning off the west
coast of Nicaragua. There was hterally not a breath of
air to stir the surface of the water. And far and wide, scat-
tered to the horizon, were the images of white birds. They
appeared miraged up so that they looked about twice as
big as gulls should be. The answer was soon to see, for
each gull was standing on the back of a basking sea turtle
floating or swimming slowly upon the surface of the ocean.
The effect was extraordinarily lovely, and I have always re-
called it with the greatest pleasure.
A few days later, with the same good weather, we passed
through great swarms of coral-red crabs swimming busily
along the surface of the ocean, as if all bound upon an
important errand.
I often think of the emotion and excitement, which I
suppose has occurred for years and will occur until time
ends, when a naturalist sees an albatross for the first time.
On the wing — and you mighty seldom see them swim-
ming on the surface of the sea — they look entirely unlike
any other bird. Their wings are so long and so sharply
pointed that you hardly see the body at all; you simply
see this great, straight, unbending pair of wings. To see
them at their best the sea should be stormy.
They don't sail the billows as peHcans do, rising and
66 Naturalist at Large
gliding with their wings parallel with the surface of the
water, but they cut and pivot and jibe about as if they
were standing on end more than half the time. Indeed, it
looks as if they stuck the tip of one wing in the water and
used this as a fulcrum as they pivot to swing past the crest
of a wave. On the voyage to South Africa you meet them
shortly after leaving Saint Helena, and for a day or so
before reaching Cape Town you may see great numbers.
They are perhaps even more abundant off Southern Chile,
and if by chance you should pass near the floating carcass
of a whale you will see them in swarms, Hke herring gulls
in the harbor of Key West after a bad cold spell in the
north.
Porpoises are always diverting and, of course, are fa-
miliar to every traveler at sea. But on three occasions we
were extraordinarily thrilled by seeing gigantic schools of
porpoises that behaved m a quite extraordinary manner.
More than one species must have been involved, for once
we saw what I am about to describe off the west coast of
Costa Rica, once near Amboina in the Moluccas, and the
third time nearing the Cape of Good Hope.
On each occasion the sea was calm and still. There may
have been an occasional porpoise rolling lazily, as one is
accustomed to observe them, but on each of these three
mornings the sea became suddenly alive with porpoises —
thousands upon thousands of them, rolling and jumping
high in the air, jumping over one another, past one an-
other, boiling and plunging. There seemed no question but
that they were playing, as I saw no evidence that they
were driving fish before them. After carrying on in this
manner for perhaps half or three quarters of an hour, as if
The Sea and the Cave 67
at a signal the whole school swam off. As they disappeared,
the animals rolled gently in order to breathe, but they
hardly cut the surface of the water.
Another morning I like to tliink about was when the
Utoivana lay anchored off the mouth of the Yaqui River
at the head of the Gulf of Samana in the Dominican Re-
public. The muddy water of the river pushed out into the
clear turquoise-blue water of the Gulf, with the line of
division sharply marked since the dirty fresh water did
not readily mix with the clean salt water of the ocean. An
extraordinary procession patrolled the boundary line. Giant
rays went flying through the water, their great wings flap-
ping, each one as big as the top of a grand piano, and
some larger. They were so near the surface that their
great fins came up into the air as they flapped their way
along, and every once in a while one would leap high and
land with a resounding whack. This kept on pretty much
all day.
One would naturally suppose that they were feeding,
and yet these great fish are normally bottom feeders. With
their protrudable lips they pick up clams or conchs on
the bottom and crush them with their curiously modified,
flat, platelike teeth. In the Oceanarium at Marineland, in
Florida, they had a ray which picked hard clams off the
bottom, and I could hear them crack. The crunch which
ground them up was so powerful that the noise carried
through the plate glass.
It is a pity that the Gulf of Samana is not readily acces-
sible to visitors. It is one of the loveliest spots in the whole
world. On the north side the mountains rise, covered with
a fine green forest. Down the mountain roads the peasants
68 Naturalist at Large
come riding their well-trained bulls laden with heavy packs
to go to market in little towns like Santa Barbara de
Samana — quaint little Old World towns that date back
almost to the time of Columbus.
The other side of the Gulf offers a complete contrast,
for long ago this must have been a flat limestone plain
which has been cut and eroded away to form a labyrinth
of little rocky islands, each one deeply undercut by the
surf, the rocks dripping with orchids and begonias and
great elephant-eared aroids, and beset with tall slender
palms. Their little stalks are strong as a long iron bar
would be, for these palms are old and have stood against
countless hurricanes. There are many caves in these little
islands, in some of which fishermen live in primitive sim-
plicity — a fairyland, if ever there was one.
In 1908 I went as a delegate to the first Pan American
Scientific Congress, held at Santiago, in Chile. Because it
was more convenient in those days, we went to Europe
and sailed from Lisbon to Brazil. Then we visited Monte-
video and Buenos Aires. A theft of jewelry from my wife,
which required us to return to Mendoza to testify, pre-
vented us from crossing the Andes with the American
delegation to the Congress. I had not expected that this
South American journey would afford many zoological
high lights, for it had a political background, but this delay
provided a few which I should like to record.
Everyone deplored the fact that we could not travel
straight through from Buenos Aires to Santiago. The rail-
road, however, was not yet completed. We went by night
from Buenos Aires to Mendoza on the very comfortable
Photo by Fyank White of the American Urchid Society
Dancinsf Girl Orchids recall the market at San Salvador
The Sea and the Cave 69
broad-gauge sleeper, spent a day there, and the following
morning took the narrow-gauge Trans-Andean line. But
everything turned out well. The officials of the railroad
allowed us to ride on the cowcatcher, getting on where the
real rise begins, at Punta de Las Vacas — where I found
two good toads in a small water tank which supplied the
locomotive — and from there riding to the end of the
line on the Argentine side. The railroad wove about, ris-
ing ever higher and higher. To right and to left we had
a splendid panorama of high mountains. The terminus was
at Puente del Inca, where a simple but clean and com-
fortable little bath house had been built in connection
with some hot springs that gushed out near the natural
bridge which gives the place its name. We stayed there
several days. Finding excellent sure-footed mules avail-
able, we took the opportunity to see some of the most
superb mountain scenery in the world and to catch
glimpses of the bird life of the highest elevations of this
southeastern portion of the Andes.
Fitzgerald began his classic ascent of Mount Aconcagua
from the Horcones Valley whence the ascent is steep
and long but fairly direct. In this valley high up on the
hip of the highest mountain in either North or South
America there lies a charming little lake. It is called the
Laguna del Inca, although in all probability no Inca ever
laid eyes on it. The view of this little azure gem of a pond
sparkling in the brilliant sunlight, with the majestic snow-
clad slopes of the great mountain overshadowing it, was
one of the most ineifably lovely views I have ever seen.
I don't know exactly what the altitude of the pond is,
but I suspect it to be about 14,000 feet. I rode up to its
70 Naturalist at Large
shores with the keenest anticipation. On this day I took
the precaution of rolling a stone over on the reins of my
mule — because the day before, high up on a mountain to
the south of Puente del Inca, my mule had walked away
from me down a rocky slope so precipitous that I expected
him to go head over heels at any moment. Luckily our guide
appeared on the scene and spurred his own magnificent an-
imal after my beast lickity gallop down this same slope.
He caught my mule and brought it back to me with a
smile as if he had done nothing, but I had learned my lesson.
On this occasion I was praying under my breath that I
might see a tiny brown lizard about five inches long and
quite nondescript as to form and color. I had happened to
read Fitzgerald's account of climbing Mount Aconcagua
not long before we started for South America and I re-
membered that in the appendix of the book Dr. G. A. Bou-
lenger of the British Museum had described a lizard, which
he called LiolaeTmis fitzgeraldi, and that it came from within
a few hundred yards of where I stood. In the winking of
an eye I spotted one resting on a stone in the sun, but
catching him was quite another matter. I am big and clumsy
— and clumsier still when I am at 14,000 feet above sea level.
My puffs and grunts as I lunged in vain amused Rosamond
and Archie Coolidge hugely. In time patience had its re-
ward and I ended up with seven or eight of the little devils,
which I suspect no one but Fitzgerald and I had ever
caught. This locality may not be the highest spot in the
world where lizards live but it certainly is one of them.
While this chase was going on, the great condors kept
sweeping by in majestic flight. No one of the carrion-eating
birds is so clean-looking and attractive, except possibly the
The Sea and the Cave 71
King vulture of tropical America. There is nothing of the
linpleasant appearance when you see them near by that
marks our turkey buzzards or more particularly the vul-
tures of the Old World, many of which are inexpressibly
loathsome. But it was not the condors which gave us the
greatest thrill but rather the giant hummers. Scientists know
this bird as Fatagona gigas; it is the largest member of that
most numerous family of birds, the Trochilidae. Patagona
does not share the beauty of form and color of most of
the members of this group. It is purely remarkable for its
size — considering that it is a hummingbird — for it is nearly
as big as a robin. Of a dull, rusty gray-brown color, it sits
stupidly perched on sticks and stones, is quite tame, and is
awkward in shape. It is cylindrical in appearance as its rests
with its long wings folded. It may not sound like a very
exciting bird to behold, but it gave me an everlasting thrill.
While our colleagues on the trip had been transported
from railhead to railhead in horse-drawn coaches, we trav-
eled on horseback, reaching the Chilean side on a day
when there was no train. By great good fortune we found
that some of the railway engineers were going down to
Santa Rosa in a gravity car and they took us "down the
hill" with them.
We all sat bunched up on an open platform with noth-
ing to hang onto — and how we jerked as we took the
curves! From Juncal down to Santa Rosa is a vertical drop
of about 10,000 feet: we took it at a rush through tunnels
and over trestles with nothing but a hand brake between
us and the blue. There was a burro on the tracks near the
end of a long tunnel, but we shouted him out of the way
just in time. The engineers had broken all rules in taking
72 Naturalist at Large
us with them, and when at last we were safely down at sea
level, Rosamond and I repaid them in champagne.
The festivities in connection with the Congress at San-
tiago were cordial and extremely well organized, but of
more interest to us was the visit to Valdivia and Corral,
in the south of Chile. Here we succeeded in finding not
only some new fresh-water Crustacea but some extremely
interesting frogs and toads.
One day when we had run out of containers I purloined
Rosamond's sponge bag and filled it with frogs, hung it up
in our room, and went out to buy bottles. I hadn't tied it
up very well and when I got back the floor, furniture,
and walls were liberally besprinkled with tree frogs hop-
ping about and climbing with their little sucking toes over
everything, including the windowpanes. As usual I was
penitent and unpopular, but this didn't catch the frogs.
Don Carlos Reed helped me secure our grand series of
Rhinoderma. This strange little frog has a unique habit, in-
asmuch as the male picks up the eggs as the female lays
them and packs them into the singing pouch in his throat.
Here in due time they develop to the point where, when
he opens his mouth, the little froglets leap forth into free-
dom. The tadpole stage is passed in the male parent's throat
pouch. This frog is confined to southern Chile. Around
Valdivia and Corral, we had some very fruitful collecting,
finding not only lizards and amphibians but some extremely
interesting fresh-water Crustacea as well, including a new
fresh-water crayfish recorded from the most southerly sta-
tion in America.
On our voyage north when we landed at Coquimbo we
were invited to drink a glass of champagne with tlie city
The Sea and the Cave 73
fathers of the old town of La Serena some miles inland.
And while this is one of the driest and most deserty parts
of the world, I spotted a little marsh not far from the in-
land town. As soon as I sipped down the warm sweet
champagne and could make a polite getaway, I skipped
out and found that the marsh was swarming with frogs.
This was all to the good, and I caught a number of them.
A few days later at Pisagua a pen 
