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NATURAL
HI
THE JOURNAL OF THE
AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
VOLUME XXIII
1923
/ 4 3 6 9 1
7 b- I8..3-H
Published bimonthly by
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY-
NEW YORK CITY
1923
An illustrated magazine devoted to the advancement of natural history, the recording
of scientific research, exploration, and discovery, and the development of museum
exhibition and museum influence in education. Contributors are men eminent in these
fields, including the scientific staff and members of the American Museum, as well as
writers connected with other institutions, explorers, and investigators in the several
branches of natural history.
NATURAL HISTORY IS SENT
TO ALL CLASSES OF MUSEUM
MEMBERS AS ONE OF THE
PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP
0>)r
CONTENTS OF VOLUME XXIII
January-February, No. 1
Frontispiece, The Final Restoration of the Warren Mastodon Charles R. Knight opp. 3
Mastodons of the Hudson Highlands. Henry Fairfield Osborn 3
Primitive Fishery Methods in Lake Titicaca R. E. Coker 25
The Voyage of the " Franre " Rollo H. Beck 32
Anthropoid Apes I Have Known W. Henry Shear 44
"The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals" William Beebe 56
"James Hall of Albany" George F. Kunz 59
An Extraordinary Capture of the Giant Shark, Rhineodon Typus E. W. Gudger 62
The Racial Diversity of the Polynesian Peoples Louis R. Sullivan (14
Bolivia's Least-Known Mountain Range Edward W. Berry' 72
A Xew Meteorite from Michigan Edmund Otis Hove y 80
Notes SO
March-April, No. 2
In Pursuit of the Giant Tree Frog G. Kingsley Noble 104
Field Studies of Dominican Tree Frogs and Their Haunts G. Kingsley Noble 117
Modern Mermaids Frederic A. Lucas 122
Flowers and Their Insect Visitors Frank E. Lutz 1 25
The Extinction of Sea Mammals Robert Cushman Murphy 13.5
The Chamois of the Pyrenees V. Forbin 138
White Goats of the Sawtooth Mountains H. E. Anthony 142
The Story of an Eskimo Dog G. Cltde Fisher 155
"Fishing From the Earliest Times" E. W. Gudger 156
The Story of the Crooked Knife Clark Wissler 159
The Lava River Tunnel Ira A. Williams 162
The Haunts of the Emperor Goose Alfred M. Bailey 172
Xatural Root Graftage and the Overgrowth of Stumps of Conifers C C. Pemberton 182
Natural Graftage C. C. Pemberton 184
Notes 192
May-June, No. 3
Frontispiece, Restoration of the Tree-browsing Baluchitheres of Central Asia E. Rungius Fulda 208
The Extinct Giant Rhinoceros Baluchithefium of Western and Central Asia. . . .Henry Fairfield Osborn 208
Some Bird Voices of the Northern Woods Charles MacnAmaha 229
Nature and Human Nature in a Probationary Classroom Lucy Clarke Simonson 239
Man as a Museum Subject Clark Wissler 244
The Buried Past of Mexico Clarence L. Hay 258
Monkeys Trained as Harvesters E. W. Gudger 272
The Buffalo Drive and an Old-World Hunting Practice Robert H. Lowie 280
The Natives of South Africa Robert Broom 283
Jumping " Seeds" Frank A. Leach 295
Notes 301
July-August, No. 4
In the Footsteps of Balboa H. E. Anthony 312
The " Glory of the Sea " Roy Waldo Miner 325
An Old-Time Bone Hunt George Bird Grinnell 329
Maximilian's Travels in the Interior of North America, 1832 to 1834 Vernon Bailey 337
El Vado de los Padres George C. Fraser 344
Fossil Bones in the Ro~k W. D. Matthew 35s
Seasonal Records of Geological Time Chester A. Reeds 370
David Starr Jordan — Naturalist and Leader of Men I. T. Nichols 381
The Ainus (Pictures supplied through the courtesy of Dr. John O. Snyder) 387
Louis Pasteur and His Benefactions to Mankind George F. Ki v;- 39]
Swinging the Net in Southern Florida Herbert F. Schwarz 397
Notes , . 406
September-October, No. 5
Gorillas — Real and Mythical Carl E. Akele y 428
When Snakes Share Food, What is the Sequel? B. T. B. Hyde 448
Snow Worms E. W. Gudger 450
Earthquakes Edmund Otis Hovn 157
The Japanese Earthquake Explained Chester A. Rei i
Louisiana Herons and Reddish Egrets at Home \lvix R. Cahn I7i"i
Navajo Land William Dory 486
Mary Cynthia Dickerson, 1866-1923 50p
Her Life and Personality Maud Slye
Her Unusual Gifts as an Editor John Oliver I.aGorce
Her Studies of Reptiles and Amphibians G. Kingsley Noble
Her Achievements in Popularizing the Knowledge of Trees and Forestry Barrington Moore
Notes 52| i
November-December, No. 6
Trailing the Rhinoceros Iguana G. Kingsley Noble 540
Dogs as Fishermen E. W. Gi dgeh 559
A Wasp That Hunts Cicadas William M. Savin 569
The Treasure House of Spain Edti \ud \V. Berry 576
"The Most Wonderful Plant in the World" FRANK MORTON JoNl - 589
How Elephants Are Mounted Frederic A. Lucas 597
The Department of Fishes, American Museum Bash ford Dean 600
Mounting Horse Skeletons to Exemplify Different Gaits and Actions V K atiif.rinf. Bergi r 616
Notes '. 622
iii
ILLUSTRATIONS
African types, 283-93
Ainus, the, 387-90
Apes, anthropoid, 44-54, 428-46
Beasley, Walter, 616, 617, 620
Birds: — cacique, 318; crow trail, 510; egret, reddish,
470,478,482-85; goose, emperor, 172-81; grouse,
Franklin's, 148; heron, Louisiana, 475, 480, 481;
heron reserve, 414; northern woods, 229-38; owl,
screech, 508; petrel, Peale's, 305; Whitney South
Sea Expedition, 32-40, 305
Bison pound, 281-82
Bolivia's Least-Known Mountain Range, 72-85
Chamois of the Pyrenees, 138-41
Charleston Museum, 415
Chimpanzee, 44, 53, 54
Chubb, S. H., photograph by, 11, 618, 620
Colored Plates — Cicada-killing wasp, opposite 569;
"Glory of the Sea," The, opposite 325; Warren
mastodon, opposite 3
Constable, Mrs. F. A., shell in collection of, 328
Cramer, P. J. S., photograph by, 272
Cronin, photographs by A. M., 283-93
Crooked knife, 159-61
Crossing of the Fathers, The, 344-57
Darien, The, 312-24
Dickerson, Photographs by Mary Cynthia, 508-19
Doubleday, Page & Co., pictures reproduced through
the courtesy of, 507
Earthquake, record of Chilean, 93
Eskimo, 155, 159-61, 178
Eskimo dog, 155
Fishes: — department of, 606-15; dogs fishing, 559,
564, 568; " Fishing from the Earliest Times," 150-
58; Titicaca, fishing devices in Lake, 25-31
Florida, 397-405
Flower-insect relationships, 125-34, 589-96
Fossils: — Agate Quarry, 358-69; Baluchitherium, 208,
225-28; Dinohyus, 365, 368; mastodon, opposite 3,
4-23; Moropus, 364, 36S; "An Old-Time Bone
Hunt," 329-31; rhinoceros, 208-28, 363, 368
Frogs, 104-21, 515
Fulda, E. Rungius, picture by, 208
Fungus wheels, 517
Gamio, Manuel, photographs by, 260, 266-69
Geologic time, seasonal records of, 370-78
"Glory of the Sea," The, opposite 325, 328
Gorilla, 49, 428-46
Graftage, natural, 184-91
Hellebore, false, 511
Heron reserve, 414
Hodge, F. W., photograph by, 346
Horter, F. F., Indian figure by, 250
Ichikawa, Shoichi, wax models by, 256
Indians: — anthropological department, American Mu-
seum, 244-57; bison pound, 281-82; Darien, The,
312-24; Mandan, 342; Mexico, 244, 258-71-
Navajo, 486-504
Insects: — butterfly, monarch, 519; cicada-killer, op-
posite 569, 571-75; cynipids, 295, 300; flowers and
125-34; jumping "seeds," 295, 300; Sphecius
speciosus, opposite 569, 571-75; Venus's flytrap,
captured by, 594
Insect-flower relationships, 125-34, 589-96
Kidder, A. V., photographs by, 264-65
Kittredge, Miss E. M., photograph by, 113
Knife, crooked, 159-61
Knight, Charles R., pictures by, opposite 3, 21, 22, 217,
Lava River Tunnel, 162-69
Lower invertebrates— Conida?, opposite 325, 326-28;
lobster, 512; sea anemones, 513; worms, snow, 450
Lutz, F. E., photographs by, 397 lor,
Mammals: — apes, anthropoid, 44-54, 428-46- bighorn
340, 356, 357; bison, 281-82, 341; chamois of the
Pyrenees, 138-41; chipmunk, 144; cony, 144;
dog, Eskimo, 155; dogs fishing, 559, 564, 568-
elephants, 597-606; gorilla, 428-46, horses, 616-2] ;
mastodon, opposite 3, 4-23; "Monkevs Trained as
Harvesters," 272-7S; rhinoceros, 208-28, 363, 368;
Rocky Mountain goat, 142-54
Maps:— Africa, 431 ; Agate Quarry, 361 ; Baluchitherium,
discovery sites of, 228; British Guiana, 410;
crooked knife, distribution of the, 159; earthquake
zones, 462, 463, 466, 468; Escalante's route, 346;
glaciation in Europe, retreat stages of last, 375;
Lava River Tunnel, 162; mastodon remains in
New York State, distribution of, 7; mastodon,
site of discovery of Warren, 8; rhinoceros, distribu-
tion of, 213
Matterhorn, 383
Mermaids, 122-24
Mexico, 244, 258-71
Mines in Bolivia, old Spanish, 576-85
Navajo Land, 4S6-504
Nets, fishing, 26-9
Orang-utan, 50
Pasteur, Louis, 392-96
Peale, Rembrandt, picture by, 4
Polynesia, 32-42, 64-9
Portraits:— Barbeau, C. M., 257; Capitan, Louis, 420;
Cook, Harold, 362; Cook, James H„ 362; Crom-
well, J. W., 9; Dickerson, Mary Cvnthia, 506;
Haines, William A., 523; Jochelson, Waldemar,
257; Jordan, David Starr, 381; Marsh Expedi-
tion, members of, 329, 331; Maximilian, Prince of
Wied-Neuwied, 337; Pasteur, Louis, 392-96; Peale,
Titian R., 418; Sheak, W. Henry, 44
Quimsa Cruz, 72-85
Reptiles: — iguana, 540-58; lizard, 111, 112; snake.
Ill, 448
Rocky Mountain goat, 142-54
Roosevelt Medal of Honor, 529
Roosevelt Memorials, proposed, 531-32
Royal Palm Park, 397, 399, 402, 403
Santo Domingo, 540-58
Seismograph record, 93
Snow worms, 450
Snyder, John O., photographs supplied by, 387-90
South Africa, natives of, 283-93
Third Asiatic Expedition, 526
Titicaca, fishing devices in Lake, 25-31
Tulip tree, flowers of, 518
Ute Ford, 344-57
Vado de los Padres, El, 344-57
Venus's flytrap, 589-95
Whitney South Sea Expedition, 32-42, 305
Worms, snow, 450
INDEX TO VOLUME XXIII
Names of contributors and articles are set in small capitals
Abel, Othenio, 522
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 522-23
Aeronautics and flying fish, 396
Agate Fossil Quarry, 358-69, 412
Aims, The, 387-90
Akeley, Carl E., Gorillas — Real and Mythical, 428-47
Akelev, Carl E., 95, 301, 428-47, 530, 533
Allen, J. A., 623
American Anthropological Association, 202
American Association of Anatomists, 303
American Association of Museums, 413-14
American Bison Society, 98
American Game Protective Association, 97
American Indian Day, 418-19
American Museum Press, 194
American Xature-Study Society, 197
American Ornithologists' Union, 627
American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists,
629
American Society of Zoologists, 198
Amphibians: — Dickerson's studies of, 514-16; Eryops,
303, 626; "Field Studies of Dominican Tree Frogs
and Their Haunts," 117-21; "In Pursuit of the
Giant Tree Frog," 104-16; Rhinoderma daricinii,
624; toad, spadefoot, 625
Anderson, Rudolph M., 307
Andrews, Roy Chapman, 90, 193, 406, 407, 525
Antelope, 98, 194
Anthony, H. E., In the Footsteps of Balboa, 312-24
Anthony, H. E., White Goats of the Sawtooth Moun-
tains, 142-54
Anthony, H. E., 97, 199, 420-21, 534-35, 623
Anthropoid Apes I Have Known, 44-55
Anthropology, history of the American Museum's
department of, 244-57
Antonius, O., 522
Archeology, European, 92, 199, 200, 419-20, 527-28,
528, 528-29
Arnprior, birds near, 229-38
Australia, 533-34, 625-26, 626-27
Aztec Ruin, 91,201
Bailey-, Alfred M., The Haunts of the Emperor
Goose, 172-81
Bailey", Vernon, Maximilian's Travels in the Interior
of North America, 1832-34, 337-43
Ball, David S., 313, 321
Baluchitherium, 91, 193
Bandelier, Adolph F., 249
Bandits, Chinese, 407, 408
Barbeau, C. M., 257
Barbour, E. H., 363
Barnes, T. Alexander, 302
Barrois, Ch., 528
Beck, Rollo H., The Voyage of the "France," 32-43
Beek, Rollo H., 32-43, 304
Beebe, William, "The Minds and Manners of Wild
Animals," 56-8
Beebe, William, 306, 535
Berger, A. K., Mounting Horse Skeletons to Exem-
plify Different Gaits and Actions, 616-21
Berkey, Charles P., 96, 408, 521, 534
Berry, Edward W., Bolivia's Least-Known Mountain
Range, 72-85
Berry, Edward W., The Treasure House of Spain, 576
"Bibliography of Fishes," 418, 533
Biggs, Hermann M., 99
Birds: — African, 203; American Ornithologists' Union,
627; Arnprior, Ontario, 229-38; Buarremon, 97;
Darien, 318-19; duck, pink-headed, 524; ducks,
destruction of, 305; goose, emperor, 172-81;
grouse, Franklin's, 148; hornbill, 194, 302; Inter-
national Committee for Bird Protection. 421;
" Louisiana Herons and Reddish Egrets at Home,"
470-85; motmots, 91, 418; partridge, swamp, 194;
petrel, Peale's, 304-05; "Some Bird Voices of the
Northern Woods," 229-38; "The Voyage of the
France," 32-43: Whitney South Sea Expedition,
32-43, 97, 304, 627
Bison, l'.U. I'M) S2
Blossom, Mrs. Dudlrv S., '.m
Boaz, Franz, 201-02
Bolivia's 1. east-known MOUNTAIN Range, 72-85
Bondy, William, 530
Boy Seoul Camp Museum, 1 1!»
Boy Scouts, quarters for, H5
British Association for the Advancement of Science,
423
Broken Hill, 533, 627
Broom, Robert, The Natives of South Africa, 283-94
Brown, Barnum, 521, 628
Buffalo Drive and an Old-World Hunting Prac-
tice, The, 280-S2
Burgess, Thornton W., 632
Burden, Douglas, 409
Buried Past of Mexico, The, 258-71
Burroughs, John, 423
Bursam Land Bill, 98, 202
Butler, Sir Harcourt, 623
Cahn, Alvin R., Louisiana Herons and Reddish Egrets
at Home, 470-85
California Academy of Sciences, 195
Camera Club of New York, 95
Capitan, Louis, 200, 419-20
Carnegie Museum, 361, 364-65
Carter, T. D., 98
Chamois of the Pyrenees, The, 138-41
Chapin, James P., 203, 623, 627
Chapman, Frank M., 96, 97, 418, 423. 627
Charleston Museum, 413-14
Chilean earthquake, 92-4
Chiloe, 624
Choate, Joseph H., 523
Christman, Erwin S., 304, 368
Chubb, S. H., 8, 423
Clarke, John M., 530
Cleveland Museum of Natural History, 89-90
Cockerell, T. D. A., 19S, 413, 622
Cockerell, Mrs. T. D. A., 413
Coker, R. E., Primitive Fishery Methods in Lake
Titicaca, 2.5-31
Cold Spring Harbor, 629
Coleman, Lawrence Vail, 413
Conn, H. W., 629
Conover, H. B., 90, 624-25
Conservation International Congress of. 195
Constable, Mrs. F. A., 327-28
Cook, Harold, 362-63, 412
Cook, James H., 359, 362
Copeia, 629
Crossing of the Fathers, The, 344-57
Cunningham, E. A., 193
Daniel, J. F., 306
Darien, The, 312-24, 141
Darwin, Charles, 535-36
Davenport, Charles B., 629
David Starr Jordan, — Naturalist and Leader of
Men, 381-86
Dean, Bashford, The Department of Fishes. American
Museum, 606
Dean, Bashford, 418, 533, 606, 629
Deane, John B., 624
Deming, E. W., 202-03. 41(»
Department of Fishes, American Museum, 606
Deperet, Charles, 520, 528
Deschutes County, lava tunnel in, 162-71
Dickerman, Watson B., 423
Dickerson, Mary Cynthia, 406. 506-19. 629
Dinosaur eggs, 536
Dinosaurs, 98, 192, 536
Dogs as Fishermen, 559
Dory, William, Navajo Land, 4S6-505
Dow, Arthur W., 94
Dunn, E. R„ 629
du Nouv, Pierre Lecomte, 99
du Pont, T. Coleman, 89
Dwight, Jonathan, 627
E \HI Hwi AKEB, 157-61
Earthquakes, 92, 321, 457-69, 622
Eastman, Doctor, 533
Ecuador, 91, 304, 534-35, 623
I !ggs, dinosaur, 536
Elephant, 192-93, 520, :,\\7 605
Entomological Society of America, L98
Escalante, Father, :< 1 1 17
F.skimo, 155, 159-61, 178-79
Exhibits: — basket work, 96; Camera Club of NV«
York, 95; Indian pottery, keramic work based on,
422; Keramic Society of Greater New York. 422;
paintings of E. W. Deming, 202 03; paintings of
!■' <;. Gamarra, 307; paintings of Charles R.
Knight, 111-12; paintings of A. Hvatt Verrill, 411;
Pasteur, 196, 391-96
i
[]
INDEX TO VOLUME XXIII
Expeditions: — Agate Quarry, 3.58-69, 412; Austarlia,
533, 625, 626; British Guiana, 306, 409-10;
Burma, 521, 622; Canadian Arctic, 307; Ecuador,
91, 304, 534-35; European archaeological sites,
92; Faunthorpe Indian Expedition, 193-94, 302-
03, 408-09, 524-25, 622; Fayum, 522; Field
Museum to Honduras, 90, 624-25; Field Museum
to South America, 90; Florida, 397-405; Gala-
pagos Islands, 535; Huntington Survey, Archer
M., 91, 201, 253; Hyde ,B. T. B., 246-47; Indo-
China, 409; Jesup North Pacific, 201-02, 245-46;
Marsh, 329-36: Mexico and Central Amer-
ica, 248-49, 258-71, 312-24, 412-13; Museum
of American Indian, 89: Navajo, 628; N. C.
Nelson, 92, 200; Peru, 249-51; Plains tribes, 251,
253,329-36,337-43; Siwalik Hills, 521, 628; Third
Asiatic, 97, 192, 193, 224-28, 406-08, 525-26, 536,
622; Whitney South Sea, 32-43, 97, 304-05, 627
Extinct Giant Rhinoceros Baluchitherium of
Western and Central Asia, The, 208-28
Extinction or Sea Mammals, The, 135-37
Extraordinary Capture of the Giant Shark,
Rhineodon Ttpus, An, 62-3
Faunthorpe, J. C, 193-94, 203, 302-03, 408-09, 524-
25, 622
"Fiancees du Soleil, Les," 528
Field Museum 90, 624 25
Field Studies of Dominican Tree Frogs axd Their
Haunts. 117-21
Fish:— "Bibliography of Fishes," 119, 533,615; "De-
partment of Fishes, American Museum," 606-15;
" Elasmobranch Fishes." 306; "Extraordinary
Capture of a Giant Shark, Rhineodon Tvpus,"
62T3; "Fishing from the Earliest Tunes." 156-58;
flying fish, 306; "Primitive Fishery Methods in
Lake Titicaca," 25-31; shark, whale, 629-30
Fisher, G. Clyde, The Stoi v ..i an Eskimo Dog, 155
Fisher. G. Clyde, 197, 198, 117, 423, 534, 632
"Fishing from the Earliest Times": A Review,
156-58
Flowers and Their Insect Visitors, 125-34
Flower-insect relationships, 125-34, 5S9-96
Forbin, V., The Chamois of the Pyrenees, 138-41
Forbin, V., 528
Ford, James B., S9, 417-1S
Forshay. E. P., 194
Fossil Bones in ihe Hock, 358-69
Fossils: — Agate Fossil Quarry, 358-69, 111; Australian.
626; Baluchitherium, 91, 193, 208 28; dinosaur
eggs, 536; dinosaur footprint, 98; dinosaur, fore-
runner of horned, 192; Eocene bird, plumage of
an, 413; Fayum, 522: "Fossil Rimes in the
Rock," 358-69; Got,, desert, 90-1, 406-07. 525,
527: Jersey skull. 303; "Mastodons of the Hud-
son Highlands," 3-24; Mexico, 412-13: Nebraska.
358-69. 411. 628; "Old Time Bone Hum
36; "Pakeontologia Sinica," 521-22; Patagonian
skull, 303; Proboscidea, 520: rhinoceros, 91, 193,
20S-2S; Siwalik Hills. 521, 628; Snake Creek, 628;
Wyoming, 97-8, 334-35
Fraser, George C, El Vado de los Padres. 344-57
Fraser, James Earle, 529
Frick, Childs, 412, 412-13, 535
Frick, Mrs. Henry C, 521, 628
Gallatin, Albert, 530
Galton Society, 198
Gamarra, Francisco Gonzales, 307
Came... Manuel, 260, 266-70
Gaspe Peninsula, 623
Geological relief models, 415-16
Geological Society of America, 199
Geology:— earthquakes, 92, 321, 457-69, 624; "Earth-
quakes," 92; "Japanese Earthquake Explained,"
462-69; "James Hall of Albany," 59-61; "Lava
River Tunnel," 162-71; relief models, 415-16;
"Seasonal Records of Geological Time," 370-80;
"The Treasure House of Spain," 576-88
"Glory of the Sea," The, 325-28
Goddard, P. E., 202, 62S
Goodrich, Edwin S., 533
Goodwin, George G., 623
Gorillas — Real and Mythical, 428 17
Gorilla, 47-9, 304, 428-47
Grabau, Dr. A. W„ 521-22
Graftage, natural, 1S2-91
Granger, Walter, 192, 407, 408, 525, 527
Granger, Mrs. Walter, 407
Great Barrier Reef, 627
Gregory, William K., 192, 303, 626
Grinnell, George Bird, An Old-Time Bone Hunt,
329-36
Grinnell, Joseph, 628
Griscom, Ludlow, 627
Gudger, E. W., Dogs as Fishermen, 559-68
Gudger, E. W., An Extraordinary Capture of the Giant
Shark, Rhineodon Typus, 62-3
Gudger, E. W., "Fishing from the Earliest Times:"
A Review, 156-58
Gudger, E. W., Monkeys Trained as Harvesters, 272-79
Gudger, E. W., Snow Worms, 450-56
Gudger, E. W., 198, 41S, 533, 606, 629-30
Guiana, British, 306, 409-11, 411
Gulick, John Thomas, 415-16
Hagedorn, Hermann, 529. 530
Haines, Emily Somers, 423
Haines, William A., 423, 523-24
Hamblin, Jacob, 347-49
Harding, President, 529
Harpswell Laboratory, 631
Harrington, M. R., 89
Harrison, Benjamin, 419
Haunts of the Emperor Goose, The. 172-81
Hay, Clarence L., The Buried Past of Mexico, 258-71
Hay, Clarence L., 248
Hellman, Milo, 202
Hendricks, Harmon W., 89
Henn, Arthur W., 418, 606
Heye, George Gustave, 89
Heye Foundation, 89
Heye, Mrs. Marie Antoinette, 89
Heye, Mrs. Thea, 89
Highlands of the Great Craters, 301-02
Hodge. 1'. W., 89, 317
Hornaday, William T., 48, 56-8
Hovey, Edmund Otis, Earthquakes, 457-61
Hovey, Edmi \i> < Itis, New Meteorite from Michigan,
86-8
Hovey, E. < >., 199, 411. 416, 533. 626-27
H..\\ Elephants \ke Mounted, 597
Hrdlicka, Ales, 303, 304
Huntington, Archer M., 89, 91, 200, 201, 253
Hyde, B. T. B., When Snakes Share Food. What is the
Sequel?, 118-49
Hyde, B. T. B„ 246 17
Irliikawa, Shoichi.
Indians: — Araueanian, 90; Aztec Ruin, 91, 201; "Buf-
falo Drive and an Old-World Hunting Practice."
280-82; " Buried Past of Mexico," 244-57; Darien,
The, 312-24, 411; Deming's paintings of, 202;
Gamarra's paintings of Peruvian, 307; "Man as a
Museum Subject." 244-57; Maximilian, observed
by, 337 43; Museum of American Indian, 89;
Navajo, 186 -505, 628; New Mexican pueblos, 98,
202 Pawnee, 132; "The Story of the Crooked
Knife." 159 61; Thompson, 201 ; quipu, the, 419;
Yen-ill's paintings of, 411
In the Footsteps ..i Balboa, 312-24
In Pursuit of the Giant Tree Frog, 104-16
Insect-flower relationships, 125-34, 589-96
Insects: — Baltimore Group, 630; Boy Scout's work on,
415; captured I >y Venus's fly-trap, 589-96 ; cicada
killer, 569-75; cynipids, 295-300; Florida, south-
ern, 397 Hi".. Gypsy moth, 94-5; jumping
"seeds." 295-300; Sphecius speciosus, 569-75;
ultra-violet flowers, relation to, 97, 125-34
Institutional Class of Public School 9, The Bronx, 96,
239-43
International Committee for Bird Protection, 421
James, Arthur Curtiss, 631
"James Hall of Albany — A Review," 59-61
Japanese delegation visits Museum, 196
Japanese Earthquake Explained, The, 462-69
Jersey skull, 303
Jochelson, Waldemar, 2 47, 257
Johnson, Martin, 301
Jones, Frank Morton, "The Most Wonderful Plant
in the World," 589
Jordan, David Starr, 381-86
Jumping "Seeds," 29.5-300
Keith, Miner C, 89
Kidder, A. V, 264-65, 271
Keramic Society of Greater New York, 422
Kerr, J. Graham, 533
Kingsley, John Sterling, 533
Klassen, Stephen, 194
Knight, Charles R„ 411-12
Kinz, George F., "James Hall of Albany — A Review,
59-61
Kunz, George F., "Louis Pasteur and His Benefac-
tions to Mankind," 391-96
Kunz, George F., 99, 195, 196
La Gorce, John Oliver, Mary Cynthia Dickerson
Her Unusual Gifts as an Editor, 509-14
INDEX TO VOLUME XXIII
III
Lang, Herbert, 306, 623
Lapps, hunting practice of the, 2S0-82
Lava River Tunnel, The, 162-71
La Varre. William J., 306
Leach, Frank A., Jumping "Seeds," 295-300
"Lee Axworthy," 423, 616-21
Leidy, Joseph, 522-23
Library Gifts to the American Museum, 196-97, 417-18
Liebert, Gaston, 99
Lion, Indian, 193, 524
Locke, L. Leland, 419
Lorenson, K., 412
Louisiana Herons and Reddish Egrets at Home,
470-85
Louis Pasteuh and His Benefactions to Mankind,
391-96
Lowe, Willoughby, 622
Lower invertebrates: — British Guiana, 306-07; Cana-
dian Arctic Expedition, 307; Conida?, 325-28
"Glory of the Sea," The, 325-2S; Peripatus, 306
Pritchard, undersea paintings of Zarh H , 630-31
rotifers, 631; shell collection of the American Mu-
seum, 95; snow worms, 450-56: Terebratulina, 631
Lowie, Robert H., The Buffalo Drive and an Old-
World Hunting Practice, 280-82
Lucas, Frederic A., How Elephants are Mounted,
597-605
Lucas, Frederic A., Modern Mermaids, 122-24
Lucas, F. A., 99, 196, 414, 422, 534
Lumholtz, Carl, 248
Lutz, Frank E., Flowers and Their Insect Visitors,
12.5-34
Lutz, Frank E„ 97, 198, 397-405, 414, 630
McAtee, W. L., 628
McGregor, J. H„ 97, 626
Macnamara, Charles, Some Bird Voices of the
Northern Woods, 229-38
Maharaja of Mysore, 193
Mammals: — antelope, pronghorn, 98, 194; AUeno-
pithicus, 623; "Anthropoid Apes I Have Known,"
44—55; bison, 194; "Buffalo Drive and an Old-
World Hunting Practice, 280-82; Burma, 524-25;
C&nolestes, 623; "Chamois of the Pvrenees," 138-
41; cony, 143-44; Congo, 623; Darien, The, 319:
deer, Schomberg, 622; "Dogs as Fishermen,"
559-68; Ecuador, 91, 534-35, 623; elephant,
pygmv, 11*2-93; "Extinction of Sea Mammals,"
135-37; Gaspe Peninsula, 623; gorilla, 304, 12s
47: "Gorillas — Real and Mythical," 428-47;
"Highlands of the Great Craters," 301-02; How
to Mount Elephants," 597-605; Indian, 193-94,
302-04, 40S-09, 524-25; Johnson's pictures of
African, 301; marine, 195; martin, Siberian, 624;
"Mastodons of the Hudson Highlands." 3-24:
.Maximilian, observed by, 337-43; "Minds and
Manners of Wild Animals," 56-S; "Monkeys
Trained as Harvesters," 272-79; "Mounting
Horse Skeletons to Exemplify Different Gaits and
Actions," 616-21; Osbornictis piscivora, 623: Putin,
535, 624 ; (rhinoceros, 208-28, 409, 525 : " The Story
of an Eskimo Dog," 155: Shackleford's pictures of
Mongolian, 301; "White Goats of the Sawtooth
Mountains," 142—54
Mammals, Close of the Age of, 97, 420-21
Man as a Museum Si bject, 244—57
Marsh, Prof. O. C, 329-36
Marshall, William S., 198
Marvin, Doctor, 419
Mary Cynthia Dickerson:
Her Life and Personality, 506-09
Hi .r I'm suae Gifts as an Editor, 509-14
Her Studies of Reptiles and Amphibians, 514-
16
Her Achievement in Popularizing the Knowl-
edge of Trees and Forestry-, 516 ig
Mastodons of the Hudson High lands, opposite 3, 3-24
Matley, C. A., 199
Matsumoto, Hikoshichiro, 522
M vi TiiF.w, W. I).. Fossil Bones in the Rock, 358-69
Matthew, W. D., 97, L92, 199, 412, 533, 627
Maximilians Travels in* the Interior of Xohth
America, 337-43
Maxwell Training School for Teachers, 534
Maxwell. William Ji . 117
Mayor, Alfred G., 629
Mayor, Mrs. Allied <;., 629
Miller, Paul. 97
Miller, W. DeW., 627
Mills, John, 629
Mills, ( Igden, 196, 417
"Minds \m> M \wkhs of Wild Animals," 56 8
Miner, Roy Waldo, The "Glory of the Sea," 325-2S
Miner, Hoy W., 95, 303, 631
Modern Mermaids, 122-24
Monkeys Trained as Harvesters, 272-79
Moore, Barrington, Mary Cynthia Dickerson: Her
Achievement in Popularizing the Knowledge of
Trees and Forestry, 516
Morris, Earl H., 91, 201, 253
Morris, Frederick K., 408, 534
Morton. Dudlev J., 304
" Most Wonderful Plant in the World," 589
Motion pictures, 193, 301, 416
Mounting Horse Skeletons to Exemplify Differ-
ent Gaits and Actions, 616
Mowbray, L. L., 629-30
Municipal Engineers, annual meeting of, 197
Murphy, Robert Cushman, The Extinction of Sea
Mammals, 135-37
Murphy, Robert Cushman, 97, 195, 627
Museum of the American Indian, 89, 262, 347
Myers, Frank J., 631
National Academy of Sciences, 96
National Association of Audubon Societies, 96
National Educational Association, Viewing Committee
of, 416-17
Natives of South Africa, The, 2S3-94
Natural Graftage, 184-91
Natural History Museum of Brussels, 527
Natural Root Graft and the Overgrowth of
Stumps of Conifers, 182-83
Nature and Human* Nature in a Probationary
Classroom, 239-43
Naumburg, Mrs Elsie M. B., 627
Navajo Land, 486-505
Nelson, N. C, 92, 199. 202, 254, 527, 529
New-Anthony Bill, 97
New Meteorite from Michigan", A., 86-8
"New Order of Sainthood," 195-96
New York Training School for Teachers, 197, 534
New York Zoological Society, 47, 48, 49, 56-8, 192-93
Ngorongoro, 302
Nichols, Henry J., 99
Nichols, J. T., David Starr Jordan — Naturalist and
Leader of Men, 381-S6
Nichols, John T., 606, 627, 629
Noble, G. Kingsley, Field Studies of Dominican Tree
Frogs and Their Haunts, 117-21
Noble, G. Kingsley, In Pursuit of the Giant Tree
Frog, 104-16
Noble, G. Kingsley, Mary Cynthia Dickerson: Her
Studies of Reptiles and Amphibians, 514-16
Noble, G. Kingsley, Trailing the Rhinoceros Iguana,
540
Noble, G. Kingslev, 303, 629
Noble. Mrs. Ruth Crosby, 197, 534
Noguchi, Hidevo, 99
Nolan, Claude, 629-30
"Noma," 53."
Oldroyd, Ida S., 95
Old-Time Bone Hunt, An, 329-36
Olsen, Chris., 631
Olsen, George, 97
Ontario, birds near Arnprior, 229-38
Operti, Albert, 631
Ortenburger, Arthur I., 625
Osborn, A. Perry, 530
Osborn, Henry Fairfield, Extinct Giant Rhinoceros
Baluchitherium of Western and Central Asia,
The, 208-28
Osborn, Henry Fairfield, Mastodons of the Hudson
Highlands, opposite 3-24
Osborn, Hem v Fairfield, 92, 97, 98, 99, 192, 193, 195,
200, 303, 406, 408, 411, 412, 415. 420, 423, 520,
522, 524, 525, 527, 528, 529, 530, 533, 622, 623
Osborn, Mrs. Henry Fairfield, 99, 622
Osborn Library and Research Rooms, 411
Osgood, Wilfred II., 90, 624-25
"Palseontologia, Sinica," 521
Pala'ontologiM'lie (icsellsrliait, 522
Palmer, T. 8., 628
Pan Pacific Scientific Congress, 533, 627
Pasteur, Louis, 99, 195, 391-96
Patagonian skull, 303
Peale, Titian R„ 4, 417
Pearson, T. Gilbert, 96, 421
['Emberton, C. C, Natural Graftage, 184-91
Pembebton, C. C, Natural Root Graft and the Over-
growth of Stumps of Conifers, 182 S3
Philadelphia Zoological Garden. 16 7
Pompeckj, J. F , 522
I' , Clifford 11., 407-0S
I'oi i Elizabeth Museum. 1 1 I
Potter, Howard, 523
IV
INDEX TO VOLUME XXIII
Powell, Major, 351
Primitive Fishery Methods in Lake Titicaca, 25-31
Pritchard, Zarh, H., 630-31
Quipu, the, 419
H lcial Diversity of the Polynesian Peoples, The,
64-71
Ramsey, Mrs. Grace Fisher, 534
Raven, H. C, 46, 625-26
Reading, Lord, 193, 623
Reeds, Chester A., The Japanese Earthquake Ex-
plained, 162-69
Reeds, Chester A., Seasonal Records of Geologic
Time, 370-80
Reeds, Chester A., 94, 199, 416, 528, 534, 027
Reichert, Gladys \ . 628-29
Reptiles: — Gila monster, 025; iguana, 315, 540-5S;
lizards, 112; Mary Cynthia Dickerson's studies of ,
514-16; snakes, 448-49, 625-26
Reviews: — " Elasmobranch Fishes," 306; "Evolution
of the Human Foot," 304; "Les Fiancees du
Soleil," 528; "Fishing from the Earliest Times,"
156-5S; •Mames Hall of Albany," 59-61; "Minds
and Manners of Wild Animals," 56-8; "La Pre-
histoire,"200; " Piltdown Jaw," 304; "Storyofan
Eskimo Dog," 155
Reyes, Miss, 413
Richardson, William B., 313
Roosevelt Medal of Honor, 529-30
Roosevelt Memorial Association, 421 22. 529
Roosevelt Memorial Commission, meeting of. 530-32
Rosenshine, Assemblyman, 631
Royal Palm State Park, 398-404
Russ, Mrs. Zipporah, 631-32
Rust, D. D„ 347
Rutherford, Sir Ernest, 423
Rutot, A., 527
Sanborn, C. C, 90, 625
Save the Redwoods League, 631
Saville, M. 11., 89, 248
Savin, William M., A Wasp that Hunts Cicadas, 569
S huyler, Miss Louisa Lee, 529
Schwabz, Herbert F , Swinging the Net in Southern
Florida, 397-405
Seasonal Records of Geologic Time, 370 mi
Set on, Ernest Thompson, 90
Seymour, Edward, 98
Shackleford, J. B., 192, 193, 301
Shear, W. Henry, Anthropoid Apes I Have Known,
44-55
Shell collection of American Museum, 95, 325 28
Sherwood, George H., 194, 197, 301
Simonson, Lucj Clarke, Nature and Human Nature
in a Probationary Classroom, 239-43
Slye, Maud, Mary Cynthia Diekerson: Her Life and
Personality, 506-09
Smith, Col. E. Percy, 02l>
Snakes, 111, 44s 19
Snow worms, 450-56
Some Bird Voices of the Northern Woods, 229-38
South Africa, natives of, 283-94
Southmayd, Emily 1\. 117
Spinden, Herbert L„ 98, 248, 254
Staten Island Park Area, 534
Stefansson, Vilhjalmur, 307
Stewart, George D., 99
Stewart, John Wood, 631
Stockley, Major C. H., 622
Story of the Crooked Knife, The, 159-61
Story of an Eskimo Dog, The, 155
Straubenmtiller, Gustave, 534
Stunkard, Horace W., 198
Sullivax, Louis R., The Racial Diversity of the Poly-
nesian Peoples, 64—71
Sullivan, L. R., 419
Swinging the Net in Southern Florida, 397-405
Tacarcuna, Mt., 310, 320-22
Tate, G. H. H., 91, 304, 535, 023
Tefft, Charles Eugene, 417
Teit, James A., 201
Third Asiatic Expedition, 97, 192, 193,406-08,224-28,
525-26, 536, 624
Thompson, Col. William Bovce, 530
Thomson, Albert, 302, 412, 628
Titicaca. primitive fishery methods in Lake, 25-31
Tower, Ralph W., 194
Trailing the Rhinoceros Iguana, 540
Treasure House of Spain, The, 576
Trowbridge, Breek, 533
Upjohn, Charles B., 422
Ute Ford, 344-57
Yado de los Padres, El, 344-57
Vanderbilt, Mrs. William K., 631
Van Name, Willard G., 306
Venus's fly-trap, 589-96
Vernav, A. S., 191. 2(13. 302-03, 40S-09, 524-25, 622-23
\ .mil, A. Hyatt, 411
Viceroy of India, 193, 023
\ letting Committee of the National Educational Asso-
ciation, 410-17
Vivar, Senor, 413
\ OYAGE OF THE "FRANCE," The, 32-43
Warburg, Bel una, 631
Warburg, Paul M., 631
Ward, A. I... 327
Wasp that Hunts Cicadas, A. 509 75
Watkins, Harry, 91
W,,t -on. F. E., 630
Webb, Walter F., 327
Wet more, Alexander, 627
Wheeler, William Morton, 203
Whin Sn \kes Share Food, What is the Sequel?
448-49
White Goats of the Sawtooth Mountains, 142-54
Whitney South Sea Expedition, 32-43, 97, 304-05. 027
Wickenheiser, H. E., 91
W ild flowers of New York, 632
Williams, Harrison, 535
Williams, Ira A., The Lava River Tunnel, 162 71
W inslow, C.-E. A., 99
W issler. Clark, Man as a Museum Subject, 244-57
W i-sIER, Clark, The Story of the Crooked Knife. 159
61
Wissler. Clark, 96, 202
W ood, General Leonard. 529
Worms, snow, 450-56
Wunder, Charles, 630
NATURAL
TORY
LJ
THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM
DEVOTED TO NATURAL HISTORY.
EXPLORATION, AND THE DEVELOP-
MENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
THROUGH THE MUSEUM
JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1923
[Published February, 1923]
Volume XXIII, Number 1
Copyright, r.iL':t. by the American Museum of Natural Historj \.« York, N. Y.
TURAL HISTORY
Volume XXIII CONTENTS FOR JANUARY-FEBRUARY Number J
Frontispiece, The Final Restoration of the Warren Mastodon opp. 3
From a painting executed by Mr. Charles P. Knight in 1908, under the direction of Prof. Henry Fairfield
• 'shorn
Mastodons of the Hudson Highlands Henry Fairfield Osborn 3
With special reference to the romance of the Warren Mastodon in the American Museum, told for the
first time in its completeness
Illustrations of skeletal remains and reconstructions of mastodons, as well as maps of discovery sites in
New York State
Primitive Fishery Methods in Lake Titicaca R. E. Coker 25
Century-old devices employed by the Indians ti> trap and rapture fish
With original photographs and diagrams
The Voyage of the "France " Rollo H. Beck 32
A later-day trip to the scene of the "Bounty" mutiny
With illustrations of the bird life on the islands of the South Pacific
Anthropoid Apes I Have Known W. Henry Sheak 44
Personal experiences with animals of the circus and of the menagerie
Photographs of certain well-known performing apes
"The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals" William Beebe 56
A review of the new book by William T. Hornaday
"James Hall of Albany " George F. Kunz 59
A review of the recent volume by John M. Clarke
With an autographed photograph of .lames Hall
An Extraordinary ( !apture of the Giant Shark. Rhineodon Typus
E. W. Gudger 62
How a thirty-foot fish was caught on the bow of a 17,000-ton steamer
With a picture of the actual occurrence
The Racial Diversity of the Polynesian Peoples Louis R. Sullivan 64
An attempt to determine the elements that enter into the mixed population of Polynesia
With portraits of individuals representing the principal types
Bolivia's Least-Known Mountain Range Edward W. Berry 72
A trip on mule-back to the Quimsa Cruz
With original pictures of the mountain scenery of the region
A New Meteorite from Michigan Edmund Otis Hovey 86
An interesting celestial visitor, the largest fragment of which lias been lent to the American Museum by
Mr. P. W. A. Fitzsimmons
With an illustration of the specimen
Notes 89
Published bimonthly, by the American Museum of Natural History, New Vork, N. Y.
Subscription price $3.00 a year.
Subscriptions should be addressed to George F. Baker, Jr., Treasurer, American Museum of
Natural History, 77th St. and Central Park West, New York City.
Natural History is sent to all members of the American Museum as one of the privileges of
membership.
Entered as second-class matter April 3, 1919, at the Post Office at New York, New York,
under the Act of August 24, 1912.
Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of
October 3, 1917, authorized on July 15, 1918.
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NATURAL HISTORY
Volume XXIII
JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1923
Number I
1
Mastodons of the Hudson Highlands
By HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORX
President of The American Museum of Natural History
( )ne of the greatest treasures of the American Museum is the unrivaled skeleton of the fossil
proboscidean known as the Warren Mastodon. The present article gives the fullest and
most authentic history of this specimen which has ever been published, thanks to the testimony
of several eyewitnesses who have kindly written to the author and to others.
THE Warren Mastodon, found
in 1845, was the fifth in a series
of discoveries of mastodon skele-
tons, beginning with Peale's first skele-
ton of 1799, which like the Warren-
Mastodon was found in Orange
County, New York. The first refer-
ence to mastodons along the Hudson
was. however, as early as 1705.
The following table relative to early
discoveries of the mastodon has been
compiled from The Mastodon Giganteus
of North America, which Dr. John
Collins Warren published in 1852:
1705. — First mention of finding masto-
don remains near Albany.
1714. — First published account of two
teeth and a thigh bone found
at Claverack, on the Hudson,
thirty miles south of Albany.
1799-1801. — Peale's first skeleton, found on
John Masten's farm, Orange
County, New York. See
Warren, Plate I, upper left-
hand figure. Exhibited in
London; in Peale's Museum,
Philadelphia; and then dis-
appeared.
L802. Peale's second skeleton, ••Balti-
more Skeleton," purchased by
Doctor Warren in 1848, dis-
mantled. A very large jaw,
described by Doctor Warren.
See Warren, Plate I, upper
right-hand figure.
1840-43. — Koch's " Missourium," a com-
posite of several specimens
found near Kimmswick, Mis-
souri. Remounted bv Richard
Owen, in the British Museum.
See Warren, Plate I, lower
right-hand figure.
1844-45. — "Cambridge mastodon," found
near Hackettstown, Warren
County, New Jersey, twenty
miles from Newark. See
Warren, Plate I, lower left-
hand figure.
1N44. "Shawangunk Skull," found
near Scotchtown, Orange
County, New York; now in the
American Museum, Warren
Col lection.
1845. — The Warren Mastodon in the
American Museum, found on
the Brewster Farm, Orange
County, New York. See War-
ren Memoir, Vignette; also
Plate I, center figure; also
Plates IV to XXV.
Iii An Outline History of Orange Co.,
by Samuel W. Eager, published in
1846-47, only a year after the dis-
covery of the Warren Mastodon, is
found the following quaint narrative of
the succession of discoveries in Orange
County, and an interesting reflection
of the scientific opinions of the middle
of the nineteenth century.
"Wecannol . without disrespect to the
memory of a lost but giant race, and
slighting the widespread reputation
of old Orange as the mother of the most
perfect and magnificent specimens of
terrestrial animals, omit to tell of the
mastodon. ( Jontemplating his remains
as exhumed from their resting place for
unknown ages, we instinctively think
of his great and lordly mastery over the
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MASTODONS OF THE HUDSON HIGHLANDS
beasts — of his majestic tread as he
strode these valleys and hill-tops — of
his anger when excited to fury — stamp-
ing the earth till trembling beneath his
feet — snuffing the wind with disdain,
and uttering his wrath in tones of
thunder, — and the mind quails beneath
the oppressive grandeur of the thought,
and we feel as if driven along by the
violence of a tornado. When the pres-
sure of contemplation has subsided
and we recover from the blast, we
move along and ponder on the time
when the mastodon lived, — when and
how he died, and the nature of the
catastrophe that extinguished the race;
and the mind again becomes be-
wildered and lost in the uncertainty of
the cause. Speculation is at fault, and
our thoughts wander about among the
possible accidents and physical agents
which might have worked the sudden
or lingering death of this line of ter-
restrial monarchs.
''Upon these subjects, wrapt in the
deep mystery of many ages, we have
no fixed or well-considered theory; and
if we had, the limits of our paper would
forbid us to argue it up before our
readers, and argue down all hostile
ones. But we may briefly enquire,
whether the cause of the death and
utter annihilation of the race, was one
great overwhelming flood which sub-
merged the earth and swept down these
animals as the^y peacefully and un-
suspiciously wandered over the plains
and hills around us. Or was it some
earthquake convulsion, full of sudden
wrath, which tore up its strong founda-
tions and buried this race among the
uplifted and subsiding mass of ruins;
or was it some unusual storm, black
with fury and terrible as the tornado,
which swept the wide borders of these
grounds, and carried tree and rock
and living mastodon in one unbroken
stream to a common grave, or was it
tfae common fate of nations, men and
every race of created animals of water,
land or air, which overtook and laid the
giants low? that by the physical law of
their nature, the decree of heaven, the
race started into being— grew up to
physical perfection and having ful-
filled the purpose assigned by their
creation, by a decrease slow, but sure
as their increase, degenerated in
number, and gradually died away and
became extinct . ( )r was it some malig-
nant distemper, fatal as the Egyptian
murrain, which attacked the herd in
every locality of this wide domain —
sending its burning poison to their very
vitals — forcing them to allay an in-
satiate thirst and seek relief in the
water ponds around them, and there
drank, and drank, and died? Or was
it rather, as is the general belief in this
community, that individual accident,
numerous as the race, befell each one,
and in the throes of extrication sank
deep and deeper still in the soft and
miry beds where we now find their
bones reposing?
"We have thus briefly laid before our
readers all the causes which we have
heard assigned for this remarkable,
ancient, and wide-spread catastrophe,
and leave them to the speculation of
others, while we wait for time and the
developments of geology to uncover the
cause.
"But when did these animals live
and when did they perish, are questions
equally wrapt in profound mystery,
and can be answered only when the
true cause of their death is found. In
the meantime we ask, were they pre-
Adamites, and did they graze upon the
fields of Orange and bask in the sun-
light of that early period of the globe? —
or were they antediluvian, and carried
to a common grave by the deluge of the
Scriptures? — or were they postdiluvian
only, and till very recent periods wan-
dered over our hills and fed in these
valleys; and that now some wandering
lord of the race, an exile from the land
of his birth on the banks of the great
father of waters, is gone in silence and
melancholy grandeur to lay himself
down and die in the yet unexplored
regions of the continent? On the points
of vital interest in solving the .meat
question of time and mode of death,
we hazard no conjecture. Among
geologists the opinion is fast gaining
ground, that the epoch of the appear-
ance of the mastodon on earth wasaboul
the middle of the tertiary period, —
and that he was here ages before
6
NATURAL HISTORY
man was created, — that before that
epoch warm-blooded terrestrial animals
had not appeared. The period of their
extinction is thought to be more doubt-
ful, but probably was just before the
creation of the human race. — Geolo-
gists think there is no evidence
sufficient to establish the fact that man
and the mastodon were contemporary. —
Time and further investigation may
explain the mystery.1
WHEN FIRST FOUND
"The remains of the mastodon were
fir t found in this State, near Albany,
probably as early as 1705, as appears
from the letter of Gov. Dudley to Ihe
Rev. Cotton Mather, of July 10, 1 706—
a copy of which is furnished and
worth reading.2 The accounts which
state it to have been in 1712 are errone-
ous— taking, probably the date of
Cotton Mather's letter (of that date)
upon this subject to Dr. Woodward, as
the date of the finding. They were
next found by Longueil. a French
officer, on the Ohio River, in 1739. In
1740 large quantities were found at
Big Bone Lick, in Kentucky, carried to
France and there called the "Animal
of the Ohio." Since which many have
been found in various parts of the
Union.
"No locality,3 except the Big Bone
Lick, has contained a greater number of
these remains than Orange County.
The first were discovered in 1782,
about three miles south of the village
of Montgomery, on the farm now
owned by Mr. Foster Smith. These
bones were visited by Gen. Wash-
ington and other officers of the army
while encamped at Newburgh in
1782-3. The Rev. Robert Annan,
who then owned the farm, made a
publication at the time, describing the
bones, locality, etc., which caused Mr.
Peale subsequently to visit this
county.
"In 1794 they were found about five
miles west of the village of Mont-
'The reader is referred to an article entitled "Did the
Indian Know the Mastodon?" by Jay L. B. Taylor,
Natural History, 1921, pp. 591-97; also to the
article by William B. Scott "On American Elephant
Myths," Scribner's Magazine, 1887, p. 469.
2This letter is not reproduced in the present article.
rRemains indicating 300 animals were found at
Kimmswick, Missouri.
gomery, just east of the residence of
Archibald Crawford, Esq., and near the
line of the Cochecton turnpike. In
1800 they were found about seven
miles northeast from Montgomery, on
or near the farm of Dr. George Graham.
In 1803, found one mile east of Mont-
gomery, on the farm now owned by Dr.
Charles Fowler. These were the bones
dug out by Mr. Peale of Philadelphia.
in 1805 or 6, — and the writer, then a
boy at school in the village, saw the
work in progress from day to day. In
1838 a tooth was found by Mr. Daniel
Embler, of Newburgh, on or near the
farm of Samuel Dixon, Esq., of that
town. In 1844, found eight miles
southwest from Montgomery, on the
farm of Mr. Conner, near Scotchtown,
in Wallkill. In 1845, found about seven
miles east of Montgomery, on the farm
of Nathaniel Brewster, Est}.; and, in
the same year, on the farm of Jesse C.
Cleve, Esq., in Hamptonburgh, about
t welve miles southeast of Montgomery.
They were also found in the town of
Goshen some years since, but the time
and locality we do not know. There
have been at least a dozen findings of
t hese bones in the ( lounty. From these
enumerations it would appear as if the
village of Montgomery was the center
of the circle of these various findings.
"The animal [the skeleton found on
the farm of Nathaniel Brewster and
subsequently known as the Warren
Mastodon] was supposed to be of
great age — judging from the length and
size of the tusks, and from the fact
that some bones, which in young
animals are separate, in this had grown
firmly together.
POSITION OF THE BONKS WHEN POUND
"Having measured the giant, let us
inspect the place where found, uncover
his resting place and observe his posi-
tion in death. Mr. Brewster was dig-
ging out marl, and his workmen came
upon the skeleton, every bone of which
they succeeded in exhuming. Though
wanting some of the toes of the fore-
foot, we believe they were found and
carried away in the pockets of some
of the earlv visitors. Like all others
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XATCRAL HISTORY
The Warren Mastodon was discovered on
the site marked by the star, in the valley
south of Orange Lake and about two hundred
yards north of the Cochecton Highway at
East Coldenham. The skeleton was at first
known as the Brewster Mastodon because of
the fact that the farm on which the find was
made was the property of one Nathaniel
Brewster, a grandson and namesake of whom
is now the owner of the land. Reproduced
from the Xewburg Quadrangle Topographical
Survey, State of New York, United States
Geological Survey, edition of September, 1903,
reprinted September, 1910
in this County, these were found
in a peat formation, but of very lim-
ited extent, between two slate ridges.
They were six feet beneath the surface
— yet so deep was the peat below that
its bottom could not be reached with
an iron rod of several feet in length.
The animal was thus held in suspen-
sion, and as the spot was wet and
spongy, never dry perhaps from the
time he entered, it caused their perfect
preservation.
"Beginning at the bottom, the fol-
lowing were deposits which from time
to time filled up the pond:
1, Mud, more than ten feet,
2, Shell Marl, three feet.
3, Red Moss, one foot,
4, Peat, two feet.
The bones laid below No. 3 and occu-
pied nearly the position the animal
did when alive, and the whole position
that of one mired. If there ever was
one that came to his death in that
way, this is the one.
"In Godman's Natural Histoiy,
article Mastodon, is recorded an in-
stance of the same kind [the preserva-
tion of stomach contents], and puts the
tact beyond all question, that the
contents of the stomach of the Brewster
[Warren] mastodon was found. The
animal was dug up in Wythe Co., Ya..
and the stomach found, — the contents
carefully examined, and found to be in
good preservation. They consisted of
reeds half masticated — of twigs of
trees, and of grass or leaves.
We have made free use of the article
written by Dr. A. J. Prime, of New-
burgh, and found in the American
Quarterly Journal of October, 1845.
and various newspaper publications
made by the same gentleman."
Thus ends our quotation of the
quaint narrative of Samuel W. Eager.
OTHER REMINISCENCES OF THE
DISCOVERY
The American Museum is indebted
to Mrs. George F. Elliott of West field,
New Jersey, for the following reminis-
cence of the discovery, contained in a
letter of March 21, 1906, addressed to
the late J. Pierpont Morgan, the donor
of the Warren collection to the Ameri-
can Museum. Mrs. Elliott writes:
"I was much interested on reading in
this morning's Tribune of your recent
purchase of the American mastodon
from the Warren heirs; interested
firstly, because it will now be given to
the public ; secondly, because it was
found on, or in, my grandfather's farm
in East Coldenham, six miles west of
Newburgh, on the Newburgh and
Cochecton turnpike. As a child I
distinctly remember the excitement
that prevailed in the neighborhood at
the find and during the time it was on
exhibition in my grandfather's barn.
MASTODONS OF THE HUDSON II Kill LANDS
THE WARREN MASTODON IN SITU
Vignette .showing the Warren Mastodon as it was stretched out when originally discovered aboui
six miles northwest of Newburg and about one mile south of Orange Lake. The vignette,
which appeared originally in color on the title page of Doctor Warren's Mastodon Giganteus
of North America, is designed to show the succession of strata under which were found
the skeletal remains. Usually all these strata were covered during the wet season
with a depth of water varying from one or two feet to six or eight feet, but during
the unusually dry season of 1845, the year of the discover}- of the skeleton, the area
had almost dried up. According to Doctor Warren, the position of the extremities
shows that the animal, at the time of its destruction, was making strong efforts
to extricate itself from the abyss into which it had plunged. Beneath
the body and limbs is a stratum of clay but the body was embedded in
light-colored shell-marl, which incased the head, the right anterior
limb, spinal column, part of the ribs, pelvis, and the tail. Above the
shell-marl was a layer of red moss of a pinkish color; the top layer
was of dark-colored peat a foot or two in thickness; above this in
ordinary seasons was the depth of water already referred to
in
On Saturday, August 19, 1922, the writer visited the locality where the Warren Mastodon
was discovered and had the good fortune to meet Mr. Nathaniel Brewster, the grandson of
the original owner and excavator of the skeleton, who with his daughter, Miss Brewster.
gave the writer a most courteous reception.
Mr. Brewster pointed out t he original boxes, excellently constructed, in which the skeleton
was originally packed and transported from place to place for exhibition. Although a small
boy at t he t ime, being only three years of age, he distinct ly recalls placing his lit t le list in t he
eye socket of the mastodon skeleton. He also recalls the spot where the mastodon was
found, now buried beneath a pond of considerable size. On September 6, 1922, Mr.
S. H. Chubb visited the site with his excellent camera and photographed Mr. Brewster
pointing to the spot in question (see lower picture; the upper picture shows another view of
the same locality I. The relation of the site to its environment is shown in the map on p. 8
12
NATURAL HISTORY
It was wired and set up on the
premises. Doctors Warren, Hitchcock,
Blackman, and Prof. Silliman were all
there at times. The location where
it was found was in a depression
or sort of basin of marl, which they
were taking out for improving the
land elsewhere. The head was struck
first, for the animal was standing erect,
as it had sunk in the soft marsh. Even
the contents of the stomach were in-
tact, consisting of twigs as large as a
man's finger, and were gathered in a
bushel basket. The tusks were also
perfect when found, but crumbled on
coming in contact with the air. There
is a brooch in the family with the head
in ' profile ' of one of my uncles carved
on it. made from a piece of the outside
of these tusks; there is also a part of a
tooth that broke off after it was set
up. My oldest brother, who now occu-
pies the homestead, has much interest-
ing data in connection with it, also an
engraving of the different strata of
soil in which it was found, with a cut of
each separate bone, and would furnish
you, no doubt, with anything of inter-
est to you in connection with it. It
was sold to Doctor Warren by my
father while he had it on exhibition
either in Hartford or in New Haven."
Another reminiscence is that con-
tained in a letter received at the
American Museum on August 16,
1907, from Mr. W. M. Nelson of
Equinunk, Wayne ( 'ounty, Pennsyl-
vania, who writes:
"So far asl know, I am the only living-
man today1 who saw the skeleton of the
animal taken from the marl pit on the
farm of Nathaniel Brewster, six miles
west of now Newburgh ( 5ity, where the
road runs north to Orange Lake. I
saw the entire skeleton taken out and
bones wired together by Doctor Prime,
of Newburgh, in Mr. Brewster's barn.
This was done in sections so it could be
set up and taken down and shipped in
the boxes as freight. It was on exhibi-
tion about the country by Win.
'Another survivor is Mr. Nathaniel Brewster, a
grandson of the. owner of the farm at the time of the
discovery, who is shown on p. 11 pointing to the spot
from which the skeleton was recovered.
Brewster and Clinton Weeks, son and
son-in law of Mr. Brewster.
Squire Eager's history of Orange Co.,
New York, gives the dimensions of the
skeleton as follows: length of skeleton
33 feet; skull between eyes 2 feet,
1 inch; length of skull 3 feet, 10 inches;
number of bones 220; ribs, 20 on each
side. Total weight of bones, 1995
pounds. . . . The mastodon's back-
bone was found about 5 feet below the
surface in the marl pit. Every bone
was found and wired, except one toe
bone, about the size of an egg. I was
a boy some 16 or 18 years old at the
time and took it all in. I remember
nothing about Professor Warren.
Doctor Prime wired the bones together
and I saw him most every day at the
work of setting up the skeleton. I do
not know whether this history is of any
interest to you now, but it will hold
water, so far as my memory is con-
cerned."
The above reminiscences may be
supplemented with the account of the
discovery gathered from the memoir
by Doctor Warren published in 1852:
"The summer of 1845 had been un-
usually dry; many small lacustrine
deposits were exposed by the drought,
and their contents removed to fertilize
the neighboring fields. The spot above
described, though usually covered by a
small quantity of water, had been left
dry (an occurrence never known be-
fore); and Mr. Brewster, wishing to
avail himself of its contents, had em-
ployed a number of laborers to remove
them. The men had dug through a
thickness of two feet of peat-bog, a
layer of red moss about a foot thick,
and then fell upon a bed of shell marl
( vide Vignette).1 After raising about a
foot of this, they struck on something
hard; and a question arose whether it
was a rock, a bone, or some other sub-
stance. Night approaching, it was
necessary to intermit their labor until
the following day.
"Mr. William C. Brewster, son of the
proprietor, and Mr. Weeks, his son-in-
law, with assistants, in the presence of a
'The vignette is reproduced on p. 10 of the present
article.
MASTODONS OF THE HUDSOX HIGHLANDS
13
large number of persons, neighbors and
travellers, proceeded to examine the
object of their curiosity. The stroke of
a spade brought up a portion of bone,
and everyone was then willing to be-
lieve they had discovered the last
retreat of one of the ancient mastodon
inhabitants. The labor of exhumation
then proceeded rapidly; and the part
struck was ascertained to have been
the summit of the head. This, being
uncovered, disclosed to the eyes of the
spectators the full extent of the
cranium, which was four feet in length.
The lower jaw was distorted a little
toward the left side. The bones of the
spine, tail, pelvis, and ribs, were suc-
cessively found, for the most part in
their natural relation to each other.
The anterior extremities were extended
under and in front of the head, as if the
animal had stretched out its arms in a
forward direction to extricate itself
from a morass, into which it had sunk.
The posterior extremities were ex-
tended forward under the body. The
tusks lay with their convexities out-
wards, their anterior extremities
opposed to each other nearly meeting;
and thus the two tusks, taken together,
described a large part of a circle. (Vide
Vignette.)
"At the end of the second day's labor,
the whole of the skeleton had been
obtained, with the exception of the
posterior part of the sternum, a few
bones of the feet, and a number of the
caudal vertebrae, some of which were
recovered afterwards. The bones were
in an almost perfect state of preserva-
tion. They were not black, like most
of the mastodon bones, but of a brown
color, like those of a recent human
skeleton, which had been in use a con-
siderable time. It is worthy of remark,
that no mastodon bones but those be-
longing to this individual, and no other
bones excepting two or three of ani-
mals recently entrapped in the mire,
were found in this deposit."1
"Doctor Prime, who was present.
describes its appearance as follows: —
'In the midst of the ribs, embedded in
the marl and unmixed with shells or
1Thr Mnstoilon Giganteus of North America, by Dr.
John C. Warren, pp. .5 and 6.
carbonate of lime, was a mass of
matter, composed principally of the
twigs of trees broken into pieces of
about two inches in length, and vary-
ing in size from very small twigs to half
an inch in diameter. There was mixed
with these a large quantity of finer
vegetable substance, like finely divided
leaves; the whole amounting to from
four to six bushels. From the appear-
ance of this, and its situation, it was
supposed to be the contents of the
stomach; and this opinion was con-
firmed on removing the pelvis, under-
neath which, in the direction of the last
of the intestines, was a train of the
same material, about three feet in
length and four inches in diameter.' " »
TOUR OF EXHIBITION
Owing to the fact that the bones
were buried in a pure shell-marl layer,
they were, when found, in a perfect
state of preservation; of light brown
tint, not of the dark brown or nearly
black tint of the mastodon skeletons
exhumed from swamp muck, which
are discolored by decaying vegetable
matter. As narrated by two eyewit-
nesses, the skeleton was wired together
and set up in such form that it could
be exhibited for three or four months
during the years 1845 and 1846, in
the city of New York and in several
New York and New England towns.
Luckily, it does not appear that any
of the parts were lost during this period
of exhibition and travel.
The excellently made boxes in which
the skeleton of the Warren Mastodon
was transported from point to point
for exhibition still remain in the pos-
session of Mr. Nathaniel Brewster.
The impression which the mastodon
made on observers in the city of New
York is shown by an extract from the
journal of one of the pupils of the New
York Institute for the Deaf and Dumb,
October 16, 1845:
xIdem., p. 111.
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16
X ATI HAL HISTORY
"Having been kindly invited by the
proprietors of this wonderful exhibi-
tion, we went up into the Minerva
Rooms, 406 Broadway, and looked at
the American Mastodon, one of the
greatest curiosities in the world, ac-
cording to my imagination. We
steadily gazed at it with much aston-
ishment. The bones of it are articulated
together or fastened to each other by
iron nails so as to form a skeleton, and
it is now exhibited in this city. Two
long artificial tusks measuring ten and
a half feet in length are fixed into the
skull; the old tusks of nature are
almost corrupted, and it is said that
they were found entire in the skull
when first discovered, but they have
fallen in pieces so that they cannot be
made fast. The large vertebra? of its
spine or backbone gradually increase
in size from the extremity of the tail
to the head. We could stand below the
long ribs. We examined the legs and
bony toes with great curiosity. The
whole bones weigh 2002 pounds but
they must have weighed 20,000 pounds
when it was living. The skeleton
measures 29 feet in length, and the
height of its head, 12 feet, that of its
back, 10 feet, and the width of the
pelvis, 6 feet.
'Theskeleton, which has been brought
to this city for a show, was found in a
marl bed on a farm at Newburgh, of
New York. I am very proud of that
skeleton first discovered in this state.
"It is supposed that this animal on
walking along the marl bed, sunk into
it by its legs adhering closely to the
marl and it was drowned. It remained
in it for a long time. Previous to the dis-
covery, nobody knew the place where
it was buried. We should be thank-
ful to the proprietors who found it and
took great pains to fix the bones firmly
into a skeleton. What a wonderful suc-
cess!! It leads us to admire the power
and wisdom of our Almighty Maker
who made the largest of animals."
DOCTOR WARREN ACQUIRES THE
MASTODON
Fortunate was its purchase in 1846
by Dr. John Collins Warren, professor
of anatomy in the Harvard Medical
School, who paid $5000 for it. Doctor
Warren, who about this time became
president of the Boston Society of
Natural History, had the skeleton
transferred to Boston, where it was
mounted under his direction bj^ Dr.
N. B. Shurtleff; this was its second
mounting. It was exhibited to Sir
Charles Lyell, the distinguished English
geologist, who made a tour of the
United States during the years 1841-
45; also to Professor Jeffries Wyman,
founder of the Museum of Com-
parative Anatomy, Harvard Medical
School; also to Professor Louis Agassiz,
who was called to Harvard University
in the year 1848.
The teeth of the mastodon had been
known in America since 1705 and in
Europe ever since Longueil, a French
officer, brought them back from the
banks of the Ohio River in 1739; they
had been examined and described by the
great French naturalist of the period,
Buff on; they had been assigned the
specific name of Elephas americanus by
the American naturalist, Kerr, in 1792;
they had been falsely confused with
those of the woolly mammoth of
Siberia by Blumenbach, who gave this
animal the name of Mammut; they had
finally, in 1806, been properly chris-
tened 'mastodonte' by the great French
naturalist, Cuvier; yet the actual struc-
ture and proportions of the masto-
don still remained unknown. Conse-
quently the discovery and mounting of
the Warren Mastodon skeleton was a
really great event in the science of
palaeontology; it rendered possible for
the first time a knowledge of the com-
plete animal. It appears, however,
that Doctor Warren was not satisfied
with the mounting by Doctor Shurtleff,
nor with the security of the building
where the skeleton was first exhibited
in Boston, because in 1849 the masto-
MASTODONS OF THE HUDSON HIGHLANDS
17
don was remounted by Mr. Ogden
under Doctor Warren's direction and
placed with other collections in the
especially erected fireproof building; at
92 Chestnut Street, Boston, which
soon became famous as the Warren
Museum. It was at this time that the
skeleton received its coat of black
varnish, was raised two feet above its
natural height, and was provided with
the enormous pair of papier-mache
tusks.
From 1849 to 1906 the skeleton re-
mained in the Warren Museum in the
condition shown in our photograph on
page 15. Professor W'arren became
intensely interested in adding to his
museum other specimens of the masto-
don, especially those discovered along
the west bank of the Hudson River,
and also in securing specimens from
England, France, and Germany, for
purposes of comparison. Thus his
collection was enriched by the acquisi-
tion of the superb head of an old bull
mastodon found near the Shawangunk
Mountains, and hence known as the
Shawangunk head; this is one of the
largest, if not the largest, bull masto-
don head ever found. Through active
correspondence with Professor Jean
Jacques Kaup, Doctor Warren secured
casts of all the specimens that Professor
Kaup had discovered near Eppelsheim
not far from Worms in Germany, name-
ly, Mastodon longirostris (signifying
long-jawed mastodon) and Dinotherium
giganteum (signifying the terrifying
giant beast), animals which at the
time aroused the wonder of Europe.
Thus there were soon gathered in the
Warren Museum numerous specimens
from different parts of the world — North
America, Europe, and Asia — bearing
on the history of the proboscidean
order. Doctor Warren devoted his
spare time for six years to the study of
these animals, and in L852 issued a
splendid monograph entitled The
Mastodon Giganteus of North America.
In April, 1908, the autograph copy of
this precious publication, with
marginal annotations in Doctor War-
ren's handwriting, was presented to
the Osborn Library of the American
Museum, together with The Life of
John Collins Warren, M.D., in two
volumes, by Dr. Edward Warren.
REMOVAL TO THE AMERICAN MUSEUM
The writer of the present article had
for years longed to secure this famous
specimen for the American Museum
but never dreamed that it would be
possible to obtain it. It appeared that
the entire Warren collection was en-
tailed in the will of Doctor Warren and
that the heirs were not at liberty to dis-
pose of it until the decease of the last
of the immediate descendants. The
writer was greatly surprised, therefore,
when he received a letter from Dr.
Thomas Dwight of the faculty of the
Harvard Medical School, indicating
that the entail was at last closed and
that the collection might be offered for
sale under certain conditions. This
letter came on a Friday afternoon and
the writer left the same evening for
Boston, arriving in Doctor Dwight 's
study on Saturday morning ; he accom-
panied this distinguished anatomist
to the old Warren Museum on Chest-
nut Street to view the famous skeleton
for the first time. The black varnish
appeared to present an obstacle, but
some vigorous scratching with a pen-
knife revealed the rich light-brown
color of the bone beneath. A friendly
interchange of opinions with Doctor
Dwight ensued; a valuation was agreed
upon for the entire collection, but there
was still little thought in the writer's
mind that it could be secured by the
18
XATCRAL HISTORY
American Museum. On the Monday
following, the prince of museum bene-
factors, Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan,
authorized by telephone an offer of
$30,000. This offer was immediately
accepted and a few days later Dr.
William Diller Matthew went to
Boston to pack up the entire Warren
collection, covered as it was with a half
century of Boston dust. The collec-
tion was carefully inventoried, and
with it came several valuable photo-
graphs and pictures, which arc repro-
duced in the present article.
THE FOURTH MOUNTING OF THE
WARREN MASTODON
In removal all the original frame-
work was left in Boston, only the bono
being packed; in this separated condi-
tion the precious skeleton, covered with
its thick coat of black varnish, reached
New York, its native State, in safety.
The first question which arose in our
minds was whether it would be possible
to remove the black varnish; this was
answered through a series of experi-
ments which resulted in the construc-
tion of special vats large enough to
contain the longest and broadest bones,
such as the thigh bones, the hip girdle,
and the skull. Many weeks of immer-
sion in pure benzine were necessary
before the black varnish began to dis-
solve. This treatment was followed by
vigorous scrubbing with pure spirits of
alcohol, and one by one the bones
emerged from this prolonged and very
expensive bath in all the purity and
beauty of color that characterized the
skeleton when it was exhumed by
Doctor Prime in 1845.
There still remained the problem of
the tusks, which are invariably the
most vital part of buried skeletons of
the great proboscideans of the past.
It appears that the original tusks could
not be preserved entire by the methods
then known. The discoverers were
unable to prevent them from splitting,
warping, and falling to pieces, especially
at the butt. In order to preserve what
could be saved intact, the butts of the
tusks, already hopelessly split and
warped, were sawed off under Doctor
Warren's direction, and only the tips,
about three feet in length, were treated
and preserved. The butts, fallen into
fragments, but still lying undisturbed
in two of the original boxes used for
transporting the skeleton, were found
in the Warren Museum when the skele-
ton was repacked to be sent to the
American Museum. The tips, treated
with preservatives, were still intact in
another box; but neither had been used
apparently for measurements in mak-
ing the papier-mache" restorations fitted
to the skull in the Warren Museum.
This documentary evidence certainly
was not used by Professor Warren, be-
cause in his three restorations he un-
fortunately accepted the erroneous
original reports that the tusks as
found were more than eleven feet in
length; they were so described and
illustrated by him in the entirely im-
possible position shown in the photo-
graph on p. 15.
When the Warren collection reached
the American Museum, it was very
carefully looked over in a search for
remnants of the original tusks, and
finally the fragmentary fossil ivory
was found, but inasmuch as most of the
original records had been lost and no
.use of these materials had been made
by Doctor Warren, it remained to be
proved that the fragmentary butts of
the tusks really belonged with the skull.
The piecing together of these butts
required several months of most in-
genious and patient work on the part
of one of our preparators, Mr. Charles
MASTODOXS OF THE HUDSON HIGHLANDS
19
( 'hristman. The ends of each tusk
were perfectly preserved, but there was
no connection between these tips and
the reconstructed butts of either tusk.
Fortunately, when the butts of the
tusks were sawed off, a single splinter of
bone broke off, and finally this splinter
was found to fit exactly to a fragment
of the butt. There was great rejoicing
in the laboratory when the relationship
of these two fragments was discovered,
because it enabled us to determine posi-
tively the length of the tusks as 8 feet,
7 inches.
The rebuilding of the tusks, which
required several months of most
patient work, had two very important
results: in the first place, it enabled
us to place them properly in the sockets
of the skull and to prove for the first
time the exact relations of the masto-
don ivories; secondly, a very pains-
taking examination of these tusks led
to an important and most interesting
discovery, namely, that it was pos-
sible to determine very closely the age
of the Warren Mastodon. The ivory
exhibits a series of growth rings which,
counted from tip to base, seems to
prove that the Warren Mastodon
was perhaps thirty years of age at
the time it sank into the bed of marl
near Newburg. The right tusk in-
cluded at least twenty-eight of these
segments. The growth rings are short-
est near the tip of the tusk when the
animal is young, and increase in length
from the tip toward the middle of the
tusk, but not in a regular ratio. These
growth rings do not correspond exactly
in the opposite ' tusk, but in both
tusks they are longest in the middle
icgion. Nine smaller rings are in
the lower part. The writer's theory
regarding these growth rings is thai
during the summer season, when all ( he
conditions of life were favorable, and
In repairing the tusks of the Warren
Mastodon, it was found that the outer sheath-
ing of the ivory (dentine) was in large part
absent; the inner sheathing exposed a series
of concentric constrictions and expansions
which were observed to he approximately
symmetrical on the two sides, as indicated
by the two series of + signs in the lower
figure. In the second place, it was noted
that the intervals between these constric-
tions arc broader in the middle stages of the
growth of the tusk and narrower in the
mature or later stages of its growth. On the
hypothesis thai these are actual annual
increments of growth, the right tusk (a) con-
sisted of about twenty-eight segments, which,
allowing for the period of milk teeth and for
the part worn off at the tip, would assign to
the Warren Mastodon an age of perhaps
thirty years
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24
NATURAL HISTORY
perhaps during the rutting period, when
tusk growth was hastened by internal
secretions from the reproductive glands,
the growth of ivory was very rapid,
the maximum growth in the 17-18 ring-
being 108 centimeters, or \)\ inches,
perhaps the maximum growth of a
favorable season at the most vigor-
ous reproductive period of life. The
Warren Mastodon is an adult but not
an aged specimen; the skeleton is
apparently that of a younger animal
than the one represented by the Sha-
wangunk head. Some estimate the
maximum age of the American masto-
don at between thirty and foil y years, —
less than half the life span of the ele-
phant, which attains more than one
hundred years.
It was very important to make an-
other correction in mounting this
animal, namely, to ascertain its exact
height at the shoulders. The tempta-
tion of preparators has always been to
make both mastodons and elephants
much larger than they actually were in
life by raising the chest portion high
above the tips of the shoulder blades.
In order to determine this much-
mooted question, our preparator at
the time, Mr. Adam Hermann, spent a
day on the back of Gunda, then the
favorite riding elephant of the Zoologi-
cal Park; placing his two thumbs on
the tip of the spine and his two index
fingers on the tip of the shoulder blades,
he was able to note that the shoulder
blades are on practically the same level
as the summit of the spine. This
observation enabled us to determine
positively that the height of the back-
bone of the Warren Mastodon at the tip
of the spine is 9 feet, 2 inches above the
ground, whereas the length of the
animal from the skull measured at the
very base of the tusks to the droop of
the tail is 14 feet, 11 inches, practically
15 feet. Thus the length of the ani-
mal's body is 6 feet, 9 inches greater
than its height at the withers. Its
proportions are thus totally different
from those of any species of elephant.
The long, low body is correspondingly
broad, with an immense spread of six
feet across the hips or pelvis. It is to
emphasize the long, low, and broad
proportions of the American mastodon,
that the accompanying restorations
were made by Charles R. Knight,
under the writer's direction.
The reader who is inteiested to learn
more about this subject is referred to
works by Warren and others in the
Osborn Library of the American
Museum of Natural History, and
especially to an article by Dr. John M.
Clark*1 entitled "Mastodons of New
York. A List of Discoveries of Their
Remains, 1705-1902," in the Report of
the State Paleontologist, 1902, New
York State Museum. Bulletin, 69,
p. 921.
Primitive Fishery Methods in Lake Titicaca
By R. E. COKEK
Professor of Zoology, University of North Carolina
HIGH in the Andes, at a level only
about two thousand feet lower
than the top of Pike's Peak,
lies a large body of water nearly one
third the size of Lake Erie. This is
appropriately termed by Neveu-
Lemaire,1 "the most remarkable sheet
of water on the globe." Through it
passes the boundary line of Peru and
Bolivia. Since the ( 'hile-Periivian war
of 1879-83, Bolivia, the ally of Peru in
that struggle, has enjoyed no seaport,
and until recently had no direct railway
outlet to the coast. Her import and
export trade was conducted mainly by
boat across the lake from the Bolivian
port of Huaqui to the Peruvian port of
Puno, where there was a railway con-
necting with Mollendo on the sea. So
important was this commerce that
enterprising capitalists found it prac-
ticable to have large lake steamers
constructed in ''knock-down" form
and conveyed by ships and rail to
Puno, where they were assembled and
launched. Tims we find large and well
equipped modern steamers plying the
waters of Titicaca in company with the
crude reed craft, or balsa, of a type
that may have been in use for thou-
sands of years.
The importance of Titicaca is not a
recent development. Before the
Spanish conquest the earlier civiliza-
tion was centered in this basin, and the
islands and shores of Titicaca were
thronged with cities or villages.
Though the fish life in the lake is
limited, it is probable that fishing has
'Neveu-Lemaire, M. Les Lacs des Hauts Plateaux <l,
I'Ameriqui du Sud (Mission scientifique, G. de Cr6qui
Montforl ft E. Sene hal de la Grange) 197 pp.. Will
Pis., 41 toxt figs. Paris, 1906.
been pursued by the methods now in
use for many centuries, perhaps for
milleniums.
Lake Titicaca is in the center of its
own plateau basin, which is without
connection with either the Atlantic or
Pacific drainage. Around it, in fact,
are some of the highest peaks of the
continent, rising above twenty thou-
sand feet. The lake proper lias gener-
ally precipitous shores and its greatest
depth is barely more than nine hundred
feet.
Both the plant and the animal life
in the lake are remarkably limited in
variety, but the bays and marshy re-
gions are richly supplied with the few
native forms.2 About ten species of
fish, three of Amphibia, scarcely more
than twenty of small Crustacea, and a
very few of small mollusks, sponges,
aquatic insects, and parasites have been
discovered, all of which are found
almost exclusively in the shallow
bays or close to the shore. Only two
genera of fishes are represented in
the lake: Trichomycterus, including
small catfish known as "suchi" or
"bagre," and Orestias, a genus of top
minnows, peculiar to high altitudes.
The fishes are all small, but they occur
in great abundance in the bays and
several of them are most delicate and
palatable as food.
The fishermen near Puno are the
native Aymara Peruvians, primitive in
their customs and, apparently, harbor-
ing a deep-rooted suspicion of the
whites; those of the pueblo of ('liiniu,
though living within sight of the capital
2Cokcr. R. E. "Lake Titicaca 'The mosl remarkable
lake of the world,'" pp, 174-182. International! Rente,
Hand IV. Leipzig. 191 1
26
NATURAL HISTORY
The fishing device shown in this picture is known as the caincha. It consists of two
converging fences of lotora reeds that protrude above the water, and a framework (cupo)
holding a net that is fitted into the point of the incomplete V.
On the shore in the background is a village. Some of the huts, close to the base of
the mountain, may be distinctly seen; others are higher up on the rocky wall
of the Department at Puno, seem
entirely unacquainted with the Spanish
language. The few that I talked with
through an interpreter, on the occasion
of a brief visit several years ago, refused
persistently to give information or to
part with a piece of apparatus I desired,
even though I offered a pecuniary
reward in advance. At the suggestion
of a gentleman from Puno, I forced a
coin into the unwilling hand of a native,
with a surprising but gratifying effect
that prompted me to repeat the experi-
ment. The recipient of a coin would
bring out and deliver a desired article
or answer questions freely, but only
until the worth of the coin was ex-
hausted; it was, therefore, necessary
to renew the donation at intervals
during the conversation. It must be
left to the ethnologist to explain this
remarkable combination of an ob-
stinate unwillingness to bargain with
a determination to give for value
received a fair return — and no more.
The best contrivances for taking fish
are the caincha and the ccana, as the
pound and the dragnet are known in
the native Aymara language. The
caincha is an interesting sort of pound,
composed of two fences of totora (a
bulrush) and a net attached to a conical
frame. To form the fences the totora
reeds are placed side by side and fas-
tened together at the bottom by a line
woven among the reeds. When in use,
the line is securely staked to the bot-
tom, while the buoyancy of the reeds
holds them in a vertical position. In
the trap observed, the longer fence was
A diagram, from a field sketch by the author, of a caincha, with the cupo in place at the
point of convergence of the sides of the caincha. The arrows indicate the direction of the
movement of the fish fronVthe time of its entry into the fenced area until its capture in the
cupo
The cupo (with net) used to take fish that have been induced to swim into it by the weir
of the caincha. The diagram was prepared by J. V. Greene from field sketches by the
author. According to the recollection of the author the hoop of the cupo was between ten
and fifteen feet in diameter
-'7
28
XATl'RAL HISTORY
set nearly at right angles to the beach,
while the other, which was much
shorter, was placed at the outer end in
such a way that the two fences con-
stituted a sort of funnel with a long
and a short side. Thus a simple weir
was formed: the fish, swimming along
the shore, would pass the shorter
barrier but would be turned outward on
encountering the long arm of the weir,
which reached nearly to the shore, and
would thus be directed into the small
opening between the1 two fences.
The net used to cover the opening of
the trap is primitive and peculiar. It
is not in evidence at all in the photo-
graphic illustration, but is diagram-
matically represented in the sketch on
the opposing page. It consists of a
deep bag net hung from a very large
wooden hoop secured to a long pole.
The ring stands out at right angles to
the pole, being supported by three
smaller braces, which extend from the
base of the main pole to different parts
of the circumference of the hoop. W* it 1 1
the pole in vertical position, the ring
or circular mouth of the net is hori-
zontal, but, if the pole be allowed to
fall, the mouth of the net may be made
to fit against the opening of the trap.
After a suitable interval the pole is
raised to a vertical position; the fish
may then lie removed from the1 net.
and the trap again lowered for another
catch. While suggesting a pound net
when seen from the surface of the
water, the caincha is essentially a
simple combination of a weir and a clip
net. The operation is carried on from
balsas, which are moored by strong
lines that extend out in various direc-
tions from the mouth of the pound and
are permanently anchored with heavy
stones; a single buoy from one of
these mooring lines may be seen in the
right foreground of the illustration on
p. 26. The frame of the net (cana) is
called a cupo.
One of the interesting nets used by
the indigenous fishermen in this lake
is the ccana — the spelling here adopted
reproduces as nearly as possible the
pronunciation of the Aymara word,
beginning with the sound of hard c,
repeated without the intermediation of
a vowel sound. The ccana is a sort of
trawl net which is dragged on the bot-
tom, and may be used either near the
shore or, as my informant said through
an interpreter, "where the bottom can
not be seen." It is dragged from balsas
for "bogas" and "suchis." The net
has a large mouth kept open by a cross
pole, on which its top is stretched, and
by stones attached to the lower edge of
the circumference. The net does not
taper backward to a single cod end, but
possesses the st liking feature of being
extended behind by two rather long
and slender cylindrical bags, in which
apparently the fish are practically
trapped. In form and use it is essen-
tially a primitive beam trawl with
features of a trap. Either the indigen-
ous Peruvians have not learned to
complete the frame of the trawl or
else they have found that the apparatus
served more effectively without such
support. The net collapses, of course,
when brought into a vertical position.
The ccana examined and made the
subject of the accompanying illustra-
tions1 was 2.2 meters long, with a
mouth 6 meters in circumference, the
opening being about 2% meters (8 feet)
in width.
The uisi-cibina is a dip net with a
long handle that may be pushed ahead
JThe illustrations are retouched photographs of a
net obtained by the writer at Chimu and now deposited,
by courtesy of the Davenport Academy of Sciences,
in the American Museum of Natural History. The
net was staged in Washington for photographing, but
nothing was added to the apparatus except the beam.
The ccana is a trawl net In the upper picture it is shown in position for use; in the
lower picture it is pendent
29
These marshes, or totorales, of the Bay of Puno, Lake Titicaca, abound in small fish and
Crustacea
The picturesque reed craft, or balsa, of Lake Titicaca is the representative of a lype
antedating the discovery of America
30
PRIMITIVE FISHERY METHODS IN LAKE TI TIC AC A
31
on the bottom. Dr. Garman1 has
described the use of this net as fol-
lows: "Armed with this the Indian
glides back and forth along the beach
late in the evening, when the hungry
siluroids [catfishes, or suchis] come
close to the water's edge to feed, occa-
sionally dropping the net quietly down
so as to cut off its retreat and then with
a jerk throwing an unwary fish far out
of the water. It is said that these nets
are also used in fishing by torchlight
from balsas."
My informant described a sort of
trap that I was unable to see. It was
evidently identical with the trap which
Garman described in the following-
words: "The pot is a short cylinder of
open basket-work with one end rounded
and closed, and with a gate in the
other, like that of the lobster pot,
which admits the fishes but prevents
their egress. Considerable ingenuity
is displayed in the structure of these
baskets. The warp is of single stems
of a smooth, stiff, wiry grass; the woof
is made by wrapping several small
stems with split straws, making rolls
which are bound to the stems of the
warp, on the outside, by passing one
of the straws which bind the roll around
each stem at the proper distance from
each other. The spaces in the warp arc
determined by the size of the fishes de-
sired; those in the woof by the strength
of the materials. Such traps are used
as are lobster pots."
Another form of apparatus described
by native fishermen is a trap of mats of
'Agassiz, Alexander and Garman, S. W., "Exploration
of Lake Titicaca." Bulletin of the Museum of Com-
parative Zoology at Harvard College, in Cambridge,
Vol. Ill, No. 11 (1. Fishes and Reptiles, by S. W.
Garman, pp. 273-27S). Cambridge, Massachusetts,
1876.
totora rushes which is dragged in the
water on the beaches; the trap is
closed as it is hauled on to the beach.
A method of fishing mentioned by
other writers involves the use of a
three-pointed spear attached to the end
of a steering paddle; in the very
transparent water of this lake in the
skies the fish may be distinguished at a
depth of fifteen feet or more. I could
not by inquiry learn of the use of a
casting net or of any form of hook,
and these implements seemed not to be
known to the indigenous fishermen of
that locality, although the fishhook,
at least, formed a part of the tackle of
the autochthonous Peruvians of other
parts. The native vegetable poisons,
generally called barbasco, are used to
stupefy fishes, especially in sluggish
rivers, or in artificial pozos, or pools,
excavated along the margins of the
rivers.
The picturesque floating craft, the
balsas, of Lake Titicaca are well
known. Two large bundles of totora
rushes, five or six meters in length,
bound tightly and secured together,
constitute the body of the craft, while
slender bundles laid above these and
attached to the outer margins form the
sides. The balsas are propelled by
paddle or sail, the sails being made also
of totora rushes woven together in some-
what the fashion of a Venetian blind.
The fishery of today in Titicaca is
but a relic of that which must have
existed there when the greatest civiliza
tion of the American continent centered
about its shores; yet the methods now
employed are doubtless the same as
were practiced in Inca and pre-Inca
times.
A LESSER NODDY OF OEXO ISLAND
At the time when the Whitney Expedition visited Oeno, the lesser noddies were just
through nesting, but the young bird here shown was not quite able to fly and so was forced
to sit for its portrait
32
The Voyage of the "France"
A LATER-DAY TRIP TO THE SCENE OF THE "BOUNTY" MUTINY
AND T< ) ( )THER ISLANDS ( >F THE SOUTH PACIFIC
By ROLLO H. BECK
Leader of the Whitney South Sea Expedition
AFTER being dependent for more
I \ than a year on local trading
vessels that call irregularly at
main- of the Polynesian islands for
cargoes of copra, we came to the con-
clusion that the work of collecting
birds could be done far more quickly
and thoroughly if the Whitney South
Sea Expedition had a vessel of its own.
Several schooners were offered at prices
beyond their value but finally one
better than I had hoped for was
brought to my attention, and a cable
to the American Museum resulted in its
purchase.1 While the name "France"
was not so typically local as "Ana-
poto," "Tamorre Moorea," or "Vahini
Tahiti," the designations of other
craft that were in the market, the vessel
itself excelled them all in its seaworthi-
ness and it offered the further advan-
tage of probable exemption from heavy
repair bills in the near future. With a
change in the arrangement of the cabin
and the addition of a few shelves and a
table in the hold, the "France" was
ready for sea, though before turning
her over to the American Museum,
the owners found it necessary to re-
place the rudder and rudder box, which
had been damaged by shipworms-
during a year's use in the Marquesas,
where facilities for painting and clean-
ing the bottom had not been available.
As the hurricane season was in full
-wing when we were ready to leave on
our initial cruise, it was deemed advis-
able to run south out of the track of
'See Natural Histobt, January February, L922,
p. 88.
See Natcbal History, Julv-August, 1922, pp 378-
7'.'.
possible storms and then work out to
the easternmost end of the cluster of
islands that are included under the
term Polynesia. Ravaivai Island, our
first stop, three hundred miles south-
east of Tahiti, yielded several speci-
mens of wedge-tailed shearwaters
(Puffinus pacificus) and gray ternlets
(Procelsterna cinerea), desirable species
An ancient stone figure hidden away in a
forest on Ravaivai Island
that we had not found on our first visit
the year before, while Rapa Island.
five hundred miles south of Ravaivai,
gave us a fine series of white-breasted
petrels (Fregetta grallaria) and their
eggs. At Rapa we were surprised to
se< several of the Christmas Island
33
34
XATTRAL HISTORY
shearwaters (Puffinus nativitatis) ,
which were captured by means of steel
traps placed in burrows where young
birds were located. We had not ob-
served this species since leaving the
vicinity of Christinas Island, more
than 1500 miles to the north, but a few
days later at Bass Rocks, 40 miles to
the south of Rapa, we again noted it.
Rapa also yielded a couple of dozen
additional specimens of the wary little
black rails (Porzanoidea sp.?i which we
had heard often at Tahiti and Moorea,
but which on those islands kept so
securely hidden in the thick grass and
ferns that a capture was very seldom
accomplished. At Rapa these birds
feed largely in the cultivated taro beds
where the small snails that figure in
their diet are abundant.
Our especial desideratum at Rapa
was a large bluish shearwater, two
specimens of which we had obtained
the year before, but we found none on
this occasion. At Bass Rocks, how-
ever, only an hour's flight away, this
bird was the predominant species and
we collected as many specimens of it
as we needed, lying off in our small
boat to the leeward of the Rocks.
Here we secured also a couple of speci-
mens of another small shearwater not
met with elsewhere, and were greatly
interested in noting the absence of the
white-breasted petrel and the neglected
petrel (Pterodroma neglecta), two com-
mon species of oceanic birds that are
found on Rapa near by, the shores of
which can be easily discerned from Bass
Rocks. On account of a strong wind
and a rough sea we found it impossible
to land on the precipitous rocks, a
half dozen of which, scattered over a
couple of miles of ocean, form the group
collectively termed Bass Rocks. Our
inability to land prevented us from
obtaining a series of sooty terns which
we wanted, for an adult and a couple
of young birds, brought down from
high in the air, apparently belonged to
a larger variety than the Christmas
Island birds that we had caught by
hand when visiting that locality.
After five hours in the small boat off
Bass Rocks we returned aboard the
■Fiance"' and headed eastward, fa-
vored by a fair wind that carried us a
hundred fifty miles before it petered
out.
For the next two weeks we had light
winds most of the time but on the
twelfth of March, thirteen days after
leaving Bass Rocks, Pitcairn Island
appeared on the horizon and we neared
t he landing place simultaneously with a
large English steamer that was bound
for Xew Zealand. Three boats loaded
with natives and island produce im-
mediately drew alongside the steamer,
which stopped for an hour before re-
suming its course, whereupon the
natives, who had sold their melons,
corn, and chickens, came to our craft,
and several of them who had known
members of our crew in Papeete.
stepped aboard to renew acquain-
tance. Permission to collect having
been granted by the governor, our
small boat was lowered, and we went
ashore in company with the descend-
ants of the famous mutineers of the
ship " Bounty," who settled on Pit-
cairn in 1790 and were not heard of for
forty years. At the end of that time
an American ship touching at the
island discovered them in place of the
seals, that were the object of search.
These mutineers married native women
but their descendants show very little
of Polynesian strain in their ancestry.
Since the opening of the Panama
( 'anal, steamers on their way from
England to Xew Zealand frequently
stop at Pitcairn to exchange clothing
Bass Rocks, jutting sharply up out of the water about forty miles from Rapa Island, are
far less dangerous to ships than the lowly coral atolls a few hundred miles to the northward
The principal occupation of the men of Rapa Island is to sit on a rock several hours a day,
holding a fishing pole until a mess of fish has been captured. The old pilot of Ahurei Bay.
pictured above, had cushioned his seat with a few handfuls of long coarse grass gathered near by
I^ T. U
£> >>
it. —
—
r a
-m a
The neglected petrel on Ducie Island was usually found nesting
large limb of a fallen tree
ise bv the trunk or
The petrels of Ducie Island had begun nesting only a short time before the Whitney
Expedition visited this locality, but long search revealed one or two young birds of the
short-billed species and one of these is reproduced above
THE VOYAGE OF THE "FRANCE'
39
and foodstuffs for the island produce.
Potatoes, watermelons, and corn of
very good finality were in season
when we called in March, and a little
later in the year oranges arc a source
of considerable income. We bought
twenty chickens at the rate of a shilling
and a half each and exchanged some
rice for water, which was conveyed to
the landing place in wheelbarrows from
a spring on the far side of the island, a
distance of more than a mile. A little
warbler (Conopoderas vaughni) was
the only land bird present and the
larger sea birds were conspicuous by
their absence, as they have been
hunted for food since the settlement of
the island 130 years ago.
A couple of days' collecting at Pit-
cairn sufficed and we left for Ducie
Island, an uninhabited atoll several de-
grees farther east. Ducie proved a col-
lecting field par excellence for red-tailed
tropic birds (Phaethon rubricaudus) ,
as well as for neglected and for short-
billed petrels (Pterodroma parvirostris)
as all three were nesting on top of the
ground and we had merely to walk or
crawl about under the low bushes and
trees to gather all the specimens we
wanted. At Juan Fernandez Island, of
Robinson Crusoe fame, off Chile, I
had been able to find a few eggs of the
neglected petrel on narrow ledges
along the high cliffs, and at Christmas
Island the short -billed shearwaters
nested usually under the concealing
dead palm leaves, as did the ( 'hristnias
Island shearwaters, a few of which still
lingered at Ducie, although their
nesting season had long passed. ( hit of
a dozen species of shearwaters, the eggs
of which I had collected during the
l;ist twenty years, these three were the
only kinds that nested on top of the
ground, the remainder being burrow-
ing birds. Put instead of occasional
nests, which had been my usual ex-
perience, at Ducie there were literally
hundreds, each containing but one
egg. and we believe that 30,000 would
be a very conservative estimate of the
breeding Tubinares. Every afternoon
about four o'clock the space above
the trees reminded one of the front
of a beehive on a warm spring
day in prune-blossom time in Cali-
fornia, for thousands of birds would
circle overhead, chasing one another
and dropping to the ground to waddle
along to the spot selected for a nest.
Pefore the egg was laid both birds were
present at the nest, but after it was
deposited only one bird was to be found
on guard. The tropic birds, many with
pink-colored feathers, hollowed out
nests in the sand under the bushes
along the outer edge of the wooded part
of the island, for their legs were poorly
adapted to walking, whereas the shear-
waters would traverse a hundred
yards, if necessary, to gain an open
place before taking wing. Many of
the latter surprised me by climbing up
sloping tree trunks into the tips of
the branches in order to take their
plunge into the air.
The most astounding nesting habit
observed was that of the fairy tern
(Leucanous albus) in placing its single
egg on top of a narrow limb with no
trace of a nest, and hatching it in that
precarious position. That this bird
really survives the perils of infancy is
evidenced in nearly every island by the
abundance of the species.
At Ducie we started eating freely
of the fish that are easily caught on
and near the reef, until the cook and
mate were laid up in bed and several
other members of t he party complained
of not feeling well, and then fishing was
tabu till we reached Henderson Island.
After proving to our satisfaction that
40
XATURAL HISTORY
the Henderson fish were not poisonous,
we salted and dried several hundred
pounds, with such good results that
when we sampled our store, it was
found as palatable as the Alaska sal-
mon, with which we were well supplied.
In the way of birds Henderson yield-
ed a rail, a dove, and a warbler, as well
as the usual sea birds, but travel over
they chose to remain close by the land-
ing place till our departure. Future
visitors should have less trouble than
we cutting trails through the tangled
vines and shrubbery if the goats use
their freedom to good advantage in
nibbling their way to the interior.
Four days after leaving Henderson
we arrived at Oeno Island, which has
In the Tuamotu Islands the single egg of the fairy tern is usually laid on a branch of the
tohunu tree. No nest is constructed, the egg being placed in this hazardous position without
other support than that furnished by the limb itself-,
this island proved so difficult that most
of our collecting was necessarily done
near shore. As Henderson is a raised
coral island instead of being of the usual
low atoll type, the surface of hard coral
rock is broken in places by sharp,
jagged, pinnacle-pointed masses that
are far more difficult to traverse than
the reefs over which we made our way
before stepping on to the sandy beach
above high-water mark. The last three
of the ten goats purchased for food in
Rapa we liberated on Henderson, but
proved one of the most deadly islands
of Polynesia in point of shipwrecks,
for it lies close to the track of sailing
vessels bound from the Pacific coast
of Xorth America to the west coast of
South America and. having an ex-
tended reef off the eastern end. is
doubly dangerous. The shores of the
low atoll were lined with weather-worn
lumber from one of the latest wrecks,
and the keel of one large vessel still
lies on a sandy islet a mile within the
lagoon, with an anchor stock showing
THE VOYAGE OF THE "FRANCE"
41
on the reef; where an attempt had been
made to stop the headway of the
doomed ship. We found on Oeno that
some of the blue-faced boobies (Sula
dactylatra) were wiser than most of
their kind on other islands, for they
had selected the shade of a tree or bush
for a nesting site, whereas the glaring-
white beach is the usual home site
selected by this species.
In addition to the Ducie Island
shearwaters we encountered again the
blue shearwaters that had been so
common at Bass Rocks. But instead
of high cliffs on which to build their
nests, as at Bass Rocks, at Oeno there
was only a low fern-covered flat a
dozen feet above the sea level. Many
sea birds were resident here, and a week
slipped by in short order. The last
day of our stay our sailors were caught
in the breakers on the reef and their
boat was overturned by an extra large
swell. The schooner had stood out to
sea on a short tack and the crew were
obliged to remain in the water more
than three hours till the ship made her
inward tack. By good fortune not a
shark approached them, though at
other islands the sharks had kept us
close company.
Mangareva, the seat of government
for the eastern Tuamotu, was a
pleasant change from the desert islands
to the eastward, and with its neighbors,
all within the same reef, kept us busy
for more than two weeks. That there
had been a much greater population
;it an earlier date is evidenced by the
old, crumbling stone houses encoun-
tered everywhere about (he shores.
Although there are now only about 500
people in the Gambier group, as the
five inhabited islands are called, about
19,000 formerly lived there. A convent
that housed hundreds of girls in years
past is today covered by the growths of
the encroaching jungle and will soon
be a thing of memory only. The
cathedral is handsomely decorated
about the altar with thousands of pearl
shells and is larger in appearance than
the cathedral at Papeete, though the
congregation does not remotely rival
that of Papeete in numbers. On one
of the small uninhabited islands where
goats were kept, the surprising capture
of a rail was made. There was hardly
any cover on the island for a bird with
the ordinary habits of the rails as we
knew them in Polynesia, but a few had
managed to exist in spite of the destruc-
tion of vegetation. On Mangareva
itself we obtained a fair series of the
yellow-billed tropic bird (Phacthon
Upturns), a species that nests in the
mountains in preference to the coral
atolls favored by the red-tailed.
The day before we left the Gambier
group the sailors gathered a few boxes
of oranges and lemons, which were
given us for the picking, as they were
going to waste under the trees. The
lemons were placed in dry sand and
kept in good condition until we reached
Papeete nearly two months later, but
the oranges did not keep so well and
were disposed of in less than a month.
Marutea Island was the next place
visited and here the native sandpiper
(Aechmorhynchus parvirostris) was
found on several mot us, lit tic1 islets on
the ring of coral. A northerly wind
that stalled before we left Mangareva
made boating difficult, and one of the
workers on the island, while helping t<>
launch our boat in a heavy swell, was
knocked unconscious and would have
drowned had not a companion dived
after him and pulled him from the
water to the boat, which had just
escaped from a curling breaker. The
plantation on this island was provided
with several carts used ordinarily in
42
X AT (HAL HISTORY
On many of the Pacific islands the Pan-
danus is one of the commonest trees. Thick
groves occur in many places but not infre-
quently single trees stand out from their
neighbors and especially is this the case along
the shore. Note the curious prop roots that
are massed about the lower part of the stem
the picking of coconuts and in transfer-
ring the copra from the drying ground
to the warehouse. We landed our
small sailboat one morning and carted
it in one of these conveyances across
the island to the lagoon, where we used
it in exploring the farther end of the
atoll. At Turei Island, a few days
later, we sold this boat, which was not
particularly suited to our needs, to a
native whose own boat had been
wrecked.
The four islands of the Acteon
group, fifty miles to the westward of
Maratea, varied greatly in their bird
life, although in regard to food and
living conditions they seemed to be
similar. Xot one of these islands was
inhabited, although our chart lists
them as populated by hostile people.
Tenararo, the smallest and most west-
ern of the group, had birds in abun-
dance, and on one occasion when
stopping in the course of a stroll, I
counted fourteen of the little sand-
pipers sitting on a dead tree close beside
me. As a rule any sandpiper that
observed us walking in its direction
would fly to meet us, being in this
respect different from most of the other
birds we encountered. At Tearunga
and Vahanga, but a few miles to the
eastward, the sandpipers and doves
were very scarce, and we spent only a
couple of weeks in this vicinity, sailing
thence to Vanavana Islam 1.
Here we were pleasantly surprised t<>
find the ground doves (Gallicolumba
pectoralis) in large numbers but ex-
tremely concentrated in one clearing
where coconut trees had been grown.
After the larger trees had been chopped
down the vines and weeds quiekly
overran the place and the doves found
it so much to their liking that they
abandoned the undisturbed forest and
congregated in a spot only a few hun-
dred yards in radius. The island is not
more than two miles in circumference
and more than a third of it. is bare of
cover, so the doves have a slim chance
of holding their own if the dozen in-
habitants continue clearing the jungle
and killing the birds for food. Eight
months had elapsed since a vessel had
called, and fish, birds, and the fruit of
the Pandanus had been the sole means
of sustenance available to the islanders
for some time.
THE VOYAGE OF THE "FRANCE
43
At Tureia Island, about fort}- miles
from Vanavana, we found a small
settlement of pleasant people, with an
obliging priest who spoke excellent
English and who was slowly repairing
his hurricane-wrecked church. At this
island we encountered the warbler
again, our last specimen having been
taken at Henderson, six hundred miles
to the eastward. Why the intervening-
islands were devoid of this bird is
puzzling, for these islands are equally
suitable apparently as a habitat ; it is
reported that Mangareva at least was
not without the warbler formerly.
But the distribution of the avian fauna
is puzzling with respect to other species
as well.
After working over Ahunui and
Paraoa, a hundred miles westward of
Tureia Island, I went ashore at Xengo
Xengo Island, our last stop before
starting for Papeete. There I strolled
into a colony of nesting frigate birds,
as I had done on twenty islands in the
past twenty years, but instead of the
species that had inhabited the twenty
— some of them west and some of them
cast of Xengo Xengo — I was delighted
to find at last the long-looked-for lesser
frigate bird (Fregata ariel). A colony
of a hundred pairs were nesting on low
shrubs, most of them not more than a
couple of feet above the ground, and I
had no difficulty in getting a dozen
birds for specimens, though they woe
not as tame as the majority of the other
species when at their nests. In this
colony I saw but a single bird with im-
mature plumage. The males of the
lesser frigate birds are recognizable at a
long distance by the two white patches
on the abdomen. In higher shrubs
about the frigate colony were many old
nests of noddy terns, and sitting on the
ground near them, the young noddies
that had been unapt at their fishing
lessons were waiting for their parents
to bring fish, but most of them had
had long waits, judging by the very
poor condition that those collected
exhibited.
With a favoring wind we bore away
from Xengo Xengo for Papeete and
arrived inside the pass at that port a
few minutes after midnight on the
morning of the Fourth of July, having
visited more than twenty islands on the
five months' trip, over half of which
had never been trodden by a collector
before. After painting and cleaning the
vessel and getting a fresh stock of
provisions we headed out to the east-
ward to visit other unknown atolls
and secure before their extermination
examples of their dwindling fauna.
MR. W. HEXRY SHEAK AND HIS PET CHIMPANZEE, JOE
Joe showed a high degree of intelligence. He learned, among other things, to wipe
his nose with a handkerchief to brush his hair with a hairbrush to clean his clothes with a
whisk broom, and to eat with a spoon as well as any little boy or girl. In carpentering he
was not inexpert. He could bore holes with a brace and bit, use a handsaw with consider-
able'skill, remove screws with a screw driver, and pound nails with a hammer
Anthropoid Apes I Have Known
By W. HEXRY SHEAK
Lecturer on Natural History Subjects
WHICH of the great apes re-
sembles man the most? This
is the question I am fre-
quently asked. Dr. Henry Alleyne
Nicholson, professor of natural his-
tory at the University of Aberdeen, as-
serts that "the gorilla is now regarded
as the most human of the anthropoid
apes." But, as a matter of fact, it is
very difficult to say which is the most
human, for one of them may resemble
man in certain characters, while an-
other approaches him in respect to
other characters, and a third evidences
close relationship to him through a
third set of characters. For instance,
the gibbon resembles man more than
does any other ape in respect to its
upright carriage'. The orang-utan
resembles man in the absence of the
superciliary crests, prominent bony
ridges which protrude out over the eyes
and so disfigure the face of the gorilla,
and are prominent in the chimpanzee;
in the form of the cerebral hemispheres,
the forehead of this ape rising straight
and perpendicular from the eyes, while
that of the other anthropoids retreats
considerably; and in the number of
ribs, there being twelve pairs as in the
human skeleton, while in the gorilla
and chimpanzee there are thirteen.
The gorilla resembles man more than
do any of his cousins in the strength
and development of the legs. He is
most like man also in the structure of
the pelvic bones.
The chimpanzee is most like man in
the relative size of the brain and in its
convolutions, though not in the finer
details of brain construction: in the
face, this being smaller in proportion
to the size of the cranial region of the
head than in the other apes, and more
human in its expression: and in the
formation of the ear, which, while
relatively much larger than the human
ear, closely resembles it in its modeling.
The large size of the chimpanzee's
ear is, doubtless, due to the fact that in
his native African forests the leopard
is his formidable enemy and his audi-
tory organ must be so developed that it
may catch the faintest rustle of leaves
made by this great stealthy cat prowl-
ing among the branches. The ear of
the orang is proportionately as much
smaller than the human ear, as the ear
of the chimpanzee is larger. This is
probably because there are no large
predatory animals in Sumatra or
Borneo. True, the python sometimes
makes a meal of a baby ape, but the
adult orang is not afraid of this monster
serpent. So man is really his only
dangerous enemy, and the orang has
not been in conflict with civilized man.
the only one who cares to capture him.
a sufficient time for the association to
produce any change in the anatomy of
his ear. Again, the chimpanzee is
most like man in the structure and
conformation of the hand. The hand is
very long and slender, and the thumb
is set much farther back than in man,
so that the distal end does not reach
beyond the knuckles of the other
ringers, but otherwise it is very human.
If T were asked to decide which of
t he apes had the larger number of close
resemblances to man. I should have to
cast my vote for the chimpanzee.
Of the great apes the gibbon is the
mosl arboreal. Mis entire life is spent
in the tree tops. In traveling through
the forest, he does not come to the
4(»
XATTKAL HISTORY
ground, but swings from Limb to limb
by means of his long, powerful arms.
using his feel very little to aid in
progression. In this way he travels
very rapidly, easily outdistancing the
hunter, impeded as the latter generally
is b\T dense undergrowth. Yet, not-
withstanding this extreme development
to an exclusively arboreal life, the
gibbon, as I have already intimated,
walks upright more readily and with
greater case than any other ape. 1
have seen the white-handed gibbon
(Hylobates lar) in the Philadelphia
Zoological Garden run and walk as
erect in carriage as a man and without
any help from his hands.
The Philadelphia Zoological Garden
holds the world's record for keeping a
gibbon alive in captivity. The speci-
men— the Hylobates lar alluded to in
the previous paragraph — was received
July 27, 1906, and hence has been in
the collection for more than fifteen
years. A record of four years and three
months, attained by a gibbon in the
London Zoological Garden, ranks
second to the case just mentioned.
The gibbon in the Philadelphia
Zoological Garden has never shown
much affection for his keeper, William
Quigley. a man of intelligence and a
close observer, who has had charge of
the ape ever since the latter's arrival.
Mr. Quigley tells me that it is not safe
to turn one's back on this animal when
in the cage with him, for he is inclined,
even after all these years, to jump on a
human intruder and bite him. He has
never shown any of the friendliness or
desire for human companionship so
common with the orang-utan and the
chimpanzee. Neither has he mani-
fested any remarkable intelligence.
One of the most interesting habits of
this ape is the daily utterance of a
series of calls or notes, commonlv
denominated ''singing." They are sad
and plaintive in tone, not unlike the
cooing of the mourning dove, but much
louder and in a higher key. On a
clear, frosty morning in autumn I have
heard him at a distance of more than a
mile. He usually begins his "singing"
about 8 :30 a.m. and continues for about
half an hour. On dark, gloomy days,
he is more likely to ''sing" at unusual
times than on clear, sunny days. Once
I observed he did not begin his "con-
cert" till about 9:30 and then kept it
up until nearly noontime. He has
been known to sing in the late after-
noon or early evening, when the day
was dark, but rarely twice on the same
day. The presence of people about the
cage does not seem to interfere with his
"singing."
Mr. Quigley says that before the
death of a female Hylobates, which was
secured at the same time as the male
but which lived only about fourteen
months, they both "sang," and that
she was the better "singer" of the two.
In closing a note she would do so with
a quaver, coming down gradually to
silence, while he stopped abruptly. At
her death he ceased "singing," but after
several months resumed the practice.
I am inclined to think that these notes
are the love calls of the species. I have
found the gibbon always very restless
while "singing," swinging from rope
to rope along the top of the big cage,
from one end to the other, running
along the shelf in front of the window
ledges, pausing for half a minute at
one window, then hurrying to the other,
peering longingly out, and listening, as
if anxiously looking and calling for
someone, and expectant of a response.
Mr. H. C. Raven, an experienced
collector, and long associated with Dr.
W. L. Abbott in his work in the East
Indies and other regions, says that the
ANTHROPOID APES I HAVE KNOWN
notes of the gibbon are among the
'•characteristic sounds of the Bornean
forest." He tells me that in the wild,
free state, both the male and the female
indulge in this morning serenade.
Since the gibbon of the Philadelphia
Zoological Garden has lived such an
unusually long time in captivity, never
missing a meal, and has gone for twelve
years without having so much as a
cold — an attack of dysentery in the
summer of 1921 being his only illness
in all that time — the reader may be
interested to know the diet prescribed
for him by the Zoological Society. The
first thing in the morning he is given
an orange and a dish of tapioca and rice
cooked together. His lunch, at half
past eleven, consists of a slice of bread.
Toward the end of the afternoon comes
dinner, when the rice and tapioca are
repeated, and a medium-sized banana
and a cup of sterilized milk containing a
teaspoonful of lime water is added to
the bill of fare. He is never given any
water to drink. This is his daily diet.
It is never changed one iota. No direct
current of air is ever permitted to blow
on him, unless the day is warm and
pleasant, but the two windows of the
small mammal house which open into
his cage, are arranged with double
sashes, and are so adjusted that the air
is always kept fresh and pure.
Frequently I have had men tell me
of the interesting gorillas they saw in
some traveling menagerie. On being
asked how long a tail these gorillas had.
the answer would almost invariably be,
"fifteen to eighteen inches." As a
matter of fact, no anthropoid ape has
any external tail. Indeed the gorilla
is a little farther removed from the
tailed state than we are. In the hu-
man coccyx, which corresponds to the
caudal appendage of the tailed mon-
keys, there are four vertebral bones.
more or less amalgamated or anky-
losed. But in the gorilla there are only
three of these in the normal adult.
These simians, advertised as gorillas,
have been baboons.
So far as I know, beyond all ques-
tion, only four gorillas have ever
reached America alive. The hist one
was brought over by Edwards Brothers
in 1897. It reached Boston on Sunday.
May 2, and died May 7. It was never
on exhibition. Doctor Hornaday's
daughter happened to be> in Boston at
the time and he telegraphed her to go
to see the rare and interesting animal,
which she did, reporting her impressions
to her father. The specimen was a
young male, a mere infant, and came
over from Liverpool with a young
female chimpanzee, to which he had
become much attached on the voyage.
He had been eating fairly well, but the
little chimpanzee was suffering with
pneumonia when they arrived, and two
days later she died. After this he be-
came listle>>, refused to eat. and on the
fifth day after arriving he, too, died.
The body was sold to Professor Burt
Wilder of Cornell University, and the
skin, skeleton, and brain are still on
exhibition in the museum of that
institution.
The second gorilla and the third were
brought to the United States by the
late Professor R. L. Garner for exhibi-
tion in the New York Zoological Park.
The first of the two was a young female
and was on exhibition in the park from
September 2:^ to ( >ctober 5, 1911. when
she died. She would eat only two kinds
of food, plaint ains and the young stocks
of plaintain and banana plants. She
refused to touch bananas, orange-,
grapes, bread, or any of the other
article- (if dirt so readily eaten by the
chimpanzee and the orang-utan. It
was impossible to keep her alive in this
4S
NATURAL HISTORY
country. She measured 34 inches in
height and the stretch of her arms from
tip to tip of the middle fingers was 47
inches. Doctor Hornaday thought she
must have been between two and three
years old and Professor Garner was of
the opinion that she was one of the
largest gorillas ever captured, as
usually the gorillas taken are small
babies only a few months old.
Profiting by his first experience,
Professor Garner kept his second speci-
men in Africa until she had learned to
eat "civilized food." as Doctor Horna-
day said, and in consequence they were
able to keep her alive from August 24,
1914, when she reached New York, until
August 3, 1915. ThisgoriUa was named
Dinah. She was of a more amiable
disposition than the first specimen, ate
rather freely, permitted herself to be
handled and dressed in human clothes,
and pushed about in a baby carriage.
But the '•civilized food " did not in the
end agree with her. She died from
starvation and malnutrition, compli-
cated with rickets and locomotor ataxia.
The fourth instance is that of the
gorilla known as John Daniel. When
about three years of age, this gorilla
was shipped to England and six months
later came into the possession of Miss
Alyse Cunningham, of London, under
whose tuition he made extraordinary
progress. After about two months it
was possible to give him the freedom
of the house. He had his place at the
table, opened doors by turning the
knob, and unbolted windows, raised
them, lowered them again, and locked
them, turned on the lights when enter-
ing a dark room, sponged himself when
bathing, and adapted himself in many
other ways to his urban environment.
He became deeply attached to Miss
Cunningham, and when later it was
found necessarv to sell him and he was
sent to New York, he became ill from
homesickness and died before Miss
( 'unningham, who was summoned
by cable, had time to reach him.1
The orang-utan is not nearly so good
an animal for exhibition purposes as is
the chimpanzee. Unlike the chimpan-
zee, he is not always inventing some
new way to amuse himself or to
accomplish some of his purposes, or
engaged in mad and frantic activity.
He is slow and deliberate, sedate and
dignified. But though he may sit in a
corner of his cage, motionless and
voiceless, his bright little eyes see
everything that is going on about him.
Indeed, I- have found him a very
keen observer. In 1907 I wastraveling
with the ( bis Lambrigger Animal Show
as naturalist and lecturer. Our star
attraction was a young orang-utan.
( >ne afternoon when I was standing in
front of his cage, he left his place in the
farther corner, came over to the front,
and. stretching his arm through the
bars, put his hand on my shoulder. At
first I could not imagine what was
engaging hi- attention, but when he
took his hand away I discovered there
was a tiny knot in the thread of the
seam of my coat, and he was trying to
get it. I had not noticed it before, but
his sharp eyes had seen it from the back
of the cage.
( )ld specimens are savage and mo-
rose, but the young are gentle and
affectionate, becoming much attached
to their human companions. I have
seen young orang-utans in the Xew
York Zoological Park following their
keeper about on the lawn, and when in
sport he attempted to run away from
■For a fuller account of John Daniel the reader is
referred to the article entitled "A Gorilla's Life in
Civilization," by Alyse Cunningham, Zoological Society
Bulletin, 1921, pp. 11S-24. The ape, mounted in
realistic attitude, is now in the American Museum. A
picture of the mount appeared in Natural History,
1921, p. 655, with an accompanying note. An earlier
note regarding this gorilla appeared in the same publi-
cation. 1921. p. 210.
JOHN DANIEL
This is the gorilla that, under the tuition of .Miss Alyse Cunningham, of London, made
such remarkable progress in adapting himself to the mode of life in a city house. The
picture is reproduced by courtesy of Dr. William Bornaday, from the Bulletin of the New
York Zoological Society, September, 19?l
50
NATURAL HISTORY
them, they hurried after, now and
then putting their heads to the ground
and turning a somersault in an effort
to accelerate their speed.
One afternoon, when with the Lam-
brigger Animal Show, I hadfinished a
Copyrighted '04 by C. E. Ridenour, Philadelphia
This orang-utan wears, with an air of full
assurance, the overalls of a laborer, and grips
his pipe like an inveterate smoker. He was
an animal of unusual intelligence. On one
occasion to recover a nut which had rolled
beyond his reach, he took off a sweater he
was wearing and. passing it through the liar-.
used it to draw the nut little by little toward
the cage
lecture and had sat down in a chair in
front of the stage or platform on which
the small portable cage- were arranged.
I was at some distance from the orang-
utan's cage. Presently, however. I felt
two hairy arms enfold mv neck and a
strawberry-blond youngster climbed
over on my lap and proceeded to make
himself very much at home. The ape
had opened the cage door himself and
had walked along in front of the other
cages till he was behind me. When I was
with the Edwards' Animal Show in
New York, we had a baby orang-utan
and a big chimpanzee we called Sallie.
Sallie soon learned she could frighten
the little fellow by stamping her feet
and screaming. One morning she
started this noise, whereupon the
orang-utan turned and ran to me,
climbing into my lap and snuggling up
to me, as if seeking protection from the
great ugly, black beast, that he doubt-
less thought Sallie to be.
I have seen the orang-utans in the
New York Zoological Park sitting at
table, drinking out of cups and eating
from plates using spoons, knives, and
forks, but not with the same readiness
and ease with which the chimpanzee
learns to do these things. There is,
however, one accomplishment of the
orang-utan I wish to emphasize, for in
this he is an adept. It is using a
blanket to cover himself. I have never
seen an ape so young that he was
not able to take a blanket and pull it
over himself, without any previous
teaching. This accomplishment seems
to be an inherited habit or instinct.
In their native country these apes
probably cover themselves with large
leaves.
At one time, when with the Edwards'
Animal Show, we had a big orang-utan
who was unusually intelligent. He
learned all the coins from the silver dol-
lar down to the copper cent and rarely
made a mistake in picking out the coin
asked for. On a certain evening he was
given some English walnuts, and ate all
but one, which dropped outside the cage
and rolled just beyond his reach. His
ANTHROPOID APES I HAVE KNOWN
51
appetite was satisfied and he made no
special effort to get this nut. The next
morning;, however, he was hungry, and
tried to reach it with his long arms.
But it was a little too far away. After
some minutes of silent thoughtfulness,
he tried to roll some of the straw on the
bottom of his cage into a sort of wand,
by means of which he might reach the
nut. But the straw was too much
broken. Then there was another
period of silent thoughtfulness. At
length he began taking off his sweater.
We wondered why he was doing this, as
he was not in the habit of undressing
himself unless we gave him permission
to do so. Slowly and deliberately he
unbuttoned the garment and drew his
arms out of the sleeves. Then, pushing
the sweater out through the bars of the
cage, he swung it forward till it dropped
over the nut, and gently drew it
towards him, repeating this procedure
until the nut was within reach. There-
upon he took the coveted morsel,
cracked it, ate the kernel, then as
carefully and deliberately put the
sweater on again.
Of all the anthropoids. 1 have found
the chimpanzee the most lovable. You
cannot but feel he returns your affection
as truly and sincerely as a human child.
I have seen a young chimpanzee, on
being taken from the shipping box in
which he came to America, throw his
arms about the neck of a man he had
never seen before and hug him affec-
tionately. I once had a little fellow
who would snuggle up to me. then take
my arm and put it about him. I had
another, a big specimen, who fre-
quently wanted to kiss me, and always
on the lips. This, in spite of his good
intentions, was not always a pleasant
experience, for usually his lips were not
very clean. 1 have known chimpanzees
so attached to their keeper thai they
would fight for him, attacking another
man or even one of their own species.
My introduction to Mr. Joseph
Edwards of the Edwards' Animal Show,
was unique and characteristic. I had
come to the menagerie in the absence
of the proprietor. One evening, two
or three weeks after I had entered
on my engagement, I was lecturing on
the four-year-old chimpanzee, who was
sitting on a little chair on the stage.
Just as I was finishing my talk, she
gave utterance to a half dozen ecstatic,
bark-like notes, and rushing across the
stage past me, threw her arms in an
exuberance of delight about the neck of
one who was a stranger to me. I
needed no further introduction. She
had not seen Mr. Edwards for four or
five weeks, and others had been feed-
ing her, yet her greeting was one of the
deepest affection.
To me one of the most remarkable
things about the chimpanzee is the fact
that he understands how to express
affection and gratitude by hugging and
kissing without being taught. This
can only mean that these modes of ex-
pression are very, very old in the
primate group. Indeed, they may not
be confined to the primates. The
elephant, though far removed genetic-
ally, has a similar mode of expression.
I once had a large- female of the Indian
species who was very fond of me. Not
infrequently when I was passing near
her. she would reach over, take me by
the arm, pull me up close to her side,
and put my hand in her mouth, giving
my fingers a gentle squeeze with her
lips. It was her way of showing affec-
tion. The dog's habit of licking the
face or hand of his master is well known.
Kissing may be as old as the tactile
sense.
The kiss of the chimpanzee is no1 a
smack of the lips, but a lingering, caress-
52
NATURAL HISTORY
ing touch of the lips to the bare neck
of the keeper, to his hand, or to his
shoulder, and frequently accompanied
b}r a gentle pressure from the teeth.
The way these apes commonly greet
each other in captivity, and I presume
in a state of freedom as well, is by an
embrace — by throwing the arms about
the neck or shoulders and giving a
gentle squeeze. I have seen a large
female chimpanzee, which had been
some time in captivity, rush up to a
smaller specimen newly arrived with
cries of delight, and give the newcomer
a gentle hug. I have seen this same
big chimpanzee greet a baby orang-
utan in the same way.
This ape has the most fully
developed sense of gratitude of any
animal I know. He just must thank
somebody for every esteemed favor. It'
he cannot get to the one who does him
the favor, he will hug someone else.
One afternoon, Sally, the big female
chimpanzee mentioned above, saw
the keeper approaching with a large
bunch of grapes, a fruit of which
she was inordinately fond. She began
screaming with delight. He came only
to the guard rail and handed the grapes
across. She could not reach him from
the stage, so she turned and threw her
arms about me. One night, when she
was very tired, she noticed the Senior
Mr. Edwards getting out her sleeping-
box. She gave forth two or three long-
drawn-out notes, followed by sharp,
quick, truncated barks of delight,
rushed to her master and hugged him
frantically, turned to me and hugged
me till she almost choked me, then
hurried over to a negro at the end of the
stage and hugged him too.
On the other hand, the chimpanzee
will sometimes become angry and
attack. The habit of these apes to
cling together and fight for each other
makes it necessary for the keeper
always to be on his guard. His inten-
tions toward one ape may be mis-
interpreted by another and he will
have both of them on his hands. One
morning in Chicago I was giving an
exhibition with Joe, a young chim-
panzee of remarkable intelligence and
usually very good-natured. But on the
occasion in question he had a cold and
was not in the best of humor. He
refused to do what I asked and began
screaming. Mike, a big burly brute,
gave his well-known war cry and came
for me like an enraged tiger. For-
tunately the little fellow was between
Mike and me, and a chair served as an
additional obstacle. As a result I had
time to seize a small stick which I had
I (ecu using as a pointer and to give
Mike two sharp cuts across the face,
which turned him; but it was only by
the greatest dexterity that I saved
myself from the great jaws of the
savage beast.
In general the chimpanzee is. how-
ever, very good-natured and obedient,
ready and anxious to do what is asked
so far as lie comprehends. In Peoria,
Illinois, I had a little chimpanzee
named Adam, who made his public
appearance in a gocart. As I was
answering some question, my attention
was withdrawn from him for a few
minutes. The little fellow seized the
opportunity to climb out of the cart
and, when I noticed him, was stealthily
making off. I said in a quiet but firm
tone, "Adam, get light back in here."
Without the slightest hesitation, he
returned and climbed into the gocart.
A bystander exclaimed, "Well, he
obeys better than my kids!"
Adam was one of the best-natured.
most peace-loving animals I have ever
known. One evening I was alone in the
menagerie. Everybody else had gone
FOI'H OF \IK. SHEAK'S CHIMPANZEE FRIENDS
Content, though crowded, these four apes present the pleasant side of chimpanzee
clannishness. These animals are not merely passively friendly, however; on occasion
they will fight for one another. Mr. Sheak had a narrow escape one time from the fierce
attack of Mike, the big ape on the extreme right, who rushed at him in response to a
scream that Joe, the ape next in order, gave forth. The two apes huddled at the lower end
of the cart are not mentioned in the text. One of them, the ape next to Joe, was with
Mr. Edwards for nearly ten years, and on the road most of that time. She probably holds
the world's record for longevity of the chimpanzee in a traveling menagerie
54
XATCRAL HISTORY
out to dinner. I was sitting near the
chimpanzee cage writing a letter, when
a large savage female began screaming
in angry tones. A few minutes earlier
the apes had been fed potatoes boiled
with the skins on. She had swallowed
hers greedily and was now reaching for
spoon through the bars. ( me day when
she was thus engaged in feeding a pair
of gray spider monkeys, Mr. Edwards
appeared with a bunch of grapes.
Immediately she began stamping her
feet, screaming, and making a frightful
noise, which drove all the other simians
Joe is posing for his picture, his eye fixed upon the
looks down from the frame on the wall
mng photographer, while Darwin
little Adam's share. She was afraid to
take it from him by force while I was
so near; but to my utter astonishment
the little fellow broke his potato in
two and gave her half of it .
Most chimpanzees are, however, not
so willing to divide. Sometimes Sally,
when she had eaten all the rice she
cared for, would feed what was left
in her dish to the little monkeys in a
cage near her, dipping the contents out,
a spoonful at a time, and handing the
to the farther end of the cage. On re-
ceiving the grapes she again turned to-
ward them and gave two or three savage
barks. She was perfectly willing to
divide the rice, which she did not want
herself, but not the grapes, which she
did want. When Joe was given two
apples and told to present one of them
to his little sister, he would, if one was
larger than the other, invariably hand
her the smaller one, keeping the larger
for himself, but if thev were about the
ANTHROPOID APES I HAVE KNOWN
oo
same size, he would take a good bite
or two out of one of them, then hand
that one to her.
Xo animal below man possesses a
higher degree of intelligence than the
chimpanzee, if, indeed, any equals
him. The orang-utan approaches him
very closely in intelligence. The psy-
chology of the gorilla is almost unknown
to us, but we judge from the relative size
of the brain and its convolutions that he
ranks very high intellectually. We
have no reason to believe, however.
that he surpasses his smaller cousin.
Joe was one of the most wonderful
animals I have ever known. We made
no special effort to teach him any-
thing, but he was a close observer and
a persistent imitator, and picked up
many clever tricks. He learned to
wipe his nose with a handkerchief,
brush his hair with a hairbrush, clean
his clothes with a whisk broom, drink
out of a cup, eat with a spoon as well as
any human child, bore holes with a
1 trace and bit, use a handsaw quite
dexterously, take screws out of the
guard rail with a screw driver, drive
nails with a hammer and pull them out
with the claw of the hammer, and to
play on a toy piano and on a mouth
harp.
Joe was full of mischief and dearly
loved to tease a little Mexican dog that
usually slept near his cage. He would
reach out and give the dog a pinch,
then quickly jerk his hand back before
the canine could nip him. In this way
he kept the dog in a constant state of
irritation and always ready for a fight.
One day Mr. Joseph Edwards came
into the room with some oranges and
laid one under the dog's nose, wonder-
ing how Joe would solve such a prob-
lem. But it was no problem at all for
Joe. He got the hammer, poked the
handle through the bars till he got the
dog to biting at it, then gradually
worked the dog away until he could
safely reach the orange with his other
hand.
In Kansas City we kept the chim-
panzees in a very large cage, almost
the size of an ordinary bedroom. We
had some ropes attached to the roof of
the cage by bolts with a ring in the
lower end. One of these bolts came out
and fell to the floor. Mr. Joseph
Edwards got in the cage, picked up the
bolt, handed it to Joe and said, "Now
you get up there," pointing with his
finger, -and put this bolt through the
hole, and hold it there till I fasten it."
The little ape climbed to the top of the
cage, holding on by one of the other
ropes, inserted the bolt in the hole, and
held it till Mr. Edwards climbed on top
and made it fast. The head keeper,
who was standing near me, expressed
the thought and feeling of all of us
when he exclaimed. " By Oeorge, that 's
going some!"
'The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals"
AN APPRECIATION OF DR. WILLIAM T. HORNADAY'S LATEST BOOK1
By WILLIAM BEEBE
Director of tin- Tropical Research Station of t)u- New York Zoological Society at Kaitabo, Hiitisli Guiana
SINCE the time of Noah interest
in animals has never flagged, and
from a certain afternoon in the
Garden of Eden up to the most recent
pronouncements of \V. .1. Bryan animal
psychology lias been an important
factor in the life of mankind. Dr.
William T. Hornaday has marshalled
all the more important observations he
has made during a long and intensively
observant life, on the minds and the
manners of animals, and has used them
as morals, as texts, as examples, either
delicately to suggest some hypothesis,
or with sledge-hammer blows to force
home some vital truth in the rela-
tions of animals and mankind on the
earth today.
To those of us who have been asso-
ciated with Doctor Hornaday for the
two decades of his splendid administra-
tion of the New York Zoological Park,
many of these pages will appear as
memoirs of the doings of certain furry
quadrupeds and feathered bipeds; there
are chapters which, in faithful delinea-
tion of character, could be entitled
"The Mirrors of the Zoological Park."
To the general reader the book will
appeal with all the charm of absorbing
animal stories and anecdotes, which at
the same time are logically bound
together, dignified and clarified by the
context of direct application.
Doctor Hornaday has the courage of
his convictions and has covered the
entire range of psychology of the higher
vertebrates, with mammals as the
dominant interest.
On the first page we learn his
'Published. 1M22. by Charl
oti
attitude toward evolution: "To the
inquirer who enters the field of animal
thought with an open mind, and free
from the trammels of egotism and fear
regarding man's place in nature, this
study will prove an endless succession
of surprises and delights." Three
pages later his estimate of mechanism
is revealed: "Brain-owning wild ani-
mals are not mere machines of Mesh
and blood, set agoing by the accident
of birth, and running for life on the
narrow-gauge railway of Heredity."
In the first part of the volume
temperament, individuality, language,
and the rights of wild animals are dis-
cussed. The second chapter, on
temperament, is one of the best and
most suggestive in the book, and in my
estimation furnishes one keynote to
animal psychology. Six general types
of temperament are recognized: mo-
rose, lymphatic, sanguine, nervous,
hysterical, and combative. The gorilla
is "either morose or lymphatic," the
orang-utan "sanguine, optimistic, and
cheerful." and the chimpanzee is
"either nervous or hysterical." This
specific individuality or temperament is
evident from mammals to ants, and is
the necessary concomitant of the in-
ability of any animal to think "I ami."
Out of the abundance of his experi-
ence. Doctor Hornaday gives for the
first time lists of bears, deer, and the
pachyderms, based on this important
phenomenon. Here is a new angle on
behemoth: "Every Ilippopotajiiu*,
either Nile or pygmy, is an animal of
serene mind and steady habits. Their
es Seribner's Sons
THE MINDS AND MANNERS OF WILD ANIMALS
57
appetites work with clock-like regu-
larity, and require no winding. I can-
not recall that any one of our five
hippos was ever sick for a day, or
missed a meal. When the idiosyncra-
cies of Gunda, our bad elephant, were
at their worst, the contemplation of
Peter the Great ponderously and
serenely chewing his hay was a rest to
tired nerves. ... It may be set down
as an absolute rule that hippos are
lymphatic, easy-going, contented. . . ."
And now may I register my strong-
est objection to Doctor Hornaday's
volume, a mere matter of words but
none the less important? On page lol
he credits a wild Ovis nelsoni with "a
reputation for quick thinking, original
reasoning and sound conclusions."
Now, if I were writing a biography of
Doctor Hornaday himself, and taking
into consideration all the intricate
planning, the able achievement, and
the complex intellectual correlation by
which he has brought into being and
sustained our great Zoological Park,
these are exactly the words I should
use. And I object to the same un-
qualified phrases being applied to a
wild sheep because it lies down in
token of surrender when trapped, and
docs not try to fight its captor. If these
terms are applied to the sheep, I
demand some superlatives appropriate
to the man, and for them I search
my dictionary in vain. I hasten to add
for the benefit of Mr. Bryan and the
Kentucky legislature that my argu-
ments imply no mental hiatus, any
more than physical; I have seen a
drop of water and I know the ocean is
made up of a multitude of similar
particles, but I prefer the word ocean
to drop*. The paucity of the English
language is such that we cannot afford
to stretch to the breaking point such
splendid words as reason and intel-
lectual unless we qualify the extremes.
We cannot but admire Doctor Horn-
aday for his high, generous estimate of
the animal mind, and his chapters on
the elephant, the chimpanzee Peter,
and Major Penny's gorilla offer many
surprises. To me the chapter on
language is the most interesting, and
as there is no attempt to endow ani-
mals with talk or speech, every state-
ment is conservative, reasonable, and
accurate. This chapter should be
enlarged to a full volume along the
lines laid down by Doctor Hornaday.
With few exceptions other writers have
given way to the temptation to
Anglicize the calls and songs of wild
creatures, with very sad results. The
various cries and emotional vocaliza-
tions of apes and monkeys make
intensely interesting reading. The
paragraph on page 30 beginning "Of
all the monkeys that I have ever
known, either wild or in captivity, the
ied howlers of the Orinoco, in Vene-
zuela, have the most remarkable voices,
and make the most remarkable use of
them," is of particular interest at this
very moment, for as I write these words
in the interior of British Guiana, a
chorus of these monkeys comes full
strength across the water, and, as
Doctor Hornaday continues, "The
great volume of uncanny sound thus
produced goes rolling through the still
forest far and wide."
The second part of the book contains
twelve chapters dealing with such
subjects as "The Brightest Minds
Among Animals," "Keen Birds and
Dull Men," and special treatments of
the higher apes, elephants, bears,
ruminants, rodents, birds, serpents,
and the "Training of Wild Animals."
For cunning in self-preservation, Doc-
tor Hornaday awards the palm to the
common brown rat : for strategy to the
58
XATUEAL HISTORY
musk ox, while he considers the silver-
tip grizzly bear as being the "brightest
North American animal," and sets
forth excellent reasons for his choice.
The Higher Passions form the sub-
ject of the third section, — morals, laws
of the herd, plays and pastimes, and
courage. Finally the Baser Passions
such as fear, crime, and fighting, are
considered.
I am glad that Doctor Hornaday
gives rather a low place to avian men-
tality. Many- years ago, influenced by
some well-written, plausible volumes, I
expected great things of birds, but in
the interim I have had to modify
my ideas, until I am compelled to
place birds hardly above reptiles and
fish.
Under the three successive chapters
devoted to Play. Courage, and Fear.
a splendid array of anecdotes and of
striking examples is marshalled. The
illustrations have been chosen with
judgment and care, and ably sustain
their share in the presentation of the
subject.
Throughout the work there runs a
continuous undercurrent of a plea for
better and more intelligent relations
between man and the animals which
still survive on the earth. Many
people will read this volume with
interest only in the more exciting
anecdotes; they will skip here and
there, and throw it aside, turning
thence to the sensational parts of a
newspaperandnegleetingthe editorials
To other more worthy readers, for
whom the volume is really intended.
there will stand out three forceful
theses, the successful presentation of
any one of which would make the book
worth while: first, a body blow to the
pa-sing phase of anti-evolution talk;
second, an appeal for moderation in the
sportsman, and excess in the conserva-
tionist; and third, a plea for a sane.
intelligent interest in the lives and
activities of animals, as a healthful
distraction from the egotistical and
anthropomorphically narrow confines
of thought of the majority of human
beings.
!:.«. OUaaen
<Jc
ft^^uP^tf &
bAfeeJ^C?
'James Hall of Albany" — A Review
By GEORGE F. KUNZ
Hot-arch Associate, Gems, American Museum
DR. JAMES HALL, who was
born at Hingham, Massa-
chusetts. September 12, 1811,
and who died at Echo Hill, near Bel hle-
heni. New Hampshire, cm August 6,
1898, at the advanced a<ie of very
nearly eighty-seven, was for a period of
more than sixty years preceding his
death the most industrious and con-
structive of our American geologists.
An account of his life and work has now
been ably written by his former first
assistant, Dr. .John M. Clarke, who
from 1898 until the present time has
been Doctor Hall's able successor as
palaeontologist of the New York State
Geological Survey, and since 1904 has
been director of the State Museum at
Albany. Doctor Clarke's book.1 a
.hums Hall of Albany, Geologist and Palseontol
1811-1898, by John M.Clarke; 565 pages, 11 plates,
and frontispiece portrait. Published 1921, by S. C.
Bishop, - High Street, Albany, N. V.
59
60
NATURAL HISTORY
review of which by the present writer
appeared also in the New York Times
(Sunday, September 3, 1922), is of the
greatest interest to the entire geological
world, but especially to all the members
and friends of the American Museum
of Natural History, for this institution
shelters Hall's great collection of fos-
sils, purchased by the Museum in 1875.
The collection embraces 80,000 speci-
mens, which constitute the broadest
basis for the study of Palaeozoic
geology, and which were the foundation
of the magnificent volumes of the
Geology of New York produced by
Hall.1 More than one third of all
known specimens were figured therein,
either as specimens new to science or as
new and interesting occurrences. ( 'are-
ful drawings of them were made and
reproduced in a vast Dumber of the
finest lithographic and copper plates of
their time. Indeed, any geologisl
wishing to study Paheozoic geology,
whether American or foreign, will find
it impossible to do so without the
volumes of the State Survey of New-
York2 or, to be more accurate, unless he
studies the wonderful examples of the
earliest known fossil remains of either
plants or animals, now in the American
Museum of Natural History and in the
collection of the New York State Mu-
seum at Albany, New York.
When this great collection had been
acquired, Dr. Albert S. Bickmore, who
was the originator of the idea of a great
natural history museum for the city of
New York, head of the original admini-
strative staff of the American Museum
'Doctor Hall's smaller papers, in octavo form, were
•< jittered through the New York State Museum reports,
the reports of the State surveys, various scientific
periodicals, etc., but as a rule they were very brief and
the number of printed pages did not exceed 2500. Thus
his total output of geological material may be set down
as between 10,000 and 12,000 pages.
^Lindstrom of Sweden wrote Doctor Hall in 1898
"Your Palaeontology of New York will be consulted for
ages to come by many generations of Palaeontologists,
American and European," and Prof. James D. Dana
stated "Without your labors the geology of the North
American Continent could not have been written."
of Natural History, and also a mem-
ber of the scientific staff, invited the
present writer, jointly with Dr. C.
Frederic Holder, who was the assist-
ant to Doctor Bickmore, to aid
in the packing and transportation of
the Hall collection. The final shipment
by train consisted of an entire carload;
for the second shipment by water, an
entire hay barge was required.
This collection of 80,000 specimens
contained no less than 6400 types. In
the New York State Museum, Doctor
Clarke tells us, there are at present
10,000 type specimens, Hall's types
totaling 4833. while those of later date
number 5239. Dr. Philip S. Smith,
acting director of the United States
Geological Survey, writes: "From a
careful estimate of the Paheozoic type
fossils that have accumulated in the
l\ S. National Museum as a result of
the activities of the l*. S. Geological
Survey, it appears that there are about
18.000 specimens including plants,
invertebrates, and vertebrates that
may be considered types for the reason
that they have served as the basis of
specific descriptions and for the most
part have been figured. Possibly as
many as 6000 species are represented,
but it is not practicable, without ex-
pending more labor than the impor-
tance of the question would seem to
justify, to determine how many of these
were described as new. It is the custom
to treat all figured specimens as types
whether they belong to new species or
old ones."
Hard}'. industrious, zealous— at
times over-zealous — and in spite of
many serious disputes and differences,
Hall rendered great and indispensable
service. In a way his activity paral-
leled that rendered by the great
Barrande to the geology of Bohemia.
Whatever mav be said about the die-
"JAMES HALL OF ALBAXY
A REVIEW
61
tutorial methods used by Hall in his
work, we should allow him the same
latitude in this respect that we accord
the great captains of industry who have
built up their wonderful enterprises
with just as little regard to the opposi-
tion they have encountered. We must
judge Hall not by any standard of
conciliatory scholarship, but by the
thoroughness and importance of the
work he accomplished so successfully
on the New York Geological Survey.
The salient feature of Doctor Hall's
life work was his unswerving devotion
to the great task he had set himself,
that of making known to the scientific
world, in the broadest and most com-
prehensive way, the unique significance
of the territory of New York State in
the history of the geology of the world.
This great life work has been most
convincingly presented by Doctor
Clarke, and he has made of his book a
truly representative volume. He him-
self says : "I have tried to set down the
story of an unusual man. I hope that
it may find a place among the monu-
ments he raised to his science."
Senators Daniel P. Wood and
Chauncey M. Depew, Theodore
Roosevelt, and the late James W.
Husted were Doctor Hall's valiant
friends in assuring funds for this great-
est of state surveys, thus overcoming
very strong opposition. The oppor-
tunity of making known the preemi-
nence of New York State from a
geologic standpoint was assured
through the foresight of its legislators
in sustaining financially the produc-
tion of the great descriptive series of
volumes by Doctor Hall and Doctor
Clarke, in which its marvelous Palae-
ozoic remains were so splendidly
figured.
A tablet has been erected to Doctor
Hall's memory in Letchworth Park,
overlooking the Genesee. This tab-
let to our great American geologist
parallels in significance that which
was erected near Prague to the memory
of Barrande.
It is interesting to know that the
scene of much of Hall's geological
survey has been rendered accessible to
citizens of New York State and of the
country through the generosity of Mrs.
John Boyd Thatcher, manifested in the
gift to New York State of the John
Boyd Thatcher Park. Here, in a
stretch of three miles along the rim of
the famous Heilderbergs. we have before
us, in a wonderfully impressive way.
the series of strata from which Hall
secured the splendid fossils which he
described in such masterly style. With
the rapid growth of our enterprising
nation, study is being devoted more
and more ardently to its historic be-
ginnings, and it is only natural that in
the course of this study our thoughts
should be carried back to the formation
of the continent on which this great
development of civilization has been
brought about.
Doctor Clarke presents the mass of
facts he has assembled in so clear and
graceful a literary style that the story
of Hall's life and of the wonderful
period of the world's history to which
he devoted his studies reads like the
romance of a great author. The
volume is one of unusual interest to the
general reader, and ought to have a
place in every collection of Americana,
for it has bearing not only on the funda-
mental formation- of New York State
but also on those of the entire conti-
nent we might, indeed, say of the
entire world.
A whale shark, caught on the bow of a 17,000-ton steamer. This
picture is from a photograph supplied by Captain Charles H. Zearfoss,
the master of the vessel, and retouched by Mr. William E Belanske
under the supervision of Dr. E. W. Gudger
An Extraordinary Capture of the Giant Shark,
Rhineodon Typus
By E. W. GUDGER
Associate in Ichthyology, American Museum
OX JUNE 2 there called at the
department of ichthyology,
American Museum, Mr. C. F.
Krauss of San Francisco, who related
the story of the capture of a shark such
as had never been told before. The
incident had occurred during a voy-
age of the Munson liner "American
Legion," along the eastern coast of
South America, and Mr. Krauss had
come to the Museum in the belief that
his report of the event would be of
interest and also to seek information
as to the identity of the shark.
Mr. Krauss told the members of the
department that on the early morning
(APT (in: OF A GIANT SHARK
63
of May 19, 1922, while somewhere
north of Rio, the ship had struck a
giant shark about one-third of the
distance back from the snout toward
the tail. So perfectly balanced was the
fish, that it had hung on the bow for
several hours and was finally detached
only with some difficulty. He said
that the fish was about thirty feet long
and covered with yellow spots about
the size of a silver dollar, and that the
ship's people called it " leopard shark"
and "tiger shark" on account of these
spots.
From the description of Mr. Krauss
I was satisfied that the fish was a
Rhiheodon, well-named "'whale shark"
because of its great length and bulk.
However, he suggested that I write the
master of the vessel, Captain Charles
H. Zearfoss, for data. This I did and
presently I received from him two
photographs (copies of which were also
brought later by Mr. Krauss) and a
letter which left no possibility of
doubt that the shark was, as surmised,
a Rhineodon.
Captain Zearfoss's very definite and
clear-cut statement of this extra-
ordinary happening is as follows :
Some time during the morning of
May 19, while this vessel [the steam-
ship "American Legion"] was crossing-
over the banks which lie northeast of
the Abrolhos Light in Lat. 17° 57' S..
and Long. 38° 41' W., a shark in
attempting to cross our bow was
struck by our stem. The speed of the
ship through the water then held it
doubled round our bow.
There was no shock (except to the
nerves of the fish) and its presence was
not discovered until daylight.
During the morning an attempt was
made to lift the body out of the water,
but without success, and later the ship
was stopped and backed, when the
shark was washed clear and imme-
diately sank.
The shark was struck immediately
behind the last gill and hung with eight
feet of head and gills on our port side
and about twenty-two feet of body on
our starboard side.
To Mr. Krauss and Captain Zearfoss
I am indebted for the data which en-
ables me to set before the readers of
Natural History the most extra-
ordinary instance known to me of
shark fishing. Surely no one before
ever used, for the purpose of spearing
a fish, a 17, 000-ton steamer.
A whale shark captured in 1912 by Captain Charles Thompson and mount-
ed by Mr. .(. S. Warmbath. The huge proportions of this fish dwarf by
comparison the man who is leaning against the truck. After Townsend, 1913.
A POLYNESIAN FISHERMAN'
The Racial Diversity of the Polynesian Peoples
By LOUIS R. SULLIVAN
Assistant Curator, Physical Anthropology, American .Museum
THE racial origin and relation-
ships of the Polynesians have
been the subject of much
speculation and discussion. Earlier
students of anthropology not only
emphasized their uniformity in culture
and language, but also used them as a
standard example of a remarkable
uniformity of physical type extending
over a greatly diversified habitat.
They are described as being almost
identical in physical appearance from
Hawaii to New Zealand and from
Samoa to Easter Island.
The more intensive work of recent
years has led, however, to a modifica-
tion of the statements maintaining a
uniformity of culture and language.
Several major and countless minor
migrations have been hypothesized to
account for differences or similarities in
these respects. In the main, these
migrations have been attributed to
different groups of the same race.
There is, however, a growing tendency
to regard the Polynesians as a mixed
people. But here again a majority of
the students seem to feel that the fusion
has taken place outside of Polynesia
and before migration into that region.
There has also been a great diversity
of opinion as to what are the compo-
nent elements. Melanesian, Negrito.
Indonesian, Proto-Armenoid, Alpine.
Malay, and Australoid mixtures have
been suggested as the possible causes of
diversity of physical types in Polynesia.
But, in the main, these explanations
must be regarded merely as sugges-
tions. To hold an opinion, even if it
be a correct one, does not advance
science. It is only when the basis for
that opinion is analyzed and demon-
strated to one's colleagues that that
opinion becomes a contribution to
science.
Of those who believe that the Poly-
nesians are a mixed people there are
few who have taken the trouble to
publish the evidence which converted
them to that view. The most note-
worthy of the contributions that have
come from those who have made a
detailed study and analysis of the
available data is that of Professor
Dixon of Harvard University. On
the basis of the published craniometric
data he proposes four types, which he
names in terms of their characteristic
brain case and nasal opening forms: a
brachycephalic, hypsicephalic, and
platyrrhine type; a dolichocephalic,
hypsicephalic, and platyrrhine type; a
dolichocephalic, hypsicephalic, and
leptorrhine type; and a brachy-
cephalic, hypsicephalic, and leptorrhine
type. All of these types have high
brain cases (are hypsicephalic). Two
are long-headed and two are short-
headed. One each of the long-headed
and short-headed types is narrow-
nosed; the other is wide-nosed. These
types are tentatively identified as
Negrito, Melanesian, Caucasian, and
Malay.
Now while there was and is some
doubt whether these types as named
are all to be found in Polynesia in
sufficiently large numbers to be re-
garded as factors in the history or
prehistory of that area, there is no
doubt of the physical diversity that
65
66
NATURAL HISTORY
their proposal implies. Professor
Dixon does not claim that these ele-
ments or types entered Polynesia as
pure types or by separate migrations.
He does not say which type is the true
Polynesian and makes no effort to
identify any of his types with specific
migrations. He made it clear that
many more data were needed to throw
light on these phases of the problem.
At the time of Professor Dixon's pub-
lication very few detailed studies on
the living Polynesians were in existence.
Through the generosity of Mr. Bayard
Dominick the Bernice Pauahi Bishop
Museum of Honolulu has been enabled
through expeditions to help remedy
this deficiency. These Dominick Ex-
peditions have supplied data from
Samoa, Tonga, the Marquesas. Rapa.
and Hawaii. In Samoa and Tonga the
studies were made by E. W. Gifford
and W. ( '. McKern; in the Marquesas,
by E. S. Handy and Ralph Linton; and
in Rapa, b}r J. F. G. Stokes and R. F.
Aitken. The American Museum of
Natural History was invited to assisl
in the planning and carrying ou1 of
these expeditions. The department of
anthropology of this Museum has been
responsible for the somatological part
of the surveys and donated my services
to make a study of the Hawaiian people
and to analyze all of the anthropo-
metric data contributed by the anthro-
pologists above mentioned. The
physical anthropology of this project
has been throughout a cooperative
study. Each of the men named has
generously turned over to me his
field notes on this phase of the subject
in the hope that uniformity in analysis
and interpretation might result in a
contribution of greater value to Poly-
nesian anthropology than would a
series of independent and uncorrected
efforts.
The records from Samoa, Tonga,
Marquesas, and in part those from
Hawaii have been analyzed. So far I
have succeeded in isolating two
physical types, each of which is still
represented by large numbers of in-
dividuals. I have tentatively called
these types Polynesian and Indonesian.
Their characteristics are indicated in
the accompanying table.
The unsuspected presence in large
numbers of this Indonesian type in
Polynesia explains the often expressed
opinion that the Polynesians and
Indonesians are closely related types.
An unfortunate confusion in ter-
minology lias done much to keep this
opinion alive. One group of anthro-
pologists has called a type in Indonesia
which resembles the Polynesians, Indo-
nesian. The other group has called a
type in Polynesia which resembles the
Indonesians, Polynesian. On any
oilier basis than this there can be no
reason for assuming a close relationship
between the two types. From the
characteristics listed in the table, it
will lie -een that the Indonesian is the
antithesis of the Polynesian in nearly
every detail.
The Polynesian is usually described
by students of Polynesia as Caucasian
in origin. It must be admitted that
when the Indonesian traits are re-
moved, the Polynesian is strikingly
C'aucasoid in appearance. If this is
merely a parallelism in development, as
some imply, it is most certainly a
remarkable parallelism. At this time
it is impossible to determine the exact
place of the Polynesian in the human
family. The available data seem to
indicate that the Polynesian is a type
intermediate between the Caucasian
and the Mongol. At present I am
inclined to believe that it is an offshoot
from the primitive Mongoloid stem
THE RACIAL DIVERSITY OF THE POLYNESIAN PEOPLES 67
POLYNESIANS
INDONESIANS
1.
Light brown skin
1.
Medium to dark brown skin
2
Wavy hair of medium texture
o
Wavy hair
3.
Medium beard development
3.
Scant beard development
4.
Medium body hair development
4.
Scant body hair development
5.
Moderate frequency of incisor rim
.5.
Incisor rim absent
6.
Lips of average thickness
6.
Lips above average in thickness
i .
Moderately long heads
7.
Short heads
Average cephalic index 77-8
Average cephalic index about 81-2
8.
Tall, average stature 171 cms.
8.
Sin liter stature, average uncertain
9.
Very high and moderately wide faces
9.
Very low, broad faces
Average faeial index about 90
Average facial index about 80
10.
Very high but very broad noses
10.
Very low and very broad noses
Average nasal index about 75
Average nasal index about 87-8
11.
Nostrils oblique
11.
Nostrils transverse
12.
Nasal bridge elevated more than
average
12.
Nasal bridge low
13.
Chin fairly well developed
13.
Chin somewhat below average
14.
Eye fold absent
14.
Incipient eye fold
15.
Often lean and lank when unmixed
15.
Heavy with short necks
16.
Platymeric (shaft of femur flat)
16.
| Skeletal characters uncertain.
17.
Platychemic (shaft of tibia flat)
17.
{ but not so flat as
18.
Platolenic (shaft of ulna flat)
18.
Polynesians
close to where the Caucasian stock
arose. Egotistically we may regard the
Polynesian as a somewhat unsuccessful
attempt of nature to produce a Cau-
casian type. That the Polynesians
are closely related to the Caucasoid
stock there can be no doubt. Some
such type as this must have given rise
to the ( 'aucasian. Descendants of this
or a closely related stock pass for
Caucasians in Europe today. The
final classification of the Polynesians is
somewhat dependent upon the syste-
matic position of certain American
Indian groups, the Aino. and certain
other Caucasoid or pseudo-Caucasian
typos in .Malaysia and Asia. Their
relationship to the Aino is pretty
clearly indicated.
The affinities of the Indonesian ele-
ment in Polynesia arc also somewhat
uncertain. The Indonesian is usu-
ally looked upon as Mongoloid but in
this study its Negroid characters are
emphasized. Although the hair of this
Indonesian element is only moderately
waved, other characters, such as the
very low broad nose with transverse
nostrils, the very low broad face, the
thick lips, and the dark glabrous skin
are Negroid. Tentatively the Indo-
nesian may be accepted as a somewhat
doubtful Mongoloid type diverging
strongly in the direction of the Xegro
or Negrito. It is possible that this
type is identical with that described
by Professor Dixon as Negrito, though
this is by no means certain: but if not,
there are two brachycephalic, platyr-
rhine types in Polynesia. This type,
whether represented by skeletal re-
mains or by living individuals, has
often been mistaken for Melanesian
and Negrito not only in Polynesia
but also in Indonesia.
The Polynesian type is found
throughout Polynesia. The distribu-
tion of the Indonesian type is not so
"?■
TYPES APPROACHING THE POLYNESIAN NORM
(Some of these are typical in that they have short heads)
TYPES APPROACHING THE INDONESIAN NORM
69
70
NATURAL HISTORY
well known. It occurs in Samoa, but
is pretty well intermingled there with
other strains so that it is difficult to
determine what proportion of the
population it forms. In Tonga it is
very important and less mixed. It is
more concentrated in Haano of the
Haapai group than in the southern
islands of this archipelago. In the
Marquesas it is a very important ele-
ment in the population, but is confined
for the most part to the northwestern
islands of Uauku, Nukahiva, and Uapu.
In Hawaii it is important but pretty
thoroughly interpenetrated with the
Polynesian element as well as the
modern immigrant population of these
islands.
From the frequency and distribution
of these two quite distinct physical
types in Polynesia, it is clear that they
must have entered the Pacific at differ-
ent times and possibly by independent
routes. Certainly they must have had
different languages and cultures. The
next problem in Polynesian anthro-
pology is to associate these two phys-
ical types with their proper linguistic
and cultural elements, to determine
what each has contributed to the past
and present cultures of Polynesia, and
to determine which type was the pre-
decessor in Polynesia.
At first glance this seems simple
enough, but further study makes it
evident that no generalizations can be
made at present. In the Marquesas
Doctor Handy has found differences in
language and culture which correspond
roughly to the distribution of the two
physical types. It may also turn out
that the first type to enter Polynesia
was not necessarily the first type
throughout the whole of Polynesia.
The present distribution of the two
t\rpes, so far as I can determine it,
lends itself to two interpretations. The
Polynesians are to be found in all parts
of Polynesia. The Indonesians are not
at present to be found in all parts of
Polynesia, nor indeed in all parts of the
island groups in which they occur.
Are the Indonesians late arrivals, not
yet spread throughout the whole of
Polynesia, or were they the first comers
to the islands in which they are now
found? Physical anthropology alone
cannot answer this question. The cor-
roborative evidence of archaeology and
ethnology will be needed. The fact that
the Indonesian element is so poorly
represented in the skeletal remains to
which I have had access inclines me to
regard the Indonesians as recent arri-
vals. Yet it is possible that they were
the first arrivals in Polynesia or at least
in certain parts of Polynesia. The In-
donesians rather than the Melanesians
may be the short dark predecessors of
Polynesian tradition. The order of
arrival may vary from group to group.
These then are questions for the future.
In addition to these two types there
is a Melanesian element in certain
pa its of Polynesia. Mfflanesian in-
fluence is naturally st longest in the
south and west. It is present to some
extent in Tonga and has also been
described in New Zealand and Easter
Island. On the whole, the Melanesian
physical element in Polynesia has
been exaggerated. The influence of the
Polynesians on Melanesia has been
greater than that of the Melanesians on
Polynesia.
None of these types accounts for the
extreme degree of brachycephaly or
short- headedness characteristic of cer-
tain parts of modern Polynesia, nota-
bly Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti and near-by
groups, Hawaii, and, to a lesser extent,
the Marquesas. The Indonesians are
only very moderately brachycephalic.
But in the groups named indices of 90
THE RACIAL DIVERSITY OF THE POLYNESIAN PEOPLES 71
and above are frequent. It is to this
element of the Polynesian population
that Professor G. Elliot Smith has
referred as Proto-Armenoid. It cor-
responds to Dixon's brachycephalic,
hypsicephalic, leptorrhine type. This
element has also been described as
the true Polynesian by some students.
Others have referred to it as Indonesian .
It is perhaps the most Caucasoid ele-
ment in the population. So far I have
not been able to associate a sufficiently
large number of distinctive characters
with this undoubtedly artificially short-
ened head to warrant its isolation as a
separate type. I accounted for it at
first by calling it a Polynesian type with
an artificially flattened occiput. Its
classification as Polynesian is still an
open question and further research may
prove it to be indeed a distinct type.
Strangely enough it is not an important
element in the skeletal material.
Again, this leads me to believe that
either artificial flattening is a new
custom or that the type has arrived
only recently in Polynesia. Only in
Tongan skeletal remains is the type a
dominant element.
So far then these studies confirm the
impression that the Polynesians are a
mixed people. In addition to any
Melanesian element that may occur,
there is the Polynesian type, which
approaches the Caucasian type, and
the Indonesian type, which approaches
the Negro or Negrito type. Both may
be divergent Mongols. As yet it is un-
certain whether the extremely short -
headed types are Polynesians with
artificially deformed heads or another
element in the population of Polynesia.
It is certain that the short heads are
due to some extent at least to artificial
deformation.
In brief, like Professor Dixon, I
recognize four elements in the popula-
tion of Polynesia. Unlike him I do
not call them Negrito, Melanesian,
Caucasian, and Malay, but Indonesian,
Melanesian, Polynesian, and Polyne-
sian (?) with deformed head. The Poly-
nesian and Indonesian types are by
far the more numerous and important
elements of the population. The
sequence of all of these types is yet to
be determined. There is still much to
be learned about the physical char-
acteristics, racial origins, and affinities
of the population of Polynesia.1
'Detailed reports on the physical anthropology,
archaeology, and ethnology of the Polynesians will be
found in the current publications of the Bernice P.
Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii. Doctor Dixon's
article appeared in the Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society, Volume IX, No. 4, 1920, p. 261.
Te Rangi Hirea (Doctor R. H. Buck), himself a Maori,
is publishing serially an important somatological study
of his race in the Journal of the Polynesian Society,
Volume XXI, 1922. In addition to the standard and
approved anthropometric results, Doctor Buck dis-
cusses the linguistic and traditional evidences or ex-
planations of diversity in physical type.
Photograph ly R. M. Overbeck
AN IMPROVED TRAIL SWITCHBACKING OVER THE DIVIDE OF THE QUIMSA CRUZ
72
Bolivia's Least Known Mountain Range1
By EDWARD W. BERRY
Professor of Palaeontology, Johns Hopkins University
THERE is mystery and romance soil and sky that goes with aridity,
for us in a region that has re- When it is recalled how seldom a peak
mained practically unchanged like Mount Stephen or Robson Peak
for a thousand years, and in far distant in the ( Janadian Rockies is free from
peaks rarely visited by white men, clouds, the way the Andean peaks
which I suspect is an inheritance from stand out in all their majestic propor-
that remote past when the successive tions can be fully appreciated,
waves of human emigration diverged The most beautiful stretches of
from Central Asia during the Old Stone Andean scenery are nearly all remote
Age. Such a region is the Quimsa ( Jruz from the traveled paths. There is,
Range, or Neyados de Quimsa Cruz, however, one exception to this state-
as it is known locally, in the eastern ment — the Cordillera Real — and no
Andes of Bolivia. From La Paz the range more fittingly deserves the term
serrated peaks of this range form the royal. It is close to Lake Titicaca and
sky line to the southeast beyond 111 i— La Paz, on the familiar loop from Mol-
mani, of which they are the southward lendo up to La Paz and down to the
continuation. Often when in thai .city waiting steamer at Arica Jor Antofa-
I looked at their serried ranks — for gasta. When the tourist agencies that
they are pla nlv visible in the clear air are now advertising South American
although about fifty miles away — and trips learn to use the day steamers on
wondered what sort of a country their the lake instead of the night boat, the
spirits guarded. I had heard of interest of the trip will be enhanced
Choquetanga, Suri, Quime, and Inqui- a thousand-fold, for the two most
sivi, and many tales of abulous tin beautiful mountain masses in the world
mines and tropical, mist-covered coun- are Sorata at the northern end and
try beyond, but delayed mak'ng the Illimani at the southern end of the
trip because of a "flu" epidemic among Cordillera Real, both more than four
the valley Indians with whom it would miles in height and with wonderful
be necessary to associate. snow fields and glaciers.
There are many peaks in the Andes A trip by mule-back over the Cordil-
that rise to heights of more than 20. 000 lera Vilcapampa in southern Peru and
feet, and although these mountain slack down to Sandia takes one through
a certain beauty when compared with magnificent scenery, and the old vol-
the Alps or the Rockies because of the canos and lava fields to be seen in the
total absence of vegetation anywhere western Andes of northern Chile are
except on their eastern Hanks facing the wonderful in a different way and easily
Amazon Basin, this deficiency is offset accessible. There are many more
to a certain extent by the wonderful extinct volcanos with perfectly pre-
clearness of the atmosphere in that served craters within a few miles of the
arid climate and by the coloration of Antofagasta Railroad than there are
'George Huntington Williams Memorial Publication No. 20. The photographs, except where stated otherwise,
were taken by the author's colleague, Prof. Joseph T. Singewald, .Ir
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80
X AT URAL HISTORY
in all of the Auvergne, and they are ten
times the size of the latter, and nowhere
can one get a more vivid impression of
nature's forges gone cold than in this
region. None of the mountain groups
mentioned, however, has more beauty
compressed within a few square miles
than has the Quimsa Cruz.
Finally, on a July morning in 1919,
a start was made for the Quimsa Cruz.
The trail follows the La Paz valley
through Indian towns almost entirely
hidden in prickly-pear thickets, and
past wayside chicharias, that furnish
refreshment to the great number of
pack trains met with, for this is a much
traversed highway leading down to the
eastern low country, and the com-
mercially inclined ever lie in wait near
the centers of population to get the
wayfarers' money, whether these way-
farers be Indians or of a more advanced
race.
Chicha, which gives its name to the
chicharias. is a varying alcoholic bever-
age, not to be confused with the light
wine of that name which is so popular
in Chile. It is made from corn and is
often termed cerveza de maiz, or corn
beer. It is a universal drink in the
Peruvian and Bolivian Andes, and the
vendors advertise their wares by dis-
playing a small patch of cloth about
the size of a handkerchief at the end of
a bamboo pole.
The predilections of the aborigines
are well illustrated by the apocryphal
explanation of the red, yellow, and
green of the' Bolivian tricolor. It is
said that the red represents the aji
or native pepper — than which no
other has a more distressing and vile
flavor to the average Anglo-Saxon
palate: that the green stands for the
coca leaf, which is about the only article
of commerce consumed by the Indian
population; and that the yellow
symbolizes the chicha, or national
beverage. The last is not quite so
universal a drink among the Spaniards
as among the natives although they do
consume a large quantity. When the
Bolivian Indian really wishes to cele-
brate, 40 per cent alcohol is favored in
the beverage, and as there are at least
one or two fiestas in every month, vast
quantities of alcohol are consumed.
For the first eight leagues out of La
Paz the trail clings to the valley sides
and is kept in very good condition — a
veritable camino real, and I have no
doubt that an automobile could get
over it although I never heard of one
attempting to do so. As the trail
approaches the gash which the La
Paz River has cut between Illimani —
the sentinel of the Yungas — and the
Nevados de Araca, it descends to the
flood plain of the river. This is in a
canon more than 15,000 feet below the
crest of the range, and difficult to
traverse. The Finca Millecota, where
the first night was spent, is most pic-
turesque with its mellow adobe build-
ings sprawling around and away from
the dusty central patio. The warm
red tiles of the roofs, the Eucalyptus
trees — those ubiquitous aliens of
South America, — and the inevitable
chapel and belfry without which no
finca or hacienda is complete add to the
interest of the scene.
No material is more suited to an arid
climate or more artistic than adobe
until so-called progress crowns it with
a corrugated iron roof, as has happened
in many of the larger Andean towns.
Millecota interested me because it was
there that Sir Martin Conway had
some unpleasant experiences in his
ascent of Illimani, but our entertain-
ment cost us nothing but much talk,
and in the Andes the traveler must be
prepared for argument with his pro-
BOLIVIA'S LEAST KXOWX MOl'XTAIX RAXGE
81
spective host before he can expect
entertainment of any kind.
To appreciate fully the magic effects
of altitude and water the student must
go to the Andes. There you may live
at an elevation of 15,500 feet in a
miner's shack built at the foot of a
great glacier and yet obtain oranges
and fresh vegetables from some deep
valley only a few miles away. These
contrasts exist especially on the south-
ern flank of Illimani, where one may
stand on a glacier and look down on
fields of sugar cane. The La Paz River
is only 5,900 feet above the sea level
at that point, and the summit of Illi-
mani, slightly less than fifteen miles
away, towers to a height of more than
21,000 feet. We left Millecota before
daybreak, at which hour the major
domo was perhaps too lazy to crawl out
and argue about payment for our
supper and lodging. It was a most
curious sight to see the familiar con-
stellation of Orion standing on its
head in the northern sky, a rather
fitting emblem of this land of contrasts.
The rocks hereabouts are Palaeozoic
quartzites and shales, much folded,
their strikes parallel with the general
northwest -southeast structural lines of
the region. Granite does not appear in
the La Paz valley, which fact may ex-
plain how the river-cutting kept pace
with the rising mountain chain in this
region of easily eroded Devonian shales
between the granitic mass of Illimani
on the north and the considerable area
of granite that reappears in the crest
of the Nevados de Araca and continues
along and to the east of the Quimsa
Cruz Range as far a! least as Jacha-
cunocollo, or Great Snow Mountain.
It is this granite, of late Tertiary
age, that is the source of the tin
minerals for which the Quhnsa Cruz
is destined some day to win inter-
national renown, although many of the
veins now being worked and, in fact.
all of those known on the west side of
the range, are in the Devonian shales
and sandstones. These are consider-
ably metamorphosed, but nevertheless
fossiliferous at many points. Brachio-
pods are rare, as is usually the case in
rocks that were originally muds, but
beautiful trilobites are to be found at
Araca and elsewhere near the crest.
The Quimsa Cruz is one of the few
regions in the Peruvian or Bolivian
Andes where mining was not carried
on in colonial days. This neglect is not
attributable to its relative remoteness
and inaccessibility, — witness Huan-
cavelica or Potosi, the latter still more
inaccessible and yet for more than a
hundred years the largest city in the
Western Hemisphere. The real reason
is that in the Quimsa Cruz the familiar
association of tin with silver is lacking,
and tin had no charms for the Conquis-
kulores, or the adventurers who fol-
lowed in their wake.
The Quimsa Cruz is the southward
continuation of the Cordillera Real and
is only slightly inferior to that range in
altitude. The mountains extend for
about thirty miles, from the canon of
the La Paz River southward to the pass
of Quimsa Cruz, or Ties Cruces, the
first designation being Quichua and the
second the Spanish name for this cele-
brated pass, which somewhat arbi-
trarily separates the range from the
Santa Vela Cruz, adjoining it on the
south. There are no ice-free passes
over this extent, consequently there
arc1 no trails on the flanks other than
llama trails too difficult for mules, and
the eastern side of the range was at t lie
time of my visit in L919 as remote and
inaccessible as almost any pari of
Bolivia. Since then the1 Guggenheim
interests have constructed, at enor-
82
X AT URAL HISTORY
mous expense, a road over the Tres
Cruces pass.
The oldest mine in the district is
Araca or Viloca, not far from the La
Paz valley, and it is a scant twenty
years old, which is youthful indeed
when compared with the three hundred
seventy-five years during which Potosi
has been worked. At the junction of
the Rio Caracota with the La Paz, in a
region of pinkish and greenish slate-
like shales, our route left the river
bottom and zig-zagged upward over a
painfully high divide to the southward,
only to plunge down into an equally
steep-sided valley and then in turn to
ascend a still higher ridge before
descending into the Araca valley. It
might perhaps have been easier to
continue down the valley of the La Paz
and up that of the Rio Araca, which
joins the former a few miles below the
Caracota except for the tornado-like
wind which blows up the La Paz valley
at this point every afternoon.
Where we struck it, the Araca valley
is about 10,000 feet in elevation, and
consequently contains considerable
vegetation. Higher up there is an
abundance of cacti, bromeliads, and
thorn bushes. One bromeliad in
particular — a species of Puya — frets
the slopes as with a black lace mantilla,
the prostrate, blackened trunks as big
as a man's thigh interlacing in every
direction, and their bright, pinkish
Yacca-like tips alive and vigorous not-
withstanding the fact that the original
root connection with the ground has
long since disappeared. Lower down
are Cassia, pacay (Inga), cherimoya,
the fruits of which some depraved
traveler has christened the ice cream
of the tropics. Humming birds are
particularly noticeable, and parrots
and their smaller relatives are also in
evidence. The Eucalyptus was in
bloom the latter part of July as were
innumerable peach trees, and the tall
straight gum trunks on the valley
slopes suggested, in their slender grace,
harp strings on which the gods might
well play a paean of praise to the beauty
of Illimani as seen from the southeast.
The Indians worshipped the great
peaks and well might the discerning
traveler.
Huerta Grande (beautiful garden),
the home of our delightful host, was all
its name indicates, and although at an
altitude of more than 10,000 feet, the
garden was gorgeous with roses, sweet
peas geraniums, hollyhocks, poppies,
and forget-me-nots, along with native
legumes. Annonas, Agaves, granadillas,
small palms, and Chilean pines. There
were trees of the so-called English
walnut . and of the native South Ameri-
can walnut, the latter removed thou-
sands of miles from its close relatives
of the Northern Hemisphere — one of
those curiosities of distribution ex-
plained only by a knowledge of the
geological ancestors of the species
involved. Higher up were numerous
composites, holly. Rubus. Ephedra.
and at 12.000 feet small Polylepis trees
were still in evidence.
There is a lower trail southward from
Araca which passes several Indian
towns on its way to Yaco and Luribay,
but we kept on the flanks of the range
and, for the most part, not far below
the glaciers. Until Araca is reached,
the divide is of jagged Devonian shales
and sandstones standing almost on end.
At Araca the granite comes in and the
scenery is indescribably beautiful. The
vast snowfields along the crest contrib-
ute a glacier to each lateral valley and
in each there are one or more lovely
glacial lakes at different levels, each
with its flocks of gulls. Glacial mark-
ings and deposits are very diagram-
BOLIVIA'S LEAST KNOWN MOUNTAIN RANGE
83
matically displayed in each valley but
nowhere, neither here nor elsewhere in
the Andes, did I observe the terminal
moraines of the more extensive glaciers
of the past below about 13.000 feet.
Although the Quimsa Cruz, as a
mining district, is still in its infancy,
there are a number of small mines in
operation and considerable develop-
ment work is being done. All of the
mine quarters and mills are above
15,000 feet, and the mines themselves
are all still higher — that at Chojflacota
being at 16.900 feet and that at Monte
Blanco at 17.S75 feet. Devonian
fossils were abundant and nearly all of
my collections in this district came from
about 16,000 feet above sea level.
Looking westward from Monte
Blanco down the valley of the Sora-
cachi one beholds a sea of salmon and
red peaks and ridges. It is a long half-
day's ride down to Yaco, where these
red beds by their contained fossils
reveal themselves of Carboniferous age.
It is one of the ironies of fate in this
land of great mineral riches and intense
cold that the rocks of the Coal Period
instead of containing coal are almost
entirely of marine origin and are either
limestones or more or less gypsiferous
red beds. Nowhere are red beds more
baffling to the geologist than in Bolivia.
I )y<t on the Altaplanicie around Coro-
coro they are as young as the Pliocene;
farther south around Potosi they con-
tain Mid-Cretaceous marine fossils;
and eastward in the vicinity of Santa
Cruz de la Sierra they are Permian.
Where there is not time to trace out
their relationships, or search for their
rare fossils, one can only guess at their
age, which has been the method of most
previous observers.
For two weeks we did not get below
15,000 feet and in this time we skirted
the western and part of the eastern
crest of the range. Geologically the
two sides are practically alike, but to
the east the mists from the Yungas are
constant even in the winter season,
which is the season of almost continu-
ous sunshine everywhere in the Andes
west of the crest of the Eastern Range.
On the eastern slopes of the Quimsa
Cruz the only time you see the sun is
intermittently during June and July
and, because of the consequent much
greater precipitation, the region is a wild
country of snow and ice and crags,
enhanced to the imagination by the
fact that one rides along in snow squalls
and mist, amid waterfalls that are
heard but not seen, and with only
fleeting glimpses of the great glaciers.
The cloud effects are sometimes mag-
nificent as the accompanying view
demonstrates.
Traveling eastward down to the
indescribably filthy Indian town of
Quime, we found that place on the
ragged edge of the usual and inevitable
fiesta with resulting universal drunken-
ness. Here we encountered our first
rain since leaving Panama months
before. One must live in a desert for a
while to appreciate the blessedness of
rain for its purely psychic effect exclu-
sive of its practical benefits. Rain at
Quime gave way to heavy snow a few
miles farther up and the higher trails
were temporarily impassable. There is
a good trail down the Quime valley
and now that American interests are
actively developing extensive mining
properties on the eastern slopes of the
range, it is to be hoped that American
scientists will secure facilities for a
biological station in this most interest-
ing and important virgin field. No-
where can the relations of organisms
to alt itude and climate be studied to
better advantage than in the Yungas of
Bolivia, and the heighi to which the
84
XATVRAL HISTORY
lowland tropical vegetation surges
upward where the moisture is ample is
a never-ending surprise.
A great many novelties, both animal
and vegetable, are to be found here,
not to mention plants of economic
value, such as extra fine strains of the
orange and coffee of a very superior
flavor that never reach the world's
markets. The great South American
rain forest — the most extensive in the
world — surges up the eastern Andean
slopes favored by the moisture-bearing
trade winds. This rain forest has occu-
pied this area for several millions of
years and one may venture to predict
that it constituted an animal and plant
refuge where yet may be discovered the
direct descendants of Tertiary forms.
Already we know of Tertiary plants in
( Jhile the progeny of which occurs here.
Although the known flora is more
diversified than that of any other
region of the globe (there are more
than 22,000 described flowering plants
in the Flora Brasiliensis, and Alfred
Russell Wallace estimated that there
are probably SO, 000 species in tropical
South America — a number about equal
to that of all other tropical floras of
the world combined) it may be con-
servatively stated that not more than
50 per cent of this flora is known. An
apt illustration of this is furnished by
the plants which I collected because of
their resemblance to the fossil plants
found in the Pliocene tuffs of Potosi,
nearly all of which proved to be species
unknown to science.
The trail to the Yungas passing by
Quime to Inquisivi and Suri is not
only excellent but fascinating; in the
opposite direction it leads out over the
Tres Cruces pass to Eucalyptus or
Oruro on the railroad. It has been in
existence for more than five hundred
years. Going over the pass to Coliryo
after fourteen days in the saddle on the
heights, we were gladdened by the
sound of an automobile and quickly
paying off our arriero, arranged with
the newcomer to be taken to town. We
made the sixty-six miles from ( lolyuo to
Oruro in four hours, passing through a
country that reminded me of that
around Forsyth, Montana, even to a
South American substitute for the sage
brush of our own western country.
Through this more expeditious mode of
travel we saved two days.
Tres Cruces is a broad saddle of
Devonian shales about 16,000 feet in
altitude, but with no high peaks near
at hand or even visible, and with
a gradual descent to the westward.
The country is more arid than is that
a few miles to the northward, and the
trinity of peaks that crown the Santa
Vela Cruz to the east have no perma-
nent ice cap.
Like all of the great mountain ranges
that have figured in human history the
Andes are very young — geologic, biol-
ogic, and physiographic evidence is at
one in confirming this statement. I
shall give but a single instance among
the many of the sort of evidence that
the geologist relies upon in making
such an assertion. On a high pampa
in the Sierra de Cochabamba I found
sediments that had been deposited in a
small Pliocene basin. Much of the
material was volcanic ash the only
known source of which was many miles
away in the great volcanic field of the
western Andes. This ash deposit,
partly wind blown and partly water
laid, had buried the fruits and leaves of
trees the near relatives of which are to
be found at the present time only in
the Yungas — not far away to be sure.
but at much lower levels, and not
extending upward more than half way
to the 11,800 feet where the fossils
BOLIVIA'S LEAST KXOWX MOUNTAIN RANGE
85
were found. Hence it is inferred that
these fossiliferous sediments have been
uplifted more than a mile since the
fossil trees lived in that region, and
knowing that the latter are Pliocene in
age, we get the minimum measure of
the amount of uplift since Pliocene
times.
It had been supposed that this uplift
was of a great segment of the earth's
crust with bounding fractures or faults
on the two sides. At any rate it was
responsible for the anomalous climate
that prevails in this region at the
present time — the arid upland, the
semi-desert of the Peruvian coastal
region and the nitrate desert of north-
ern Chile. This is shown in many
ways, as for example at Potosi, where
the terminal moraines of former gla-
ciers are found at about 13,000 feet
and where Potosi's silver mountain,
although reaching upward to more than
15,000 feet, carries no permanent snow
because of the dearth of precipitation.
Formerly a rain forest like that of the
Amazon Basin extended across the site
of the Andes to the Pacific coast, and
probably be}rond, for there is some
geological evidence that the deeps
found immediately west of the present
coast were once land, which has since
sunk on the seaward side of the great
fault that runs along this part of the
present coast. Relics of this former
rain forest have been found in the rocks
of both Peru and Chile, and traces of it
are preserved at a number of localities
in the arid uplands of Bolivia.
The slow rising of these great moun-
tain ranges across the equatorial zone
in the path of the trade winds was a
dramatic episode in the history of the
earth — one that it would have been
fine to have witnessed, although prob-
ably the rise took place with such
slowness as not to have been percep-
tible within the proverbial threescore
and ten years allotted to man. It
occurred so recently, however, that
not yet has the kinship been obliter-
ated between the plants or the birds
on the two sides of the Cordillera, in
those regions like Colombia, where no
strongly contrasted climatic change
was set up on the two sides.
It is one of the fascinations of
palaeontological studies that such large
and inspiring problems are pressing
for solution. Although the results of
such studies seldom admit of a mathe-
matical demonstration, the main out-
lines emerge surely, as do those on a
great canvas under the hand of a
master painter. It is not surprising
that the votaries of palaeontology
wonder why all men do not aspire, to
become palaeontologists.
M.M.Glldaen
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<5
A New Meteorite from Michigan
By EDMUND OTIS HOVEY
Curator of Geology and Invertebrate Palaeontology, American Museum
M
ETEORS, or shooting stars,
are seen by the thousand in
Michigan, as the}' are else-
where in the world, but only three
meteorites have been described from
the state: one from near Reed City,
another from Grand Rapids, and the
third from Allegan. ''Reed City " is an
iron meteorite weighing about 43
pounds which was plowed up in a field
near the town. "Grand Rapids" is a
mass of iron weighing 114 pounds
which was unearthed in making the
excavation for a building. "Allegan"
is the only one of the three which was
seen to fall. It is a stony mass which
weighed about 70 pounds when it
struck the earth on Thomas Hill on the
Saugatuck Road in Allegan, at about
8 a.m. on July 10, 1899.
Much interest, therefore, was aroused
by newspaper accounts of a brilliant
meteor that was seen to pass from
north northwest to south southeast
over the northeastern portion of the
Lower Peninsula of Michigan, about
eleven o'clock in the evening of
October 17, 1921. The heavens were
illuminated over an area thousands of
square) i liles in extent . Near Rose City,
I fgemaw County, the meteor exploded
wit htheusual accompaniment of several
loud reports, and three of the frag-
ments into which it burst have been
recovered on the premises of Mr.
George Hall, about nine miles north-
east of this little hamlet, which gives
its name to the fall. These portions,
it is stated, weighed about three and
one-fourth pounds, seven pounds, and
thirteen pounds respectively, when
discovered. They are now the property
of Mr. P. W. A. Fitzsimmons of
Detroit, who has very kindly lent the
largest mass to the American Museum
for exhibition.
The newspapers gave their custom-
ary vivid accounts of the occurrence,
from which we may select the
following :
The night the meteor fell buildings
in Rose City shook and the effect
was similar elsewhere in northwestern
Michigan. At Caro, nearly 100 miles
away, it was said the sky-traveler woke
folks up, and Saginaw also reported a
startling effect. The meteor attracted
attention as far south as Detroit and
Albion.
The flaming heavenly torch appeared
to be eight feet in diameter, as it
swished through space, apparently
directly over the village of Rose City.
A tail of light streamed in the path
of the falling body for a distance of at
least 100 feet. There was a beautiful
purple light encircling the outer mass of
fire, and a shock followed by the rat-
tling of windows and trembling of
buildings was plainly felt for 30 seconds
as the massive flaming mass struck the
earth.
A man who was camping about
fourteen miles from the George Hall
farm gave Mr. Fitzsimmons an account
of the meteor in nearly the following
words:
I was sleeping in my tent that night
and all at once I saw things very lighl
outside. I quickly looked out and saw
high in the sky, about five miles I
should think, a large ball of fire and this
looked to me as large as an ordinary
barn. After the ball had traveled on
its way. and the light had died out, I
heard three loud explosions, one im-
mediately following the other.
^7
88
NATURAL HISTORY
It seems that Mrs. George Hall was
up rather later than usual, as her
husband had been ill, and thus had an
opportunity of witnessing the fall.
Mr. Fitzsimmons reports her account
of the event as follows :
I saw it very light out of doors and
heard a roaring sound and then three
loud explosions. I thought it was an
airship and it was dropping some
bombs or something of that character.
I jumped up and ran to the door, and
the big light was disappearing in the
south. The roaring itself was not so
very loud, but the explosions were very
loud indeed, and while I stood in the
doorway watching the disappearing
light, I distinctly heard a sound like
fine singing.
The largest fragment, which is
about nine inches long, was found the
next day forty feet south of the house,
embedded about two feet below the
surface in soft, sod-covered earth.
By so narrow a margin did Mrs. Hall
and her husband escape serious acci-
dent! The next piece in point of size
was found later in the same day
about 150 feet from the house, near a
highway. It was not so deeply buried
in the ground as was the first.
The meteorite is black in color, both
on the surface and in the interior. It
is deeply pitted and it presents a dull
black skin over much of the outside,
both features being due to surface
melting caused by friction with the air
during the last stage of its journey to
the earth. One of the most peculiar
features of the mass is that it looks
somewhat like a conglomerate with
rounded protruding knobs of relatively
coarse material cemented together by
duller fine material of the same nature.
Because of its origin and because there
is no evidence of the action of water in
connection with either the knobs or the
cement, the material is called an
"agglomerate" rather than a conglom-
erate. When the specimen was
received at the American Museum,
many of the surface pits contained
grass, grass roots, and soil which were
firmly wedged into them. The grass
had not been burned or even charred
and therefore the temperature of the
meteorite when it struck the ground
could not have been elevated.
Examination of the surface of this
meteorite reveals the presence of
minute specks of metallic iron in the
midst of a stony matrix, which is a
feature shown by almost all our stony
visitors from space. A polished section
shows not only innumerable particles
of this character but also strings and
irregular areas of metal. Chemical
analysis discovered the presence of
about 17 per cent of metal mixed with
83 per cent of mineral in the meteorite,
while further tests showed that the
metal was made up of about 91 per
cent of iron and nearly 9 per cent of
nickel and cobalt. The use of the
microscope determined that the stony
portion was composed principally of
the two minerals, enstatite and olivine.
The material furthermore is some-
what porous or spongy in texture.
This is due to the presence of innum-
erable minute cavities which, under
the magnifying glass and still better
under the microscope, are seen to be
angular in shape and to be lined with
crystals of the minerals which make
up the ground mass.
NOTES
MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN,
HEYE FOUNDATION
Although the Indian is a member of a
vanishing race, he lives and will live forever in
the narratives of the Jesuit fathers, in the
pictures and pages of Catlin, in Schoolcraft
and Parkman, and a host of others. Place
names throughout the length and breadth of
the land perpetuate his memory in musical
polysyllables, and his traditions have become
part of the heritage of the later-day descend-
ants of the alien conquerors of his lands. Yet,
in spite of the widespread interest in the
aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas, there
was no institution devoted exclusively to the
anthropology of the indigenous peoples until
Mr. George Gustave Heye brought to fulfill-
ment a splendid vision to which he had been
steadfast for many years.
The Museum of the American Indian —
Heye Foundation, which was opened on No-
vember 15, 1922. marks the culmination of
twenty years of planning and collecting, in
which Mr. Heye had the cooperation of many
noted workers in the field of anthropology and
the financial support, supplementing his own
generous provisions, of the trustees of the mu-
seum and interested friends. Although almost
two decades elapsed between the inception of
the plan and its fulfillment — decades during
which the two continents and the islands of
the Western Hemisphere were scoured for
exhibition and study material — the published
results of studies made by members of the
staff of the museum, numbering no less than
ninety titles and including monumental con-
tributions like The Antiquities of Manabi,
Ecuador, by Professor M. H. Saville, have en-
abled the public to gauge the magnitude and
diversity of the research work undertaken by
the institution. No fewer than twenty-one
names of anthropologists engaged in collecting
and in study among different Indian tribes or
in archaeological work on the sites of former
Indian occupation, are recorded in the
pamphlet setting forth the aims and objects
of the museum, and the work of several of
these anthropologists in particular areas has
stretched over many years, witness the ex-
haustive researches of Professor Saville on the
west coast of South America and in Central
America, the collecting of Mr. M. R. Harring-
ton in the United States, and the excavation,
by Mr. F. W. Hodge during the last five field
seasons, of Hawikuh, one of t he famed "Seven
Cities of Cibola," the reputed riches of which
lured Coronado and his gold-hungry followers
into the sun-scorched desert of the Southwest.
The excavation of the last-mentioned site
was made possible through the generosity of
Mr. Harmon W. Hendricks, a trustee of the
museum, and one to whose benefactions
it owes much. To list all of those who
through gift and encouragement supported
Mr. Heye in his undertaking, is not possible
within the limits of this note, yet mention
must be made of Mr. James B. Ford, one of
the trustees, who has been the generous
patron of much of the research in the coun-
tries to the south, in addition to enriching
the collections of the museum; of Mr.
Miner C. Keith, a trustee, who presented to
the museum the largest collection extant of
Costa Rican earthenware; of General T.
Coleman du Pont, who financed the expedi-
tion to Kane County, Utah, for the explora-
tion of an ancient site of the so-called Basket-
makers; of Mrs. Marie Antoinette Heye, who
for many years gave Mr. Heye's undertaking
most generous support ; of Mrs. Thea Heye,
who has been the donor of hundreds of valu-
able objects; and of Mr. Archer M. Hunting-
ton, who presented the ground upon which the
museum edifice has been erected and who in
1919 inaugurated the series of Indian Notes
and Monographs in which have been published
no less than sixty-five listed contributions.
Between a million and two million speci-
mens representative of the culture of the
Indians have been assembled through the
activities of the museum, including many
thousands that are unique. The three floors
devoted to exhibitions naturally do not
permit the presentation to the public of more
than a fraction of this vast total, but even
though it is only a fraction, it will go far
toward satisfying the most exacting require-
ments of the lay visitor. Students will be
afforded every facility for utilizing the study
collection in their researches.
THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF
NATURAL HISTORY
The ( 'leveland Museum of Natural History,
which began its existence only about two years
ago, has already abundantly demonstrated its
ability through exhibits, lectures, and library
facilities to respond to the needs of the com-
munity which it serves. Late in October of
1922 it even opened its own printing plant,
from which was issued under date of No-
S'.l
90
XATURAL HISTORY
vember 1 the initial number of the Cleveland
Museum Bulletin. From that publication we
learn of the work which the museum is doing
and of the loyal support which it is receiving
from the people of Cleveland. It is stated that
through a recent gift from Mrs. Dudley S.
Blossom of the Herbarium of the late Samuel
Hart Wright of Penn Yan, New York, the
museum has come into possession of approxi-
mately 10,000 specimens of plants, represent-
ing a number of the American and European
genera. Mrs. Blossom's gift includes also a
part of the Wright library of scientific books,
many of which are out of print. Another
acquisition deserving special emphasis is a
collection of thirty-seven water color studies
of the fur seals of the Pribilof Islands, painted
by Henry Wood Elliott during his visits to
the islands in the early seventies. For this
donation the museum is indebted to Mr. John
M. Henderson.
During the months of October and No-
vember nearly forty lectures were given by
members of the museum staff, and certain
additional lectures were delivered by invited
speakers. The museum staff has been carry-
ing the message of the institution beyond its
walls by lecturing before clubs, schools.
churches and conventions, in addition to ad-
dressing audiences within the museum itself.
Another evidence of the service the museum is
rendering to education is the completion by
its librarian, Miss Lindberg, of an annotated
lisl of books on natural history suitable for
children in their early 'teens or younger.
The museum is housed in Euclid Avenue in
one of the Hanna mansions, which has been
acquired for a period of years. Two rooms in
the present edifice have been completely reno-
vated and in them have been installed natural
history exhibits of rare attractiveness. The
collections of birds, mounted by Mr. Arthur
B. Fuller, are particularly noteworthy for
their excellent taxidermy. The Old- World
birds, collected and presented by Mr. K. V.
Painter, are one of the features of the museum.
THE FIELD MUSEUM
Expedition to South America. — Dr.
Wilfred H. Osgood, curator of the department
of zoologj', Field Museum, and Messrs. C. C.
Sanborn and H. B. Conover, of the division of
birds in that institution, recently left Chicago
for Chile, to penetrate some of the compara-
tively little-known regions of that country,
including the area held by the Araucanian
Indians.
After landing at Valparaiso, the members of
the expedition plan to go to central Chile and
thence to proceed southward as far as Chiloe
Island. Doctor Osgood and Mr. Conover will
then work across northern Argentina and into
southern Brazil and Uruguay, returning prob-
ably about the middle of 1923. Mr. Sanborn,
on the other hand, will remain in the field
throughout the present year. He will move
northward as the season advances, collecting
in northern Chile and Argentina and in
Bolivia.
The expedition will visit many of the locali-
ties of historic interest to zoologists, including
the type localities of animals collected by
Charles Darwin during the voyage of the
"Beagle." The expedition will devote itself to
the general collecting of vertebrates. Among
the animals of popular interest regarding
which the party of scientists hopes to learn
much is the chinchilla, now so rare because of
its inordinate use as a fur. Another expecta-
tion which they will strive to realize is to
bring back to this country the first specimens
of the pudu, a very small deer, and one of the
rarest in the Americas.
Expedition to Honduras. — Mr. Karl P.
Schmidt, until recently assistant curator of
herpetology in the American Museum and
now assistant curator of reptiles and ba-
trachians in the Field Museum, left New
Orleans about the middle of January for
Belize, British Honduras. Mr. Schmidt's
primary purpose in undertaking this expedi-
tion, in which he is accompanied by a taxi-
dermist, is to secure for the Field Museum
material to be used for habitat groups of am-
phibians and reptiles as well as specimens
for the systematic series of these animals.
Mammals and fishes will also be collected.
After a short stay in British Honduras. Mr.
Schmidt and his companion will proceed to
Puerto Cortes, Honduras, and thence to Lake
Yojoa in the interior of the state. Honduras
is perhaps the least-known, zoologically, of
the Central American countries and important
results may, therefore, be anticipated from
this expedition.
ASIA
What the Gobi Desert Has Yielded.—
In a cable sent by Mr. Roy Chapman Andrews
to Asia and published in the December issue
of that magazine, the leader of the Third
Asiatic Expedition summarizes the remark-
able results obtained from five months' work
in the Gobi Desert. These include the discov-
NOTES
91
ery of vast fields rich in Cretaceous and Ter-
tiarj7 fossils. The specimens obtained include
not only the huge skull and portions of the
skeleton of Baluchitherium, the largest known
land mammal, which arrived at the American
Museum toward the close of December, but
also complete skeletons of small dinosaurs
and parts of large dinosaurs; skulls of rhi-
noceroses; skulls, jaws, and fragments of
mastodons, rodents, carnivores, horses, in-
sectivores, and deer. Fossil insects and fish,
in a fine state of preservation, were also found.
Extensive deposits of Devonian, Carbonifer-
ous, and Permian age, hitherto unknown in
Mongolia, were located, as well as a vast
series of Pre-Cambrian and Palaeozoic rocks.
The expedition mapped a strip a thousand
miles square in the type region of Mongolian
geology and obtained 20,000 feet of film
illustrating in full detail the work of the
expedition, the life of the natives, and the
behavior of the herds of antelopes and wild
asses that were seen. A representative collec-
tion of the mammalian fauna of the region was
obtained.
BIRDS
Bird Collecting ix Peru. — Mr. Harry
Wat kins, who is conducting a biological sur-
vey on behalf of the department of birds,
American Museum, to determine the relation
hetween the avifauna of the coast of south-
western Ecuador and that of the Maraiion
Valley of Peru, reports the discovery of
heretofore unsuspected areas of forest land
on the western slopes and even on the sum-
mits of the Andes between Paita and Huanca-
bamba. Through his capture in this region
of motmots and trogons, the known range
southward on the Pacific coast of these genera
is considerably extended. The abundance of
the bird life in the region is evidenced by
the fact that already more than one hundred
species are represented among the specimens
taken by Mr. Watkins.
MAMMALS
A Collection" from Ecuador.- — Messrs.
G. H. PI. Tate and H. E. Wickenheiser are on
their way to New York with a good-sized
collection of mammals made in the Guayas
Basin and in the central Andes of Ecuador.
The collecting and field observation in the
areas covered will prove a valuable supple-
ment to the work already done by the Ameri-
can Museum in this South American state.
Bolh Mr. Tate and Mr. Wickenheiser have
been suffering from malarial fever but accord-
ing to reports recently received have recovered
from their indisposition.
ANTHROPOLOGY
Aztec Ruin. — Although interesting dis-
coveries have been made from time to time in
the course of excavating the pueblo known
as the Aztec Ruin, New Mexico, the kind of
ladders or steps whereby the ancient inhabi-
tants of this settlement climbed from story to
story remained undetermined. At first it was
the impression of Mr. Earl H. Morris, who
heads the Archer M. Huntington Archae-
ological Survey of the Southwest, that the
ladders must have been composed of pairs of
heavy poles set side by side and alternately
notched, but after two hundred chambers had
been freed of their contents and not even
a fragment of such a ladder unearthed, he
abandoned this assumption and had no alter-
native suggestion to offer.
Recently, while he and his assistant were
digging in one of the rooms of the ruin, the
latter came upon an object unlike anything
that had previously been excavated. By
eleven o'clock at night their joint efforts had
succeeded in bringing to the surface a number
of pieces of worked wood and several poles,
which, when assembled, revealed themselves
as parts of a ladder of unique construction.
The sidepieces of this ladder were straight,
barked cedar poles, 6+ feet long, that tapered
from a diameter of 2y inches near the base to
1^ inches at the upper extremity. Laid along
each of these poles was a slender skunk-bush
sapling that was lashed to its support by
transverse withe bindings. The ends of the
rungs were thrust between the cedar side-
pieces and the parallel saplings, each rung
above a pair of opposing lashings. The sap-
lings were necessarily bent away from the
timbers to which they were bound to permit
the insertion of the rungs, and being of tough
resilient wood, thereafter exerted a pressure
which under ordinary circumstances held the
crosspieces securely in place. The saplings
extended beyond the ends of the sidepieces
and their free extremities were bent inward
toward each other and bound together, thus
forming a curved top to the ladder. There-
in the ladder was prevented from spreading
apart and a bail-like handle was provided by
which this light yet strong and convenienl
device might lie lifted and drawn up into the
room above. The rungs of the ladder, five
92
XATIRAL 1/ 1 STORY
in number, were round sticks of hard wood
about I-4 inches in diameter, each smoothly
polished by the wear of bare as well as
sandaled feet.
European- Akch.eology. — As a result of
President Henry Fairfield Osborn's visit to
Europe in 1921, the department of anthro-
pology of the American Museum this year
renewed its effort to complete its Old-World
archaeological collections. Associate curator
X. C. Nelson, who has charge of these collec-
tions, and who was in Europe for a similar
purpose in 1913, returned early in December,
1922, after a six months' search, to report the
acquisition of about 3000 new specimens and
to explain that the way is open to acquire
as many more. He brought back also about
100 photographs of archaeological interest, as
well as extensive notes on the principal prehis-
toric collections exhibited in the museums of
western Europe.
Mr. Nelson's travels took him to England.
Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Holland,
Belgium, and France. He visited more than
40 public museums, besides 20 important
private collections; examined and photo-
graphed, for the first time, 19 more or less fam-
ous archaeological stations; and called upon
more than 100 people directly or indirectly
interested in archaeology. Exceptional op-
portunity for observation was afforded him
in that he was invited to accompany a
group of French and Belgian archaeologists
and geologists on a tour of inspection to
several important archaeological stations in
England, Holland, and Belgium. In this way
lie was enabled not only to see for himself how
the specimens occur, but he also learned of the
various methods employed in their excavation.
The kindness and hospitality enjoyed in this
connection, with the insight afforded into real
European home life, Mr. Nelson says, will
long be remembered with gratitude.
Regarding the general progress of archaeo-
logical investigation in Europe, Mr. Nelson
seems very hopeful. Many able workers were
lost during the war and funds are everywhere
limited or lacking. Nevertheless, those who
remain are unbounded in their enthusiasm,
and more or less work has been done every-
where, both during and since the war, that is
of the highest importance. In certain quar-
ters— as, for example, in England and Switzer-
land— discoveries have been made which
promise to modify very considerably the
present views of prehistoric development.
THE CHILEAN EARTHQUAKE
Though rivaled in destructiveness by the
death-dealing instruments of war, the earth-
quake, manifesting its might without warning
and defying control, will doubtless continue
at intervals to topple down cities, even after
an era of peace and good will has ushered out,
as we trust it may, the troubled centuries of
man-made strife.
There have been a number of earthquakes
more cataclysmic than the Chilean earth-
quake of November 11, 1922. That of Lisbon
in 1755 killed between 30,000 and 40,000
people; in the Kangra earthquake of India,
in 1905, nearly 20,000 individuals perished;
the total loss of life in the Messina earthquake
of 1908 was. according to official returns, no
less than 77,283. Yet the 800 or more men,
women, and children who were killed by the
Chilean earthquake do not measure the
magnitude of this phenomenon, which, had it
occurred in a more densely settled area of the
globe, would doubtless have taken a greater
toll of life. The earthquake and the result-
ing tidal waves affected the coast of Chile
overan extent of 1200 miles, that is. from
Antofagasta on the north to Valdivia on
the south.
The record of this earthquake, as registered
on the seismograph of the American Museum,
is reproduced on the opposing page in four
sections, each of a duration of about thirteen
minutes, as indicated by the dots. The sec-
tions should be read consecutively from below
upward, beginning with the section on the left,
at the point marked "Start of 1st Preliminary
Tremors." It should be explained that these
four sections represent convenient sub-
divisions of a continuous band of smoked
paper that revolves on a cylinder of the seis-
mograph. In the course of a complete revolu-
tion the band moves to the right one space and
the recording needle, which is one of the
essential features of the seismograph, there-
upon traces the waves of the second and
subsequent circuits alongside the earlier part
of the record. Three sets of such waves are
shown on each of the sections depicted, those
on the right of each section being earlier than
any of the middle series, and those on the left
representing the final stage. In reading the
record, one should, therefore, after tracing the
first line of waves through the successive
sections, turn back to the first section and
resume the story in the second line of waves,
and so on through to the concluding phase.
THE RECORD, FROM THE SEISMOGRAPH IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM, OF THE CHILEAN
EARTHQUAKE OF NOVEMBER 11. 1922
93
94
X AT URAL HISTORY
The first preliminary tremors 'sec section 1)
arrived at the seismograph in the American
Museum about a quarter of an hour before
midnight on November 11 and lasted for
about 9 minutes and 15 seconds, when the
second preliminary tremors (see section 2) set
in and continued for 15 minutes and 45 sec-
onds. The main waves isee sections 3 and 4)
started 9/2 minutes past midnight and re-
mained prominent for about 21 minutes. At 1
a.m., however, the needle still registered waves
of considerable intensity, which continued to
3 a.m. Although the quake lasted only the
fraction of a minute at its point of origin, the
record on the seismograph was spread over
more than three hours of time. This spread-
ing out of the three kinds of waves on the
record is a measure which the observer uses in
calculating the distance <>t' the point of origin
from the seismograph. The shorter the time
of the first and second preliminary tremors,
the less the distance to the point of origin.
In the bulletin posted on the morning of
November 12 by Dr. Chester A. Heeds, the
observer in charge, the distance was estimated
to be 7900 km., or aboul 1937 miles. The
correctness of this estimate is borne out by
the fact that Coquimbo, near the center of
the disturbed area, is 7900 km. due south of
New York City.
This is the second time during a period of
less than twelve months that the seismograph
in the American Museum— the gift of the late
Emerson McMillin- has been of service to
science in recording data regarding an earth-
quake of major importance.
ARTHUR WESLEY DOW
Professor Arthur Wesley Dow. director of
the department of fine arts, Columbia Uni-
versity, died on December 13, 1922. Not
only an artist and author of recognized
creative power, but a man of very fine per-
sonality, Professor Dow left an indelible
impress on those with whom he came in con-
tact and upon the art of the nation. He
possessed preeminently the ability to awaken
the creative impulse in others, his students
responding to the magic of his influence in
producing original designs of great beauty.
He was born at Ipswich, Massachusetts, in
1S57, and was the son of David F. and Mary
P. Dow. After completing his academic and
classical education at Ipswich, he studied art
in Boston, and in Paris under Boulanger
and Lefebvre. His paintings were exhibited
in the Salon, Paris, in 1886-S7. and again in
1889. receiving honorable mention. In the
company of the artist Fenollosa, he made a
thorough study of the art of Japan, and his
work after his return to this country showed
the Japanese influence. He was for years the
curator of Japanese art. Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston. He was instructor of art, Pratt
Institute. Brooklyn, from 1895 to 1904, leav-
ing it to become the director of the fine arts
department, Columbia University. The
inspiration he brought to Pratt Institute,
having its center in the art department, was
felt throughout the Institute, all departments
responding to the art impulse which he had so
deeply stirred. During this period he made a
special study of the art of the North American
Indian, visiting the American Museum fre-
quently to study the Indian exhibits. In his
lectures he frequently made reference to the
wealth of material at the Museum, assigning
to his students problems in art which neces-
sitated their careful study of the dress, pot-
tery, basketry, etc. of the Indians and the
originating of designs with Indian motifs. He
was a friend of Frank II. Cushing, who lived
aiming the Zuiii Indians as an adopted mem-
ber from ls7(> until 1884, and who upon his re-
turn to the eastern states, visited Professor
Dow at Ipswich and located there the site of
an old Indian spring, all traces of which
had been obliterated. Digging on the site
revealed ancient Indian pottery.
At Columbia University his work broad-
ened out and expanded, many thousands
receiving his message and carrying it to differ-
ent parts of the country. He was lecturer on
art at the Art Student's League, 1897-1903,
and for years director of a very interesting
and live summer art school at Ipswich, Massa-
chusetts. He was the author of a widely
known book. Composition, richly illus-
trated; of Ipswich Prints, and Along Ipswich
River.
INSE( !TS
The Gypsy Moth ix New Jersey. — The
i-it izens of New Jersey may congratulate them-
selves upon the vigor with which war has been
made upon the gypsy moth (Porthetria dispar)
that menaced certain areas of that state.
Through appropriations made by the federal
government, by the New Jersey legislature,
and by individuals like Mr. Duke, on whose
estate there was a heavy infestation, the work
of extermination, which has now been in prog-
ress for two years, was made possible, and
NOTES
95
the results attained should be a matter of
pride to those who have given their energies to
combating this insect pest. With what pains-
taking thoroughness the work of extermina-
tion has been pursued may be inferred from
the fact that although during the first year of
the campaign more than 3,000,000 egg masses
wile found, only 909 were discovered during
the second year. This startling reduction in
numbers acquires added significance through
the fact that in the second year 1400 square
miles of territory were scouted as against 894
in the first year. The actual number of trees
examined in the second year was 2,025,403 as
against 1,157,339 in the previous twelve-
month, and when the fact is stated that some
of these trees were in dense thickets, the diffi-
culties confronting the careful scouting that is
required may be visualized. Creosoting, spray-
ing, and banding, were among the methods
of attack again employed during the past year.
The reduction in number of discovered egg
masses from more than three million to less
than one thousand might seem to justify a
relaxation of effort, but it is to he hoped that
such false economy will not be practised.
Only after unrelaxed vigilance over a period
of years can one say with some degree of
certainty that the danger is eliminated. Mr.
Weiss, chief of the Bureau of Statistics and
Inspection, New Jersey State Department of
Agriculture, writing in the fall of 1920, at the
very inception of the campaign against the
gypsy moth.1 estimated thai it would probably
require from three to five years before assur-
ance could be given that the pest had been
cleaned up. He added that in case it should
be found in the Watchung Mountains — a
region where spraying is carried on with great
difficulty — the work of extermination would
require more time and effort. During the past
season a few egg masses were located in the
Watchung, suggesting dangerous conse-
quences if. a- a result of the marvelous strides
already made, the public permits itself to he
lulled into a false sense of security. The work
should go on with full financial support until
all danger is removed.
LOWER INVERTEBB VTES
Work on the Shell Collection. Mrs.
Ida S. Oldroyd, of Stanford I niversity. one of
the foremost students of mollusks in this
country, has been spending three months at
the American Museum revising and bringing
up to date the nomenclature of the shell
■Natural Histohv. Vol. XX, p "■<»> -'c also
Natural History, Vol. XXI, pp 103-04, 647-48
collection of the department of lower inverte-
brates. At least 200,000 shells, representing
about 10,000 species, are in the possession of
the department. Mrs. Oldroyd has been giv-
ing her attention to the marine gastropods
(sea snails) of the collection as well as to the
bivalves or two-shelled mollusks.
Addresses by Dr. Roy W. Mixer. —
'" Life's Victors, or Why the Fittest Survive,"
was the subject of an address delivered by Dr.
Roy W. Miner before the Academy of Natural
Sciences in Buffalo. Doctor Miner also spoke
before the Rotary Club of North Adams.
Massachusetts, on the American Museum of
Natural History and its activities. Subse-
quently, on December 15, Doctor Miner lec-
tured on evolutionary subjects before the
University School of Cleveland and before
the I niversity Club of that city.
SPECIAL EXHIBITS
Camera Club Exhibit. — Photographic
records of animal life are invaluable in natural
history study, yet in our admiration of the
exquisite results that such photographs
present, we are too apt to overlook the tech-
nical processes whereby they have been made
possible. The exhibit of mammal photo-
graphs in the American Museum last summer
showed what nature photography has accom-
plished. Another exhibit of photograph-,
which was installed by the Camera Club of
New York in the hall of woods and forestry
early in December, remaining there through-
out the month of January, illustrated the
striking effects attained by different printing
processes. The quality of the pictures may
be gauged by the fact that of the 192 shown,
about half had received recognition in differ-
ent salons in this country and abroad.
Although the subjects depicted ranged over
a field more extensive than natural history,
two conspicuously placed portraits that of
Mr. Carl E. Akeley and that of Mr. Vilh-
jalmur Stefansson- and certain other photo-
graphs, like that of the Museum itself, had a
special interest for friends of the Museum
in addition to that which they possessed as
examples of different photographic methods.
Those not versed in the technique of pho-
tography had cause to wonder at the number
and variety of the processes illustrated in the
exhibit. There were examples of the bromide
process, which is employed almost univer-
sally for enlarging; of a process resembling the
bromide and known as the Artatone; of the
carbon process; of the gum process, which
96
NATURAL HISTORY
involves the same kind of chemical action
as the carbon process but in which gum
arabic is used instead of gelatine to hold
the pigments. Great skill is required in the
use of the gum process, which gives broad,
sketchy effects. A process which, like the
one just mentioned, is a vehicle of expression
for the artist photographer, is the oil process,
in which unlimited scope is given for the
production with brush and pigment of in-
dividual effects; a similar process is that
known as the bromoil. By the platinum
process a beautiful, clear, flat image is pro-
duced, that is devoid of luster. Due to the
demands for platinum during the war, the
manufacture of platinum paper almost ceased.
Other processes represented in the collection
of pictures were the gum platinum, the pal-
ladium, the gum palladium, the chloride, the
Kerotype transfer, and — regarded by many
as the most beautiful process of all — the
bromoil transfer.
Different kinds of apparatus and instru-
ments used in photography were also repre-
sented in the exhibit, including the camera
known as the Naturalist Graflex, designed
especially for photographing mammals and
birds in the wild state where long focus or
telephoto lenses are required.
Basket Work by ax Institutional
Class. — In the hall of woods and forestry,
American Museum, there was shown during
December an exhibit of baskets, dainty in
workmanship and perfect in symmetry, — the
product, one would have said, of skilled fingers
directed by an attentive mind. Yet the baskets
were made, not by professional workers in
wickerware, but by the Institutional Class of
Public School 9, the Bronx, at the Shelter of
the Bronx County Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Children. Here boys and girls
that have some defect of character that they
are unable to overcome unassisted, are given
a new grip upon themselves, and a new vision,
through the course in character-building
conducted by Miss Lucy C. Simonson. To
the baskets were attached bright and helpful
little verbal hints how happiness may be
gained through giving cheer to others, — an
indication that the making of the baskets,
however worthy in itself, was incidental to
the larger task of giving these children a new
ideal and inspiring them to achieve it.
MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES
National Association of Audl'bon So-
cieties.— On October 30 a public meeting
under the auspices of the National Association
of Audubon Societies was held in the American
Museum, in the course of which illustrated
addresses on "The New Era in Wild Life,"
"Bird Photography, Past and Present," and
"Comments on Bird Protection in Europe and
America," were delivered respectively by Mr.
Ernest Thompson Set on, Dr. Frank M.
Chapman, and Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson.
On the day following, the National Associa-
tion held its eighteenth annual meeting.
President Pearson announced that a gift of
$200,000 cash had been received during
the year, to he known as the "Permanent
Fund of 1922." He further stated that the
donor, whose name he was not at liberty to
divulge, stipulated that this gift should be
preserved as an endowment fund, the interest
from which was to be used for the following
purposes:
"First, for the education of the general
public in the knowledge and value of useful,
beautiful, and interesting forms of wild life.
especially birds.
"Second, for the actual protection and
perpetuation of such forms of wild life on
suitable breeding and other reservations.
"Third, for protecting and maintaining
adequate protection for such forms of wild
life in all parts of the Western Hemisphere.
"Fourth, or for any one of these purposes."
At the meeting Dr. Frank M. Chapman and
William P. Wharton were reelected as mem-
bers of the Board of Directors for a term of
five years, and Mr. George Finlay Simmons
of Austin, Texas, was chosen to fill the place
on the Advisory Board of Directors left vacant
by the death of Mr. Howard Eaton of
Wyoming.
National Academy of Sciences. — Among
the papers presented at the autumn meeting
of the National Academy of Sciences, No-
vember 14-16, were several contributed by
members of the scientific staff of the American
Museum, or by those closely associated with
the undertakings of that institution. Pro-
fessor Charles P. Berkey, who as geologist of
the Third Asiatic Expedition participated in
the interesting discoveries made in Mongolia,
spoke on "A Tentative Geological Column for
Central Mongolia." Dr. Clark Wissler, in
unfolding his subject, "Dating Prehistoric
Man in America by Methods of Distribution
and Stratigraphy," gave a brief report upon
studies carried on in the Museum from which
has been developed a technique for estimating
XOTES
97
the relative antiquities of prehistoric remains
by comparing their geographical distributions.
''The Restoration of Fossil Human Remains:
Its Possibilities, Value, and Limitations, " was
the subject discussed by Dr. J. H. McGregor.
In a paper entitled "Probable Mutation in
the Genus Buarremon," Dr. Frank M.
Chapman expressed his belief that the
presence or the absence of the black band
across the breast, which distinguishes certain
species of this genus of birds, is due to muta-
tion. The theory was advanced that these
pectoral bands, which, together with many
other markings, like bars on the wings, stripes
on the crown, or spots on the outer tail
feathers, are present in many wholly unre-
lated species of birds, will be found to be unit
characters which appear or disappear through
the action of internal rather than external,
or environmental, causes. Dr. Robert Cush-
man Murphy's paper "The Whitney South
Sea Expedition of the American Museum of
Natural History," was presented by title.
Dr. Frank E. Lutz presented, on behalf of
himself and his co-investigator, Prof. F. K.
Richtmyer, a paper entitled, "Ultra-violet
Flowers and Their Possible Bearing on the
Problems of Pollination by Insects." In it he
pointed out that as certain experiments in-
dicate that insects respond definitely to ultra-
violet rays, it would seem that in considering
flower colors in connection with pollination
by insects, attention should be given not only
to the visible spectrum but also to the ultra-
violet, the reflection of ultra-violet rays by
certain flowers having been established in the
course of experiments conducted last summer
at Boulder, Colorado, by Doctor Lutz and
Doctor Richtmyer.
In his address regarding "Recent Dis-
coveries of Fossil Vertebrates in China and
Mongolia," Dr. W. D. Matthew dwelt on the
significance of the finds made last summer by
the Third Asiatic Expedition. Central Asia
has been among the least-known regions of the
world in respect to the history of its land
fauna. The area is of peculiar interest because
of the belief that land vertebrates of other re-
gions were evolved in Asia and spread thence.
The discoveries made by the Third Asiatic
Expedition have indicated the existence of
series of extinct faunas in Mongolia which will
provide the necessary evidence to settle this
problem.
American Game Protective Association.
— The Ninth National Game Conference of
the American Game Protective Association
took place in the roof garden of the Waldorf-
Astoria Hotel on December 11 and 12.
Scientists, game wardens, and others inter-
ested in the enforcement of conservation laws
were in attendance from every part of the
United States, as well as from Canada and
Mexico. The American Museum was repre-
sented by Mr. H. E. Anthony, associate
curator of mammals of the Western Hemi-
sphere, who presented a paper on "Some
Aspects of the Close of the Age of Mammals,"
based on the article entitled "Can We Save
the Mammals?" the joint contribution of
Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn and Mr.
H. E. Anthony to the September-October
issue of Natural History.
Much attention was given at the gathering
to the then pending New-Anthony Bill, for
which support was solicited. The object of
this Bill is two-fold: first, to provide chains of
resting and breeding grounds where migratory
game birds will be free from molestation on
their fall and spring migrations; and secondly,
to provide for people who do not have access
to private preserves, places where they can
shoot the ducks, geese, and other game birds
in the proper seasons and under suitable
regulations. Under the terms of the Bill a
dollar license will be required of every one who
hunts migratory game birds. The proceeds
from the sale of these licenses will, according
to the provisions of the Bill, be applied in
part to the purchase of public game-bird
refuges, in part to the enforcement of the
Migrator}' Bird Law and the protection of the
areas set aside for the birds. Due to the pro-
gressive draining of swamps, the feeding and
resting grounds of the birds are already all too
few in certain parts, and the acquisition and
permanent maintenance of still undrained
areas should assure the birds a chance for
existence that will more than offset the toll
taken from their number by the licensed
hunter.
FOSSILS
Fossils from Wyoming. — Mr. George
Olsen. of the department of vertebrate pala>
ontology, American Museum, and Mr. Paul
Miller, of Chicago University, temporarily
attached to the staff of the Museum, spent a
part of last summer collecting fossil verte-
brates in the Eocene Bridger formation of
Wyoming. A valuable collection, including
skeletons of some of the rare and interesting
primitive carnivores, rodents, etc., has been
98
XATURAL HISTORY
sent to the Museum, and will be mentioned
more fully in a later number of Natural
History.
Dinosaur Remains Near New York. —
A fossil footprint of a dinosaur, recently pre-
sented to the American Museum by a member
of the staff of that institution. Mr. E. D.
Carter, reminds one that these reptiles once
inhabited the country around New York.
The footprint was found near Boonton, New
Jersey, and as similar tracks have been found
in the Connecticut valley, there is little doubt
that these animals ranged over all the area
between. Their bones have been found in the
red shales and sandstones of Connecticut,
but are very rare. Fossil skeletons seldom
stand out from the weathered surface of the
rock. They can be recognized, however, by
their white or yellowish color and by the
characteristic outlines of the vertebra? or
limb bones.
CONSERVATION
Pueblos of New Mexico Threatened. —
The American Museum has cooperated
with the Peabody Museum of American
Archaeology and Ethnology and with other
public-spirited bodies and individuals in
an effort to protect the Pueblo Indians
of New Mexico, threatened by the Bursum
Land Bill, which proposed by an ex post facto
act of Congress to legalize the illegal invasion
by settlers of lands which these Indians have
irrigated for centuries and on the retention
of which, in that region of little water, their
very existence depends. At the instance of
Dr. Herbert L. Spinden, until recently as-
sociate curator of Mexican and Central
American Archaeology, American Museum,
President Henry Fairfield Osborn sent to a
number of senators and congressmen the
letter quoted below :
From very long experience and observation
in all the states and territories of the West,
since the year 1877, when I first went into
Wyoming, and from subsequent journeys into
Colorado, New Mexico, the Dakotas, Mon-
tana, Nebraska, and California, I am warmly
in favor of preserving, both in letter and in
spirit, our agreements with the Indians. I
have especially observed in the Navajo Res-
ervation the advantageous working of this
principle.
Among all the Indians, none are so deserv-
ing of protection as the Pueblos — people who
have never raised an arm against the United
States and who have preserved their customs
and culture as a wonderful and, in many
respects, a beautiful monument of the past
life of America.
Together with all my scientific colleagues
and with the Trustees of the American Mu-
seum, I trust that Senate Bill 3855, known as
the Bursum Land Bill, will not be passed by
the House. It is the entering wedge which
means not only the breaking of our national
word but the breaking up of this most remark-
able culture, which should be kept sacred by
us, like our forests and great scenic wonders
and beauties.
Trusting that you will not only oppose this
Bill, but that you will use all reasonable in-
fluence against it, I am,
Respectfully yours.
Henry Fairfield Osborn
President
It is gratifying to learn that this vicious
Bill has been recalled by a resolution adopted
by the Senate and that a preponderance of
sentiment in Congress seems to be sternly
arrayed against its passage.
Preservation of the Pronghorn Ante-
lope.—President Henry Fairfield Osborn of
the American Museum has received a letter
from Mr. Edward Seymour, president of the
American Bison Society, which reports very
favorable progress in the work to which that
society is devoted, namely, the preservation
of our fast-disappearing large game.
Mr. Seymour states that the Wichita pre-
serve has recently received some additional
specimens of the pronghorn antelope which
were in fine condition. Part of a previous
group of animals which had been brought to
the preserve died from ticks, but the loss was
made up through antelopes supplied under
contract by Mr. C. J. Blazier of Alberta,
( anada. Mr. Blazier, under the provisions
of the license issued for the securing of ante-
lope for preservation, has been quite successful
in capturing these animals, and there are now
available for distribution seventeen in addi-
tion to those which the Wichita preserve
purchased.
There has been considerable difficulty in
rearing antelope on preserves, because of the
tick fever, but with experience it is hoped that
some means of protection will be devised. It
is possible that it will prove advisable to
inoculate the antelope against fever.
The Society reports very generous responses
to the campaign for stocking the Wichita
preserve with pronghorn antelope.
The Society has been working hard on a
census of the bison as well as on one of the
pronghorn antelope, and has brought the
task to completion. The United States
Biological Survey has also been working on a
census of the pronghorn antelope
XOTES
99
THE CENTENARY OF LOUIS PASTEUR
On the evening of December 27, 1922, the
American Museum was the scene of an impres-
sive gathering in honor of Louis Pasteur, the
Father of Bacteriology, whose centenary those
assembled had come to commemorate. The
New York Mineralogical Club and the Ameri-
can Museum of Natural History, under whose
joint auspices the meeting took place, had
associated with them in making the occasion
a success the following organizations, institu-
tions, and departments of the government:
Alliance francaise de New York, American
Scenic and Historic Preservation Society,
United States Department of Agriculture,
Department of Health of the City of
New York, Federation de l'Alliance francaise.
New York Academy of Sciences, New- York
Academy of Medicine, Pasteur Laboratories
of America, Department of Health of the
State of New York, Rockefeller Institute for
Medical Research.
Those entering Memorial Hall of t he Ameri-
can Museum were at once reminded of the
significance of the occasion by the wreath-
encircled and flag-draped bust of Pasteur,
presented through Mrs. Henry Fairfield
Osborn, — a replica of the bust by P. Dubois
in the Rockefeller Institute. The flags of
France and the United States were conspicu-
ous in the auditorium, where the meeting
took place.
President Henry Fairfield Osborn briefly
introduced Dr. George F. Kunz. president of
the New York Mineralogical Club, who acted
as chairman of the evening. Doctor Kunz in
his address sketched the various activities of
Pasteur with special reference to his work
in mineralogy. President Henry Fairfield
< isliorn, who was the first speaker railed upon
by Doctor Kunz, dwelt on the spiritual side
of the life of Pasteur, emphasizing thai
"Pasteur will stand as a symbol of the in-
timate relation that must develop between I lie
study of nature and the religious life of man"
. . . "that the two great historical move-
ments of love of humanity and knowledge of
nature, of the spiritual and intellectual and
physical well-being of man. are harmonious
parts of a single and eternal truth," a belief
stressed also in Professor Osborn's volume on
Pasteur entitled Tin New Order of Sainthood.
The Hon. Gaston Liebert, consul general of
France then gave a vivid picture of Pasteur,
based on his personal knowledge of him. A
letter bearing on the celebration of the cen-
tenary, signed by President Harding, and a
telegram of a similar nature sent by the Hon.
Charles Hughes, Secretary of State, were then
read. The Hon. Hermann M. Biggs, com-
missioner, State Department of Health. New
York, spoke about the great accomplishment
of Pasteur in discovering a cure for hydro-
phobia. Dr. George D. Stewart, president of
the New York Academy of Medicine, gave an
illuminating account of some of Pasteur"s
contributions to medicine, a science which his
discoveries revolutionized, shaking the whole
structure of disease treatment to its founda-
tions. There followed addresses by Dr.
Pierre Lecomte du Nouy, of the Rockefeller
Institute for Medical Research, who brought
out the fact that " it is due to Pasteur that we
have surgery that doesn't frighten us any
more"; by Dr. Hideyo Noguchi, of the
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research,
who spoke of Pasteur's contributions to bac-
teriology; by Major Henry J. Nichols of the
Medical Corps, U. S. Army, whose topic was
"The Value of Pasteur to the Army "; and by
Professor C.-E. A. Winslow, honorary curator
of public health, American Museum, who paid
tribute to Pasteur for his splendid spirit of
scientific research. In closing the exercises
of the evening Director F. A. Lucas, of the
Museum, explained scenes from the life of
Pasteur as thev were thrown on the screen.
Since the last issue of Natural History
the following persons have been elected mem-
bers of the American Museum, making the
total membership, t)556:
Patron: Mr. Thomas Xkwbold.
Life Members: Mesdames Harry Hark-
ness Flagler, Clarence L. Hay, Henri K.
McHarg; the Misses Marian Roby Case
and Zelina T. Clark; Professor Hutton
Webster; Messrs. Ludlow S. Bull, Philip
A. Carroll, John B. Clark, J. M. M.u-
donough, Stephen K. Reed, and Benjamin
L. WlNCHELL.
Sustaining Member: Mrs. Ethel Clyde.
Annual Members: Mesdames Charles C.
Bttrlingham, Robert James Campbell,
Richard M. ( !olg \te, Alfred C. Coxe, Jr.,
Pun. ip X. ('cutis, Charles F. Cuti.eh.
Preston Davie, John R. Delapield,
Stanley W. Dexter, Alfred P. Dix, ('has.
A. Flanagan, Robert Ives Gammell, F. F.
Garrison, Arthur S. Grenier, Clinton M.
Hall. A. (i. Hill, Hester Gibsox Hunting-
ton, Wm. ( '. Lobenstine, Henry M. Mao
100
X AT URAL HISTORY
Cracken, H. Estelle Maxyille, Wm.
Fellowes Morgan, Ida S. Oldroyd,
Charles E. Oryis, Francis W. Othemax.
and Adolph J. Outerbridge; the Misses
M. Rexee Carhart, Cornelia Van A.
Chapix, Margaret Gilsey, Phoebe A.
Helmer, Elizabeth A. Hull, Hazel
Hyde, Ida Lathers, and Lucy C. Simoxsox;
Rear Admiral Fraxcis J. Higgixsox, U.S.N,
and Rear Admiral J.W.Oman U.S.N.; the
Reyerexd Doctors William Xormax Guth-
rie and "William Beach Olmste ad; Doctors
Fritz Abegg, Robt. S. Grixxell. Harry
M. Imbodex, Deas Murphy, and George
M. Swift; Professor Otis W. Caldwell;
Messrs. George Towxsexd Adee, Hexry
W. Baxks, 3d, Hexry G. Bartol, Jr.,
Willard C. Brixtox, A. Wallace Chaux-
cey, Charles M. Coxxfelt, Francis de L.
Cunningham, W. de L. Cunningham,
Brian C. Curtis, James Stewart Cush-
man, Chester Dale, Wm. R. Davenport,
Gayer G. Dominick, Chester W. Fairlie,
Frank J. Frost, Alex. Goldsmith, Walter
R. Gordon, Edward E. Hall, Frederick A.
Halsey, Ernst B. Kaufmann. Max Kauf-
mann, Charles H. Lee, George Leyi,
Charles A. Marshall, Charles C. Mar-
shall, Henry L. Maxwell, James S.
McCulloh, R. G. McKay, C. G. Michalis,
G. W. Minot, Benjamin Moore, Chas.
Moran, Shepard A. Morgan, P. Randolph
Morris, Raymond P. R. Neilson, Edward
T. Nichols, Charles Dyer Norton,
Charles Otis, H. K. Pomroy, Walter S.
Poor, Charles K. Post, Benjamin Prince,
Rodney Procter, Erying Pruyn, Harold
T. Pulsifer, Samuel M. Siegman, Ralph
George Stoddard, W. S. Van der Bent,
William G. Ver Planck, Harry L. Walker,
and W. Foster White.
Associate Members: Mesdames Daniel Beck-
with, Gorham Brooks, Alfa C. B. Calkins,
H. Almira Dunn. W. H. Dunshee, Edward
W. Emerson, Antoinette H. Ethridge, E.
H. Fahrney, N. B. Fairbanks, Mary Van
E. Ferguson, A. C. Foster, Charles Dor-
rance Foster, Herbert W. Fox, Charles
W. Gale, Augustus M. Gerdes, Katherine
Gale Gere, Frederick M. Gilbert, A. E.
Godeffroy, H. M. Goodwin, Charles W.
Goodyear, Dayid S. Greenough, John
Gribbel, R. E. Hale, H. R. Hamilton, W. F.
Harrington, John E. Harroun, W. A.
Haskell, Horatio Hathaway, Oliver S.
Hawes, James L. Hawley. H. Hessen-
bruch. George F. Hills, Joseph Clark
Hoppix, Sydney A. Jameson, A. F. Joxas,
M. E. Judd, Martha Groves McKelyie.
Emma M. Mitchell, Cynthia B. Robertsox,
Dayis Sessums. and C. A. Sharpe; the
Misses Allis Beaumoxt, Katrixa Clark,
Elisabeth T. Dayisox, Pauline Dederer.
Eleanor B. Eatox, Fanny Foster, Julia R.
Foster, Anne Fraxchot, Marie Gibert,
Margaret S. Goodwin, Jaxe Halsey, Susan
F. Haskixs, Caroline Hazard, Mary G.
Hubbard, and Catherine Warner Okey;
Doctors W. A. Brumfield, H. Silvester
Eyaxs, Leslie X. Gay, J. M. Godfrey,
William Martin, Willis Bryant Moultox,
R. A. Muttkowski. Earl Read Scheffel.
and Arthur Sweexey; Professor Dudley
James Pratt; Messrs. Philip N. Albright,
Ward Ames, Jr., Stephen G. Branxox,
Forrest N. Buckland, Henry S. Chafee,
Walter Charles, Clarexce M. Clark,
Lyman B. Comstock, W. H. Conrad, Jef-
frey Davis, Chas. C. Deam, Charles
Sturges DeForest, Chauncey M. Demixc;,
James DeNormaxdie, 2d, Charles L.
DlCKERT, DONALD R. DlCKEY, OLIYER E.
Dunbar, Frederick W. Eatox, Wm. L. G.
Edsox, E. P. Edwards, Julius Wooster
Eggleston, Albert C. Elser, John Elting,
W. H. C. Elwell, F. A. Emerick, S. M.
Engelhardt, Willi.am Van Rensselaer
Ervinc;, Walter S. Evans, Wilmot R.
Evans, Joseph E. Everett, J. Edward
Fagen, Franklin Farrel, 3d. J. H. Fieb-
ing, Richard T. Fisher, Wm. B. Foster.
William E. Fulton, Charles C. Gardiner.
John Gath, Frederick A. Gaylord, R. A.
Gilliam, George F. Gilmore, Andrew
Glassell, Joseph C. Goodman, James L.
Goodwix, Rolaxd Gray, Miles Green-
wood, Henry A. Haigh, George L. Harri-
son, Thos. B. Hayward, E. M. Herr.
Walter Hidden, Oliver C. Hillard,
Jacob Hittinger, Charles L. Holmes
Sidney S. Holt, Henry S. Hunnewell.
J. W. Johnston, John S. Jones, F. G. Kai-
ser, George H. Kleinhaus, Irying W.
Metcalf, W. F. Pfeiffer, Myron A. Rice,
C. H. Rust, B. S. Sanford, Caryl Spiller.
Harry C. Stone, Roy R. Streeter, L. Al-
vtn Thomas, L. L. Walters, Wesley E.
Wheless, William Witcher, and Gifford
K. Wright; the Nebraska Wesleyan Uni-
versity Library.
NATURAL
F- 1
In.
ii
D
THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM
DEVOTED TO NATURAL HISTORY.
EXPLORATION, AND THE DEVELOP-
MENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
THROUGH THE MUSEUM
si
MARCH-APRIL, 1923
[Published April, 1923]
Volume XXIII, Number 2
Copyright, 1923, by the American Museum of Natural History. New York, X. V.
ATURAL HISTORY
Volume XXIII CONTENTS FOR MARCH-APRIL Number 2
In Pursuit of the Giant Tree Frog G. Kingsley Noble 104
Night hunting in Santo Domingo by the Angelo Heilprin Expedition
Photographs by the author and by Mrs. G. Kingsley Noble, taken for the most part by flashlight
Field Studies of Dominican Tree Frogs and Their Haunts
G. Kingsley Noble 117
A -fries of photographs, several of them taken by flashlight and one by moonlight
Modern Mermaids Frederic A. Lucas 122
Creatures of the fancy that have taken tangible shape
Photographs supplied by courtesy of Mrs. Walter Taylor and Mr. Max F. Clement
Flowers and Their Insect Visitors Frank E. Lutz 125
Some unsolved problems of their relationships
Photographs by the author and by Miss E. M. Kittredge
The Extinction of Sea Mammals Robert Ctjshman Murphy 135
Devastating slaughter that has decimated an interesting fauna
The Chamois of the Pyrenees V. Forbin 138
A fleet-footed dweller in rocky places
Photographs by M. Jove
White Goats of the Sawtooth Mountains H. E. Anthony 1-42
Experiences during a collecting trip to the region about Stanley I ake, hi
Photographs by the author and by Mr. Tom Williams
The Story of an Eskimo Dog G. Clyde Fisher 155
A review of Polaris by Ernest Harold Baynes
With decorative headpiece
"Fishing From the Earliest Times*' E. W. Gudger 156
A review of the new volume by William RadclifTe
With illustrations from the volume
The Story of the Crooked Knife Clark Wissler 159
The probable origin of an instrument of curious .-Imp. and sharply demarked distribution
With a map of the area where the knife i.- used ami photographs of specimens in the collections of the
American Museum
The Lava River Tunnel Ira A. Williams 162
A subterranean conduit in Deschutes County, Oregon, through which at one time flowed a white-hot
stream of molten lava
Photographs by the author, of the interior of the tunnel
The Haunts of the Emperor Goose Alfred M. Bailey 172
A collecting trip undertaken on behalf of the Colorado Museum of Natural History to the northwestern
tip of North America
Photographs, taken by the author, of the region and its bird life
Natural Root Graftage and the Overgrowth of Stumps of Conifers
C. C. Pemberton 182
How life may be prolonged indefinitely in decapitated trees of this group
Natural Graftage C. C. Pemberton 184
A series of photographs of trees in Vancouver that illustrate different phases of this phenomenon
Notes 192
Published bimonthly, by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, N. Y.
Subscription price S3. 00 a year.
Subscriptions should be addressed to George F. Baker, Jr., Treasurer, American Museum of
Natural History, 77th St. and Central Park West, New York City.
Natural History is sent to all members of the American Museum as one of the privileges of
membership.
Entered as second-class matter April 3, 1919, at the Post Office at New^York, New York,
under the Act of August 24, 1912.
Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of
October 3, 1917, authorized on July 15, 1918.
THE GIANT FROG OF SANTO DOMINGO
After the sun has set, the giant tree frog, Hyla vasta, leaves his hiding place among the
tree tops and descends to some rocky ravine. There, flattened out on a mossy bowlder in
midstream, he rests for hours, seemingly enjoying the cool mists which arise from the tor-
rents. So closely does the frog resemble the moss and lichen of his surroundings that he
would rarely be observed were it not for his big shiny eyes, which are conspicuous even
when closed, the lower eyelid being translucent.
The frog must be hunted at night, for at the first glint of dawn he again seeks his ar-
boreal retreat. Hunting at night is not an easy matter in these slippery, bowlder-strewn
chasms. It would be utterly hopeless were it not for the fact that sometimes the male calls
loudly for his mate. It is more of a sob than a call, but it brings joy to the hunter, stimulat-
ing him to push on once more through the reeking darkness
104
YOLCMK XXIII
MARCH-APRIL
Number 2
In Pursuit of the Giant Tree Frog
NIGHT HUNTING IN SANTO DOMINGO BY THE ANGELO
HEILPRIX EXPEDITION
By G. KINGSLEY NOBLE
Associate Curator of Herpetolosy (In Charge*, American Museum
IT WAS some years ago that I first
saw the giant tree frog of Santo Do-
mingo. That specimen, the type,
stood with its fellow Hylidae on a
shelf in the Academy of Natural Sci-
ences of Philadelphia. Its head tow-
ered high over those of its relative-.
for the Dominican giant frog is by far
the largest tree frog in the world. For
half a century many individuals have
gazed at this specimen of Ilyla vasta,
the only one known, and have no doubt
wondered, as I did, how the creature
looked in life, what was the character of
its voice, and what the length of the
leap it could take with its tremendous
legs. Still, through all these years the
whereabouts and activities of this king
of tree climbers remained unknown.
Last summer, through the interest of
friends of the American Museum, an
expedition was organized to search for
this huge batrachian. The veteran
naturalist, Dr. W. L. Abbott, had just
returned from Santo Domingo with
information as to where the creature
might be found. Natives had brought
him two small specimens. Stimulated
by this announcement, we too hoped
to secure for the Museum's new hall of
reptile and amphibian life specimens of
the giant tree frog. If in addition we
should be fortunate enough to work out
its life history, we would have a fit
subject for a habitat group.
The expedition was to have the sup-
port of the l". S. Marines stationed
in Santo Domingo. The Guardia
Nacional Dominicana would help us.
With much advice, a few letters, and a
full share of impedimenta, we left New
York, not, however, without some mis-
givings. It is one thing to make gen-
eral collections in a foreign land, and
it is another to endeavor to secure
information in regard to any particular
creature. I thought of half a dozen
Amphibia living within fifty miles of
Xew York City, the life history of
which was still unknown. How many
times had I sought in vain for the eggs
of those creatures!
Ten days later our party left San
Francisco de Macoris, the last Do-
minican town, and started for an
outlier of the northern mountain range
known as the Quita Espuela. Our
party must have seemed formidable to
the natives we passed. There was
Sergeant Schroff, who could not under-
stand why he was "always given the
hard details," a private who was triad
to be in the hills, our guide and camp
man. Juan, a pack train of six well-
groomed mules, and finally my wife and
I. This northern range parallels the
coast and robs the trade winds of much
of their moisture. It is on the slopes
of these mountains that rain tails al-
most continually. Dense, reeking
jungles struggle to choke the torrents
that carve the mountain-sides. Here
giant Ceiha trees grow to enormous
proportions. Epiphytes climb every-
105
106
NATURAL HISTORY
where, competing with each other for
the little sunshine that filters down to
them through chinks in the jungle roof.
It was late in the afternoon before
we had reached the base of cloud-
The expedition, accompanied by marines,
headed at once for the Quita Espuela
capped Quita Espuela. Our mules
stumbled along a zigzag trail, over
innumerable fallen logs, finally to give
up entirely about a hundred yards from
the place where we hoped to camp.
The mist shroud drooped low over the
mountains, turned from white to gray,
and then to nearly black. A camp we
had to have and that very quickly.
There was a mountain stream some
yards away, that fell splashing in
cascades and then babbled for a con-
siderable distance over moss-covered
bowlders. To the edge of this stream
we carried our duffel. A clatter of
machetes, a creaking of straps, and our
little tent raised itself up, shook the
odor of paraffin from its emerald sides
and snuggled back among the wild
plantain which lined the bank.
But the rain we expected did not
come. With some hesitation we un-
covered our duffel and prepared for the
evening meal. Dusk had already fallen.
A crab-bird screamed his evening com-
plaint from high up on the mountain,
innumerable bats appeared from no-
where and fluttered back and forth
across our patches of heaven. I drew
close to the water's edge to fill one of
the buckets. Two gray bats had
already taken up their ceaseless vigil,
crossing and re-crossing the stream.
At my feet was a small pool where the
water smoothed out between two
rapids. As I looked, a pair of luminous
eyes appeared from a dark corner of
the pool, only to vanish in turn as their
possessor moved quickly across the
current to another corner. Then
another pair of these diminutive head-
lights appeared and disappeared. I
realized that there were dozens of these
shining eyes, moving shuttle-like now
here, now there. I went back to camp,
found a flash light, and returned.
The eyes shone more brilliantly than
ever. I drew nearer and made out the
form of a huge shrimp, with stalklike
eyes aflame in the light of the flash
lamp. There were many of these
shrimps and some carried masses of
eggs attached to their swimmerets.
AYhile I was thus absorbed, there
arose from the tree tops high overhead
a reverberating call, resonant and
cavernous, ook-ook-ook. I thought of
At night as we wandered through the forests we sometimes chanced upon a native hut all
aglow with the evening fire
Few of the back-coun-
try natives can boast of
more than a single cook-
ing vessel, but their warm
hospitality more than
makes up for their poor
cuisine. Their bill-of-fare
is limited. Besides beans
and rice (the national
dish i, they have plantains
and sometimes meat.
Their favorite dish is an
atrocious pork stew, high-
ly seasoned, often not
very digestible. Although
these people have none of
the conveniences or com-
forts of those living near
the coast, they are always
happy. Never did we see
a Dominican treat his
children badly. The boys
and girls, like everyone
else, had many chores 1"
perform, bul on no occa-
sion were they punished
even though they failed
to do their work well
108
X AT URAL HISTORY
the geckos I had heard welcoming the
night in Guadeloupe, but this call was
more subdued, more guttural. Could
it be a frog? I waited breathlessly.
our two big acetylene lights and dashed
off into the night. We would work
together until we ran down that voice.
First we followed a trail skirting the
Nearer came the voice. Whether edge of a half -made conuco, or clearing,
gecko, frog, or elf, the creature was
descending. I seized my field glasses,
but could discern nothing. Once more,
ook-ook-ook — ook-ook-ook, then silence!
Ten minutes and still no further
sound! It was supper time so I re-
turned to camp and swallowed a few
mouthfuls. Then Juan and I seized
Individual frogs were
studied throughout the
night. Neither the glow
of the acetylene lamp
nor the sudden glare
of the flashlight inter-
ruptedtheir activities.
They "continued their
calling, love-making,
and feeding as if our
lamp was nothing but
a giant firefly passing
through their world.
With the flash gun an
accurate record may
be made of these hap-
penings. The flash gun,
though often used for
making portraits of
big game, has never
hitherto been used for
recording the life sto-
ries of the small deni-
zens of the tropical
forest
then crossed a stream bed into a dense
jungle. The night was alive with tiny
voices, — some metallic and bell-like,
others soft, scarcely aspirated. To one
side of us we heard a eUek-dick-click
that was very insect -like, but continued
into a diminuendo of delicate bird
notes. We turned and there, perched
IN PURSUIT OF THE GIANT TREE FROG
109
in the very center of a leaf, was a tiny
frog, less than an inch in length, with
the lower part of its throat inflated into
a glistening bubble. Never before had
I seen a frog which inflated the lower
part of its throat without distending
the whole. We seized the little singer
quickly and were about to proceed
when we heard the bark of a "dog"
sounding from a tangle of lianas forty
feet above our heads. It was a very
woeful call, such as only a lonely dog —
or a frog — could make . Our light s were
at once pointed skyward but we could
see nothing save the festoons of mosses
swinging in the night air.
In the glare of the headlight the
jungle at night is transformed into a
different world from that observed
during the day. Everything within the
magic circle of the light stands out in
relief. Inky shadows thrust forth long-
arms. Fallen trees spring up and take
on ominous proportions. Colors lose
their values. Every stub and leaf
turns to either black or gold. Drops of
moisture reflecting back the rays of the
light shine out like a thousand jewels.
The forest becomes a land of mystic
exaggerations.
It is not the strange sights, however,
but the sounds which make the night
forest awesome, even fearful. Voices,
some soft and whispering, others harsh
and grating, greet one on all sides. The
monotonous chirping of the cricket we
recognize at once, but what are those
anvils ringing in the distance? A
rustling in the near-by bushes and our
imagination soars! Land crabs, large
tarantulas, and whip scorpions seek
their prey after the sun has set. One
never loiters in the forest at night.
Something always seems to be waiting
there in the darkness.
With a last shot of our long acetylene
rays toward the tree-top "dog," we
plunged on once more. Two hundred
yards beyond we came to a third
stream that was swifter and more
torrential than the other two. There
was something inviting about the
white foam splashing in the light of our
lamps. We turned and headed up-
stream toward the mountain. Hardly
had we started when a shrill cry arose
high above the swirl of the current. It
sounded like a jet of escaping steam
or a locomotive whistle stammering
under excess pressure. We scrambled
upward over slippery rocks, gained a
bend in the torrent, and there beheld
sitting on a rock in midstream and
fairly bursting with exertion, a bril-
liant golden-green tree frog, flecked
with white above and partly concealing
with his legs four gaudy patches of
brightest gold. I recognized at once
that it was a species new to science,
and whispered to Juan that we must
capture it at any cost. Most frogs will
show no concern toward the acetylene
lamp, continuing their calling as tran-
quilly as if the lamp were only the
moon staring down upon them. Not so
our handsome new species. Hardly
had the light settled squarely upon
him when he ceased calling abruptly,
edged off to the side of the rock, and
jumped — whether intentionally or not
I could not determine — into the heart
of the swiftest current. The white
waters threw up their arms a little
higher. Our prize had disappeared.
We were now far from camp and low-
in spirit. We resolved to take the
shortest way back through the jungle.
A few yards and we were swallowed up
in vines and lianas; but Juan had his
machete and we progressed. Nothing
is so black as a jungle at night. Our
headlights pierced the saturated air
with difficulty. We stopped to catch
our breath. A "dog" barked high
110
NATURAL HISTORY
overhead, another just ahead of us
replied. Cautiously we moved for-
ward. Again the "clog" gave forth a
smothered bark. I pushed Juan aside,
and, scarcely breathing, parted the
lianas. There, two yards ahead, was a
great brown tree frog, with sharp
snout and a black stripe through the
eye. Xo, it was not the giant frog we
were seeking, but it was a spe< L( -
Most frogs call with their month closed.
Only a few have learned the trick of scream-
ing with wide-open mouth. The male bark-
ing frog, Elentherodactylus inoptaius would
open his mouth on the slightest provocation
and squeal like a pig
nearly as rare. Even as we looked, the
frog puffed out his throat into a white
balloon, the size of a golf ball, and gav<
a mournful 6a wo-oic! Keeping my
light shining in his eyes, I slipped my
free hand along the frog's back and
seized .him quickly. Then a very
strange thing happened. The frog
opened his mouth and screamed like a
frightened pig. When frogs call, they
keep their mouth tightly closed. Very
few have learned the trick of opening
their mouth to cry. The pond frog
of eastern United States, when grabbed
suddenly, screams like an injured child.
Our spade-foot toad may give a series
of loud clucks with open mouth. But
never before was it known that an
Eleutherodactylus had adopted a similar
''terrifying behavior."
In my excitement I had noticed
nothing but the frog. Before I had him
safely bagged, Juan tugged at my arm
and pointed out a tree snake asleep on
a branch just above my head. The
snake, nearly four feet long but not
half an inch in diameter, so closely
resembled the vines that I did not see
it at first. As Juan lowered the limb. I
recognized the species as a diurnal form
that spends the sunlight hours stalk-
ing unfortunate lizards. Its mouth is
equipped with two long fangs just be-
hind the other teeth. Although these
fangs are too small and too far back
in the head to injure man, they are
decidedly effective on smaller prey.
We moved on joyously to camp. If
the giant tree frog did not live in these
jungles, at least other interesting
creatures did. We gained the ridge at
the foot of which lay our camp. A
light shone up from the tent door
toward the tree tops. Mrs. Noble
was signaling to us to approach cau-
tiously. I caught the word maco
grande — giant frog. I smiled; she,
too, had been fooled by the barking
frog, I mused, and stepped rather
briskly forward. I saw she was hold-
ing a flash lamp on something up in the
wild plantain in front of the tent de>or.
As I stepped nearer, there took shape
against the velvety blackness of the
night a tree frog so large that it seemed
unreal. Its four immense feet were
flattened out against the plaint ain
stalk but its head, with staring orbs,
IN PURSUIT OF THE GIAXT TREE FROG
111
slowly turned as if contemplating in
which direction to leap. I thought of
my lost species and a chill went down
my back. I dropped everything,
slipped out of my coat, and stealthily
moved nearer. With both hands free
I could not miss ! Nearer I came. Why
not the gun, I thought. Perhaps I
could not hold the creature. But it
was too late to go back. With both
hands I clutched. Something squashy
slipped in my fingers. Without daring
to look, I dropped the frog into the
bag which Juan stretched toward me.
In another moment we were inside the
tent, with mosquito bar closed, ready
to examine our capture. It was then
that I noted that my hands were red
and swollen. I must have brushed up
against a '"poison ivy tree" in the
jungle, I thought. We opened the
bag cautiously; a penetrating odor like
that of burning mustard, though more
acrid and sickening, streamed forth. I
looked more closely at my hands. To
the red swellings was adhering some of
the mucus from the frog's skin. In a
moment it was clear to me — the skin
of the giant frog had badly poisoned
me.
The skin of all frogs and toads con-
tains two kinds of glands: mucus and
poison. But the poison of the latter
gland was not known hitherto to be
injurious to the unprotected hands.
Toads do not produce warts, nor can
they inflame one's skin in any way.
Their glands secrete a poison which
affects only mucus membranes, such
as those in the nostrils and the eyes.
The skin of the giant tree frog, we
gradually realized, must be extremely
poisonous to burn the hand. We con-
cluded it would be well not to experi-
ment further. The cutting odor alone
warned us of the serious results which
we might expect if we should brush
any of the secretion accidentally into
our eyes.
We had captured the king of the tree
climbers at our very doorstep. The
mysterious voice from the tree tops
had come nearer and nearer while Mrs.
The green tree snake, Uromacer oxyr-
hynchus dower picture), feeds primarily mi
lizards. It has fangs far back in the mouth.
The poison it injects in its victim is not
sufficiently virulent to harm man, hut it is
apparently very effective mi lizards. Anolis
c>/l><it(s. the lizard in the upper picture,
quickly dies when struck by this serpent
112
XATUHAL HISTORY
Lizard eggs have the appearance of chicken
eggs in miniature, but the larger eggs (those
of A nolis) have a leathery shell. Some snails
lay eggs identical in outer appearance with
those of lizards. Some of the larger eggs
shown here are not "chameleon" eggs, but
the eggs of a helicid snail. Pleurodonte
A passing lizard, Anolis cybotes, was at-
tracted by our metamorphosing tadpoles,
Hyla heilprini, and attempted to seize these
titbits through the glass walls <.f the aquarium
Noble waited below, and it was only
our sudden return that robbed her
of the glory of tackling; his batrachi-
an majesty single-handed. But our
work had just begun. Where did the
female tree frog lay her eggs? Where
did the young spend their larval life?
Our attack upon the problem began
earlier than we expected. The next
morning, as Mrs. Noble was dipping up
water for the coffee pot, she almost
scooped up a tadpole. It was attached
to one of the bowlders in midstream.
As no mountain-brook tadpoles had
been recorded previously from the
West Indian region, or in fact anywhere
in the neotropics, we forgot our coffee
for the moment and everyone joined in
a tadpole hunt. We soon found that
all the tadpoles in the stream near
camp belonged to one species. They
were all the same color — a mottled
gray with yellow- spots on the tail.
Most remarkable were their mouth
parts, arranged row after row and
forming a great cup by which the tad-
poles adhered to the rocks in spite of
the current.
Directly across the brook from our
camp Juan found an egg mass in a
little basin of water among the rocks
lining the shore. The eggs, many
hundreds in number, were hatching and
we hastened to build a cheesecloth
cage completely around the mass to
prevent the little tadpoles from
wriggling away among the crannies
between the rocks. To what species
these tadpoles and these eggs belonged
we could only surmise. Further ob-
servations alone could determine this.
That morning marked the beginning
of three weeks of intensive hunting.
The daylight hours were spent in
seeking everywhere for eggs, tadpoles,
and young. During the night we ran
down the voices that called to us from
the dark. We soon found that there
were several kinds of tadpoles in our
region, and that the different kinds
were always confined to particular
IX PURSUIT OF THE GIANT TREE FROG
113
habitats. In the mud puddles and
ponds of stagnant water there were
myriads of fat-bodied pollywogs, iri-
descent brown in color and with a few
short rows of larval teeth. In the lower
portions of the mountain streams.
where the torrents broke into rapids
interrupted by pools, we always found
the gray tadpoles of our camp. They
so closely resembled the rocks on which
they rested that we rarely noticed them
until they moved. High up on the
mountain-sides, where the streams fell
in cascades, throwing masses of spray
toward the overhanging tree ferns, we
found a third kind of tadpole. As if in
adaptation to these swifter waters, the
body of this tadpole was narrower, the
tail more powerful, thicker at the base,
thus affording better "stream lines"
than in our gray tadpole of the camp
pool. The mouth parts of this swift-
torrent tadpole formed a broader cup
with more rows of teeth than was the
case in the camp tadpole. Its color
was very much like that of the latter,
but the yellow marks on the tail and
rump formed a distinctive pattern.
We had many misgivings regarding
our ability to rear these mountain-
torrent tadpoles. Surely they must
require highly aerated water. We
placed a few, however, in one of the
small glass aquaria and set it away in
the shade. When we returned some
hours later, the little tadpoles were not
only alive but were so active that they
had attracted a passing lizard, which,
just as we arrived, was making des-
perate efforts to seize these dainty
morsels through the glass sides of the
vessel, against which he was bumping
his snout ineffectually.
One night, as we were running down
some of the diminutive yellow frogs
that shrilly proclaimed their presence
in the tangle of dodder and brush
f
\
Male " chameleon," A noli* cybotes, spread-
ing throat fan and neck crest in amorous ex-
citement. Only the male "chameleons" arc
equipped to give such emotional display
bordering the lower streams, we came
suddenly upon one of these little frogs
a male— watching over a clutch of
114
NATURAL HISTORY
Four days old! The young of the warbling
frog EUutherodactylus, new species, hatches
fully formed from the egg
eggs, which in the aggregate appeared
to be larger than their tiny guardian.
Those eggs, which were of considerable
size and white, were laid on land on a
dead leaf some yards from the water.
Frog eggs laid in water swell rapidly
immediately after being deposited.
These eggs were so large they must
have swollen considerably, but from
just where they absorbed their mois-
The eggs of some of the Dominican frogs
are of large size and are zealously guarded by
the male. This little fellow, Eleuthero-
da,dylus flavescens, returned to his charge
even after being frightened away
ture to bring about this condition we
could not determine.
A few days later we discovered that
the barking frog, too, laid great white
eggs. These were deposited on land
in a depression some distance from
the trickling stream, and apparently
guarded by the male. One discovery
followed another, and soon we had our
camp converted into a great frog
nursery with hundreds of eggs in all
stages of development. We found that
more than half the species of the region
laid eggs on land, and that these eggs
were always large and unpigmented.
They did not hatch out as tadpoles, as
one would expect, but fully formed frog-
lets. Most of the froglets cut their way
through the egg capsules by means of a
sharp egg-tooth on the snout, but the
froglets of the barking frog seemed
dependent on rains to initiate the
hatching process. Some of the froglets
on hatching were extremely small, the
young of the little forest frog first dis-
covered measuring only four milli-
meters in length. Often at night we
would come across whole families of
these little froglets making their wray
through the forest and as they moved
t r< mi leaf to leaf they seemed, casually
viewed, more like insects than frogs.
The large white eggs of the tadpole-
less frogs wTere in striking contrast to
the small pigmented eggs that we
found in the pools and that hatched as
tadpoles. Why, we might ask, should
two frogs living on the same stream
bank develop in two such different
ways? The water embryos, provided
with a minimum amount of yolk, we
might liken to a boy with limited
means. Frog and boy must get out
early in life and hustle, each seeking
his own upkeep. Not so with the
embryo richly supplied with yolk; in
its case the troublesome tadpole period
After a rain, the frogs call loudest. But this little yellow frog, Eleutherodactylus flave-
scens, rarely permitted us to watch him sing. At the slightest disturbance he ceased calling
immediately and jumped quickly out of sight
The Dominican striped tree frog, Hyla pulchrilineala, docs not Now oul bis throal
like most frogs when calling. Nevertheless, his song, or wheeze, is very penetrating —
sounding like the rhythmical creaking of an old harness
11.-.
116
XATCRAL HISTORY
can be avoided. But what about the
yolk? Was the frog family originally
rich? Did frogs provide well for their
children? If not, how did one group of
frogs suddenly become rich? And why
should rich and poor live side by side?
But to return to our giant tree
frog, — as time went on and the evidence
heaped up, our case against the giant
tree frog became clearer. We now
very often found pairs calmly seated on
bowlders along the lower reaches of
the mountain streams. They seemed
thoroughly to enjoy the mists that
arose from the dashing waters. Often
we would hear them calling from high
up in the tree tops and some hours
later would steal upon one of them as
he left his arboreal retreat to begin his
nocturnal mist bath among the bowl-
ders of the river bed.
Just as we were about to conclude
our case, a wonderful thing happened.
The tadpoles began to metamorphose.
Those of the high torrent that were
equipped with the great adhesive
mouth parts assumed a beautiful
green color, and changed within a day
into the brilliant golden-green species
we had lost the first night. The cor-
pulent pollywog of the mud puddles
changed into a tree frog that is widely
known throughout Santo Domingo,
and seems to get along equally well in
arid and forest country. Possibly it is
this preference of the tadpole for stag-
nant water that accounts for the wide
distribution of the species. The gray
tadpoles of our camp pool changed
into little gray tree frogs which we
did not recognize at first. Soon, how-
ever, these assumed the characteristic
features of the giant tree frog, the main
object of our expedition.
But our story was not yet complete.
We had assembled all the evidence for
one locality. Under what conditions
did the frogs live and breed in other
parts of Santo Domingo? A week later
we left the northern range and started
across the great central cordillera of
the island. Here we climbed to an
elevation of 6000 feet, left the pahn
and tree fern behind, and wandered for
days through pine woods in general
appearance similar to the coniferous
forests of the north. The nights were
now very cold . The water temperatures
of the streams ran 20° lower than those
of the Quita Espuela. New voices
called at night from the pine trees.
We climbed to 8000 feet, to the torrents
that pour from the very heart of the
island. Here, where the water fell in
cascades, the reverberant voice of the
elusive green frog rose high above the
roar of the torrent . Along the stretches
of quieten' water — now so cold that it
chilled us to the marrow — our giant
tree frog sobbed loudly, while in the
rain water in the ruts of the trail we
still found the fat little pollywogs of
iridescent brown hue. At night, as we
rode in silence through the whispering
forests, barking frogs mournfully called
to us to stop. These tropical frogs had
invaded the highest peaks. New scenes,
new temperatures did not affect them.
They required only one thing of life —
the mountain stream.
The smallest frog. E. minutus, in Santo Domingo; about % life size
Field Studies of Dominican Tree Frogs and
Their Haunts
By G. KIXGSLEY NOBLE
CAPTIVE GIANT FROGS
The giant frog of Santo Domingo, Hyla vasta, is the largest tree frog in the world. The
great adhesive pads at the ends of its digits enable it to scale the tallest trees and to
jump safely from limb to limb. Its skin, unlike that of all other frogs or toads, exudes a
poison so virulent that it burns the unprotected hand. Some of this poison may be seen
smeared over the glass face of the field terrarium. The frogs in the picture are about two-
thirds natural size
117
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The mermaids of our fancy combine human and fishlike characters, but the mermaids of
commerce are pieced together out of elements even more diverse. Supported on arms that
once enabled a monkey to swing from bough to bough, with childlike head and torso of papier-
mache, and a tail fashioned from the body of a fish, the specimen here shown represents a not
unsuccessful effort at welding together the incongruous. Photograph reproduced by courtesy
of Mrs. Walter Taylor
Modern Mermaids
By FREDERIC A. LUCAS
Director of the American Museum
IN the "good old days" of our
China Trade and lono; voyages,
ship captains occasionally brought
home with other curios a "genuine"
mermaid. These mermaids — that is,
the best of them — were cunningly and
carefully made by grafting the torso of
a small monkey upon the body of a
fish, some scales being worked up into
the body of the monkey and some hairs
planted among the scales of the fish, so
that the line of junction was invisible.
As mankind in general is fond of the
marvelous and prefers an improbable
to a simple explanation, these creatures
were accepted by many as the "real
thing."
It was one of these "fabricated
mermaids" that was so profitably ex-
122
ploited by Baraum in the earl}' days
of his museum and that is noted by
"Doesticks" in a lengthy parody on
Hiawatha.1
Barnum since lias caughl this Mermaid
*****
She is now a scaly Mermaid;
And the children who behold her,
A'n't so green as was the Mermaid
But they wink at her in passing.
Barnum 's mermaid was anticipated
by one exhibited in London a few years
before, which was said to have been
"taken by a Dutch vessel from on
board a native Malacca boat, and from
the reverence shown it by the sailors,
the conjecture of Mr. Donovan is prob-
ably correct — that it was intended to
■Q. K. Philander Doesticks, P. B. (Mortimer M.
Thompson).
MODERN MERMAIDS
123
be a representation of the incarnation
of one of their idol-gods.
"So considerable were the profits
that accrued from the exhibition, that
the mermaid became the subject of a
suit in Chancery ; but the bubble soon
burst, and it is now exhibited along
with a learned pig in a penny show."
Love of money is the root of all evil
— or is said to be — and in these degen-
erate days of machine-made products it
requires too much time and labor to
make a really good mermaid, so to
supply the demand the canny Japanese
have put on the market an inferior
brand, made almost entirely of papier-
mache, the fins and tail only being real,
and the original species bids fair to
become extinct.
And yet, so much does man long for
the spectacular, so greatly does he pre-
fer fiction to fact, that some of these
papier-mache mermaids have been
brought to the Museum for the pur-
pose of ascertaining whether they were
"genuine."
The mermaid seems to have been
antedated by a species of pigmy which
was described by Sir Marco Polo1
as follows:
"I may tell you moreover that when
people bring home pygmies which they
allege to come from India, 'tis all a lie
and a cheat. For those little men, as
they call them, are manufactured on
this Island, and I will tell you how.
You see, there is on the Island a kind
of monkey which is very small, and
has a face just like a man's. They t ak<-
these, and pluck out all the hair except
the hair of the beard and on the breast ,
and then they dry them and stuff them
and daub them with saffron and other
things until they look like men. Hut
^The Book of Ser Marco Polo tfu Venetian Concern-
ing the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East. Tranalati d
and Edited by Colonel Sir Henry Yule. Vol M. Book
III, Chap. IX. p. 285
you see it is all a cheat; for nowhere
in India nor anywhere else in the world
were there ever men seen so small as
these pretended pygmies."
It is just possible, however, that this
really refers to the mermaid, or it
may be that the pygmy gave way to
the sea nymph when it was learned
that she was the "better seller" of the
two.
The mermaid here figured is one
brought to the Museum a short time
ago by Mrs. Walter Taylor. The
ravages of time (a mermaid of fifty
cannot lie expected to look as fair as
one of fifteen) and lack of care had
impaired her good looks, and like the
doll, she had apparently "died of a
broken heart and a very bad crack on
A front view of the mermaid shown iii
profile on the previous page. The features
are modeled from those of a child. Courtesj
of Mrs. Walter Taylor
121
X AT URAL HISTORY
the head," — which was of papier-
mache. This specimen represents an
intermediate stage in the making of
mermaids — perhaps we might call it a
subspecies — the tail being that of a
fish, the arms those of a monkey, while
the head and torso are of papier-
mache, the features being modeled
from those of a child and the jaws being
those of a fish. Nevertheless she is a
good representative of an ancient fam-
ily, tracing her ancestry back nearly
seven hundred years, and so her por-
trait is well worthy of preservation.
A very recent type, probably made in Japan. It is
largely modeled in papier-mache, with little regard to the
anatomv of the thorax. Courtesy of Mr. Max F. Clement
The plains east of Boulder, Colorado. — The road is bordered by a wealth of flowers with
their insect visitors. On the left is Prof. T. D. A. Cockerell, who has been cooperating
with the American Museum in connection with its stud}* of Rocky Mountain bees. The
automobile is the field car of the department of entomology
Flowers and Their Insect Visitors
SOME UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP
By FRANK E. LUTZ
Curator of Entomology, American Museum
ONE of the interesting things
about science is the way in
which a problem that has been
considered settled will not stay settled.
Discoveries, often in a far-distant field,
may force a reconsideration of the
whole matter. Sometimes the former
conclusion is confirmed; sometimes a
newr solution is reached, probably only
to be upset at a future date. Far from
being unfortunate, this is a sign of
progress, for at each reinvestigation
new facts are established, and facts,
not generalizations, are the really im-
portant things.
One of the fascinating fields of re-
search in natural history is that of
the mutual relations existing between
Mowers and insects. Things have been
fairly quiet , one might almost say
dormant, in this field, beeause what
seemed to be fairly satisfactory solu-
tions of most of the problems had been
reached. Recently, however, inves-
tigations in other fields have had a
stimulating influence in this, and not
only have old problems been revived
but new ones have sprung up. Let us
consider a few of these.
Most of the higher plants perpetuate
their race by means of seeds but, in
order to develop fertile seeds, it is
necessary that pollen should reach the
egg cells hidden away in the plant's
tissue. In some speeies only pollen is
produced by certain individuals, males,
and only egg cells by others, females;
but the flowers we usually notice have
both pollen-producing organs, stamens,
and at least one pollen-receiving organ,
the pistil, in each flower. Even in the
latter sort of plants, however, there is
often an interchange of pollen among
individuals. If this interchange is
125
126
XATLNAL HISTORY
brought about chiefly through the
haphazard and wasteful agency of
wind, the plant must produce a large
amount of pollen. There would seem
to be an advantage in a more direct and
less wasteful agent, and flower-visiting
insects are such agents.
This being the case, it would seem
natural that plants should not only
develop inducements for such agents
to work but should make their work
easy and effective. This has been the
explanation not only of the very exist-
ence of the flowers we usually think of
when the word flower is mentioned but
also of the various colors, odors, and
structures of these flowers. What
follows is not intended either to coin-
bat this idea or to tilt at windmills
but to mention a few of the many
interesting problems that have not
yet been finally settled even so far as
our present perspective is concerned.
A brightly colored flower, yellow let
us say, set among green leaves, is very
conspicuous to us, not only because of
a difference in luminosity but because
we can see color as color, and yellow
gives a very different sensation from
that given by green . Also we can readily
distinguish yellow from red or blue.
All of this, of course, is on the supposi-
tion that we are not color-blind. If
a flower is benefited by insect visits, it
would be well for it to be conspicuous
so that insects could the more easily
see it.
It is important, also, that, after an
insect has visited one flower and has
become dusted with the pollen of this
flower, it should next visit another
flower of the same species so that the
pollen may be rubbed off by the pollen-
receiving apparatus of a flower that
can make use of that particular kind
of pollen. Dandelion pollen carried to
An insect net seems out of place on such a mass of snow as is shown in this illustration,
l>ut, as a matter of fact, hrilliant and beautiful flowers fringe the snow banks in the higher
Rockies and insects fly about from flower to flower. The most common bees are the
bumbles and members of the leaf-cutting family, but the most abundant flower visitors at
this altitude are the flies
LONGS PEAK, COLORADO
The view was taken from above timber line and shows the mountain in all its majesty.
The little notch near the summit is known as the "keyhole" and the approach to it is made
through a desolate bowlder field that gives no hint of the awe-inspiring beauty of the scene
that bursts upon the gaze as one follows the trail through this opening and sees revealed for
the first time the glory of the Snowy Range. The Longs Peak region was visited not prima-
rily to study the flower-insect problem but to secure a cross-section of the fauna from
plains to peaks
127
128
NATURAL HISTORY
anything but a dandelion is a total loss
to dandelions. Therefore, there would
seem to be an advantage in having
each kind of flower a different color
so that an insect, having found things
to its taste on, say, a yellow flower,
would be likely to visit the next yel-
low flower it sees, the chances being
that that flower would be one of the
same species, — all on the supposition, of
course, that insects are not color-blind.
We see, then, an apparent reason for
the development of conspicuous and
differently colored flowers. However,
the physiologists have been investigat-
ing color-blindness and certain of them
have concluded from their experiments
that insects are totally color-blind;
others deny this; while still others
occupy a sort of middle ground and say
that, although insects cannot distin-
guish the colors at the red end of the
spectrum from black or some shade of
gray, they can see blue as distinct from
white, black, or any shade of gray.
When one is in doubt, the middle
ground is apt to be the safest . Further-
more, there is a good deal of evidence
that the most important insect visitors
of flowers, the bees, are largely given to
visiting blue, purple, or violet flowers,
although not totally ignoring yellow or
red ones. This does not help us much,
to say the least, in understanding why
so many flowers are yellow and some
are red.
What is more, we have been think-
ing only in terms of the colors which
human beings see, and beyond each end
of the visible spectrum there are vibra-
tions (or whatever they may be) of the
same general nature as those which
give us the sensations of colors. Those
beyond the red end we call heat waves
because they give us the sensation of
heat and those at the other extreme of
the spectrum we call ultra-violet, or
chemical, waves because they are
beyond the violet and actively bring
about changes in certain chemicals such
as those used in photographic plates.
Now, if insects cannot distinguish red,
we would not expect them to distinguish
anything beyond red, but we have no
right to say in advance of a trial that
they cannot see ultra-violet.
Ants carry their pupse out of light
into dark places. Many years ago Sir
John Lubbock found that ants moved
their pupse from ultra-violet (dark to
us) into brilliant red light, but this has
been considered as proving merely that
ultra-violet is irritating to ants. The
common red-eyed fruit flies go at once
toward light, indeed so much so that
they can be led from one end of a tube
to another by simply shifting a light.
They seem to like it. Professor F. K.
Richtmyer and I tested their response
to ultra-violet light in a dark room,
and they flew straight for it. This
could not have been a case of simple
irritation; it looked as though they
actually saw what was dark to us.
That experiment was interesting
but it had nothing to do with flowers
unless there are ultra-violet flowers.
We knew of none. However, all the
flowers in the world might be reflect-
ing ultra-violet and we would never
guess it by looking at them, for we
are blind to it . As Professor Richtmyer
is a physicist, he knew how to detect
and even measure ultra-violet reflec-
tions, and as he and I were both mem-
bers of the National Research Council's
committee on the biological relations
between flowers and insects, we worked
on this problem last summer, or rather
he did the working and I did the cheer-
ing. He found that not only are some
flowers strongly ultra-violet all over
their petals but some have an ultra-
violet pattern and, what is also signifi-
FLOWERS AXD THEIR IX SECT VISITORS
129
cant, some are not at all ultra-violet.
The last fact is important because, if
every kind of flower reflected the same
amount of ultra-violet as every other
kind of flower, they might all be con-
spicuous to an insect that could see
ultra-violet, but these uniform wave-
lengths of light would not help in dis-
tinguishing one flower from another.
Some of the flowers that were found
to be weak in ultra-violet were brilliant
white (the prickly poppy, for example) ;
others were clear blue (a Campanula,
for instance). This result surprised
me as I had thought the prickly poppy
would reflect all light waves and the
Campanula would strongly reflect all
the rays at the blue-violet end of the
spectrum. It was rather curious that
the most ultra-violet flowers we found
— such as golden glow, wild sunflower,
and evening primrose — were yellow
ones. Perhaps the ultra-violet that
insects may see compensated in these
flowers for the yellow that may merely
look gray to the insects. I do not know.
In fact, this work did not solve any
mystery; it added one more to be
solved.
There are other points to be con-
sidered about color, but something-
should be said about odor. Perhaps it
is the odor of flowers and not their
color that attracts insects. Through
the kindness of a friend I obtained
samples of several dozen chemicals
used in the manufacture of perfumes.
For the most part these chemicals arc
all found in the secretions of flowers.
Following his directions, I mixed them
singly and in various combinations with
lard and put the mixtures in little glass
dishes. These dishes were set out on
the grass, among bushes and in various
other places while I sat in the sun ready
to catch and record the insects that
were attracted. Mv layout smelled like
a regular conservatory; bees, butter-
flies, and other insects were all about;
but, although I watched day after day
until my eyes ached, not a flower-
visiting insect came to my dishes.
This was disappointing, not so much
because it did not prove that the odors
of flowers attract insects as that it did
not prove anything. The chemicals
were the best that could be had, but
they may not have been good enough
or they may not have been the right
ones.
Then I tried another scheme. It is
much more than probable that insects
can smell odors that we cannot, but
all odors are presumably borne by the
wind and, therefore, if flowers attract
insects by means of odors, we would
expect most visitors of a flower to come
up-wind. Accordingly, I suspended a
small tuft of cotton by a silk thread
now near this flower and now near
that. The cotton enabled me to detect
even the faintest breeze. Then I re-
corded the direction from which the
insects came with respect to the direc-
tion of the wind. It was at once evident
that most of the insects came up-wind
and, what was more interesting, many
insects coming down-wind flew past the
flower, hovered as though something
had just attracted their attention,
turned, and came back up-wind to the
flower.
Altogether, it seemed at first that
the case was proved, but really the
proof is not conclusive. When one is
sailing a boat and wishes to make a
dock or a buoy that is down-wind,
the best way is to go past it. turn, and
come up-wind to it. I am told thai
human aviators prefer to land up-wind.
and insects were expert aviators geo-
logical ages before any other animal
took up the game. Possibly the insect -
behaved that way in regard to the
y.
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132
XATURAL HISTORY
I be yucca, or Spanish bayonet , is one of the
most striking flowers of the western plains, so
striking that it is frequently grown in eastern
gardens without horticultural modification.
It is apparently absolutely dependent on a
small moth for the transfer of pollen that will
enable it to set fertile seed. (See opposite
page.)
flowers just to make a good landing.
So the question of flower odors is still
an open one.
It is evident that the investigation
of the biological relations between
flowers and insects demands coopera-
tion not only between botanists and
entomologists but also with physicists
and chemists. The problems overlap
each of these sciences and safe progress
along the present lines cannot well
be made by an individual specialist.
Science has here reached the coopera-
tive stage, a stage in which much of
interest and importance is to be ex-
pected. In general, the ground between
the separate fields of various sciences
has already proved to be very fertile,
although its tillage is a relatively re-
cent undertaking.
Trusting that it is permissible to
speak in terms of human motives
provided we remember that we are
speaking figuratively, we may say that
the flower and the bee are looking out
for their respective selves. The insect
goes from flower to flower in order to
get nectar or pollen, or both, for its
own uses. Some flowers seem to have
become greatly modified in order to
take advantage of their visitors, but
there are few or no modifications of the
insects to enable them the better to
pollinate flowers. That is not what, as
a rule, the insects are after. One
exception to the rule is very interest-
ing. The caterpillars of a little moth
(Pronuba) feed on the seeds of yucca.
The mother moth seems deliberately
to gather yucca pollen in her modified
mouth and to pat it down on the pol-
len-receiving organ of a yucca flower so
that the seeds upon which her young
will feed may develop. As the cater-
pillars do not usually eat all of the
seeds, the yucca may benefit by this
operation, but it pays a price in that at
least some of its seeds are consumed.
As pointed out above, it is a distinct
advantage to a plant to have a given
insect visitor confine its visits to the
same species of plant. Certain kinds
of bees visit only certain kinds of
flowers but other kinds of bees visit
almost any sort of flower that is bloom-
ing in their neighborhood, just as cer-
tain caterpillars eat only one kind of
leaf, whereas other caterpillars are
general feeders. However, among the
bees that visit all sorts of flowers, an
individual on a given trip may be
faithful to one particular species. It
is generally believed that this is the
rule but the belief is bv no means estab-
FLOWERS AXD THEIR IX SECT VISITORS
133
A remarkable instance of the interdepend-
ence between a plant and particular insects is
offered by the yucca and the little moths of
the genus Pronuba. The pistil that bears the
pollen-receiving organ of the yucca extends
well beyond the pollen-producing organs of
the plant, and hence without artificial aid
fertilization would fail to take place. Yet
fertilization must take place if the yucca is
to develop seeds, and seeds must develop if
the larva? of the Pronuba are to secure the diet
on which they are dependent. The act of
pollination is performed by the moth. If it
were not for this insect, the yucca would prob-
ably be doomed to extinction and with its
passing out the little moth would lose the one
source of its food supply.
The females of Pronuba have organs espe-
cially fitted for the performance of their task.
They have a pair of maxillary tentacles with
the spinous underside of which they hold the
pollen ball that they gather. In the topmost
illustration the numeral 1 indicates the pollen
mass held in place by the organ mentioned,
which isdesignatedby the numeral 2. The illus-
tration immediately below shows the moth
assiduously gathering its ball of pollen. The
illustration next in order shows the Pronuba
in the act of laying her egg. Moths and
butterflies in general lay their eggs on the
surface of plants. Pronuba is one of the excep-
tions, piercing the tissue of the yucca with its
egg-laying organ in order to deposit its eggs
in the seed capsules, thus providing for the
emerging larva an enclosed banquet hall.
The larva when full-grown perforates the
capsule and drops to the ground. The illus-
tration at the bottom designated 1, represents
a mature pod that has been artificially polli-
nated and protected from Pronuba. The
illustration to the right of it, marked 2, shows
a pod with constrictions due to the puncture
made by the Pronuba mother. The emer-
gence holes of the larva? are also indicated.
Illustration 3 is that of the interior of one of
the lobes of a pod, with a larva present.
(Pictures reproduced from C. V. Riley's
article in Insect Life, Vol. IV. pp. :i"iS 7s.
134
NATURAL HISTORY
lished as a fact. This statement is no
disparagement of the patient observers
who have worked on the problem. It is
not easy, with a notebook in one hand
and a pencil in the other, to chase
about in the wake of bees through wet
marshes and over rock- (or, still worse,
cactus-) covered hills, keeping a bee's
diary the while.
Now pollen grains, when viewed
through a sufficiently strong micro-
scope, are seen to have various shapes,
sizes, and colors. Some of the shapes
are very curious and quite character-
istic and enable us to name the flowers
from which the pollen came. If we
knew enough to be able to identify any
given flower by its pollen, we could
'•.itch a bee on its return from a pollen-
gathering trip, rob it of its booty,
and by a microscopic examination tell
where it had been. This would not lie
so exciting as the method of pursuing
a bee to determine its fidelity to a
given kind of flower, but it would be
more productive of results. However,
we do not at present know enough
about the pollen of even our com-
mon flowers to put this method into
execution. To meet this need, Miss
Pope, working under a grant from the
National Research Council and in
cooperation with the University of
Colorado, took up the matter of identi-
fying pollen grains. Her work has not
yet been published but some day we
may be able, as a result of her labors, to
sit in a comfortable chair and read on a
long-dead museum specimen the record
of its last activities among the bright
flowers.
Even then we may not know cer-
tainly why the flowers were bright but
we will have learned many interesting
things of which we are now ignorant,
and after all that is a large part of the
jo}T of research. It is not so much the
final goal as the overcoming of diffi-
culties along the way that gives us
pleasure.
Some of the various forms of pollen grains (highly magnified). — In the lower
row, from left to right, are shown the pollen grains of the passion flower, the
smaller enchanter's nightshade, the hedge bindweed, and hemp. In the upper
row, from left to right, are those of Coba>a, }forinn, and the common pumpkin.
'After Kerner and Oliver1
The Extinction of Sea Mammals
By ROBERT CUSHMAN MURPHY
Associate Curator of Marine Birds, American Museum
KNOWLEDGE of the extermina-
tion by man of a considerable
proportion of the land mammals
throughout at least the major part of
their former ranges is common prop-
erty. The examples of the bison of
both hemispheres, of the wapiti, of the
polar cattle or musk oxen, of elephants,
of numerous African and Oriental
antelopes and the North American
pronghorn, of the beaver and the
chinchilla, the Australian pouched
animals, and many others, have been
for years before a public which is
slowly becoming conscious of the situa-
tion. But the plight of marine mam-
mals, which is no less serious and even
more difficult to ameliorate, has thus
far not been appreciated sufficiently
to awaken a widespread reaction.
The ultimate causes of the depletion
of modern land mammals have been
chiefly three: (1) the increase and
extended distribution of human popu-
lation, with the attendant clearing of
forests and the claiming of wild land for
grazing and tillage; (2) sport and the
love of trophies; (3) the constantly
growing demand for furs. The three
factors have operated more or less
selectively upon different aggregations
of mammals. The first, concerned
with the replacement of lower animals
by man himself, is inevitable in its
action and can be only partially cor-
rected through the establishment of
sanctuaries. The second and third
can be controlled by popular sentiment,
but the latter of these, namely, the
increasing and non-essential use of fur
apparel, is so intimately associated
with static mental conditions, such as
habit and prejudice, that it is the most
insidious of all. From a numerical
point of view, the slaughter connotated
by one of the great annual fur sales,
involving millions of pelts, makes the
worst ravages of sportsmen seem insig-
nificant. It is doubtful whether edu-
cational propaganda can overcome the
combined forces of fashion and com-
mercial interest in time to prevent
the absolute extermination of many
terrestrial fur bearers.
The last consideration points directly
at the outstanding difficulty in the
attempted conservation of sea mam-
mals— the fact that their pursuit is
exclusively commercial. Few, if any,
of them can be legitimately killed for
sport; none can be classed as pests;
probably not one species is being
crowded out of existence by human
occupation of its habitat, or through
any other form of actual rivalry with
man. Most of them, however, yield a
marketable product, such as oil, hides,
fur, or ivory, and in general the ex-
ploitation of the creatures has been
more than ordinarily lucrative. Add to
this the fact that the hunting is carried
on largely in localities where no inhibi-
tion can be imposed by an outraged
public conscience, and where no sym-
pathetic eye notes that an entire unit
of creation may sometimes be obliter-
ated at one blow, and the static is set
for the disregard of every consideration
except that of pecuniary profit . Finally,
the field of action is in a large measure
on the high seas or otherwise outside
the domain of effective law.
For our purpose the marine mam-
mals may be broadly grouped as fol-
136
NATURAL HISTORY
lows: (1) whales, porpoises, and all
other cetaceans; (2) seals and their
kind, including the earless seals, fur
seals, sea lions, walruses, etc.; (3)
Sirenia or sea cows, comprising the
manatees and dugongs, as well as an
Arctic form long since wiped out of exis-
tence; (4) sea otters; (5) the polar bear.
The polar bear — to proceed in in-
verse order — is in no immediate danger.
The sea otter, probably the most valu-
able of fur bearers, has been all but
exterminated throughout its littoral
range along the west coast of North
America, although its numbers are
said to be increasing at the Com-
mander Islands, where twenty-seven
individuals were captured in 1917
during eight working days.1 The price
upon the sea otter's head is high, for
single skins have fetched as much as
$1000. Whether the animal can still
be saved is doubtful, but at any rate
its prospects, such as they are, rest
mainly with a populace whose eyes
have been opened.
The manatee, wh ch occurs in estu-
arine waters of the southern United
States, is protected by law, and it is
doubtful whether this creature and the
equally curious Indian dugong exist
anywhere in numbers sufficient to
support an organized fishery. The
largest of the sirenians, Steller's sea
cow of Bering Sea, may be pertinently
mentioned, however, since it was the
first marine mammal wholly extermi-
nated by human wantonness. It was
a beast twenty-five to thirty feet in
length, and was destroyed for food by
all visitors to Pacific Arctic waters from
its discovery in 1741 until the last of
the species perished less than thirty
years later.
Unformation supplied by Dr. E. K. SuworofT,
fisheries expert of the Department of Agriculture,
Petrograd,
With one or two possible exceptions,
the porpoises and other small cetaceans
have not been hunted to the danger
point in any part of the world. This
leaves, therefore, the true whales and
the seals, animals of the utmost impor-
tance which are now seriously threat-
ened with extinction.
The history of sealing is a record of
almost unalleviated carnage. For oil,
or fur, or hide, these highly organized
and valuable mammals have been
clubbed and stabbed the world over,
without regard to age, sex, or the
presence of nursing young. The
imperfect statistics of sealing in New-
foundland waters, in the Arctic, the
Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Falkland
region, and elsewhere, are enough, at
least when coupled with such personal
experience as the writer has had, to
make the blood curdle, for the figures
run into scores of millions. Legal
regulations ostensibly control shore
sealing and, to a certain extent, pelagic
sealing, but few laws have been more
frequently or more brutally disre-
garded. One species, the West Indian
seal, has apparently been exterminated,
and at least six others are close to the
brink of disappearance. Several of
these are not adequately represented
by bones or skins in any museum, and
as a result we may never be able to
determine even the elementary facts
of their place in nature.
Whaling in the western world began
as a national craft among the Basques,
and passed successively into the hands
of the Dutch, British, Americans, and
Scandinavians. Today Norwegians
either control or operate the bulk of
whaling. A continuous improvement
in technique has been correlated with a
constantly augmented rate of destruc-
tion. The fleets of Yankee sailing
ships that hunted the wide-ranging
THE EXT1XCTI0X OF SEA MAMMALS
137
sperm whale through all the warmer
waters of the globe during most of last
century, captured in the aggregate
many thousands of victims; yet, be-
cause of the immensity of the grounds,
and the time and labor involved in the
utilization of a single carcass, the toll
perhaps only slightly exceeded the
natural increase of the whales. At
any rate, it is certain that the sperm
whale, until recently the most hunted
of cetaceans, has held its own far better
that other species, and is today the
commonest of the large whales.
Hunting the bowhead for oil and
whalebone in the restricted waters of t he
Arctic Ocean had, as might have been
surmised, less fortunate results from
the point of view of a conservationist.
Both the bowhead and the right whale
have at best but a dubious future. But
the so-called shore or fin whales, such
as the humpback, finback, and sulphur-
bottom, which are the mainstay of
modern whaling, are in imminent
danger of disappearing from the seas
forever. Pursued by steamers, slain
with harpoon-cannon, towed ashore in
pairs, sixes, or dozens, butchered and
rendered with horrible dispatch by
true efficiency experts, the fin whales
have been cleaned out of the Northern
Hemisphere, except in parts of the
Pacific, and are now being harried to
the impending end at their last strong-
hold in the Far South. For twenty
years the hunt has been prosecuted.
and in the WeddeU Sea region L00,000
whales have been flensed at the
"factories." At South Georgia Island
alone the catch during several single
seasons has exceeded 5500 whales.
The remedy for the evils described
is an international understanding to
which the assent of the British Empire,
Japan, Norway, the United States,
and Russia would be fundamental.
The remarkable results of the four-
power agreement concerning the North
Pacific fur seal are an example of what
might be further accomplished by
organized intelligence.1 Scientific in-
vestigation should go hand in hand
with legal restraint; our ignorance of
the life histories of the creatures which
we have been in such haste to destroy
is a present stumbling block. But the
emergenc}^ must not wait too long upon
discovery. Protection of breeding
localities, or of breeding periods, when
either can be determined, is a clear and
simple maxim: closure of certain
regions pending further research would
work no injustice to the industries.
Finally, the packers' system of
waste elimination should be enforced,
assuring the fullest possible utilization
of every seal and whale carcass. Whal-
ing has been in the past the most
prodigal of occupations, in that half of
the potential value of a prize was cut
adrift. The thrift of the Japanese has
led them to treat a whale as they would
a hog, deriving oil, food, fertilizer,
leather, glue, etc., and leaving no un-
used residue. The British have lately
imposed substantially similar condi-
tions upon the whalemen who operate
from the Subantarctic stations. Only
by such steps can we hope either to
bequeath the living wonders of the
sea to our descendants, or to rescue
fast -failing industries which, if wisely
administered, are capable of a per-
petual yield of products useful to
mankind.
'Tin- reader ia referred to tin' admirable resolutions
regarding an international fisheries treaty ami an inter-
national commission for tin- study of fishery problems
of the North Pacific, adopted by tin- California Acad-
emy of Sciences, January 3, 1923 See p 195 of tliis
• i \ \ [i km. I li~n>m .
The Chamois of the Pyrenees
By V. FORBIN
THEJzard (Rupicapra pyrenaica)
is a race of the chamois found
today only on the high summits
of the Pyrenees, although at one time it
frequented also some of the other
ranges of the Iberian Peninsula. It is
unquestionably on the way to extinc-
tion and the bands, formerly numbering
many individuals, today do not consist
of more than ten head.
Hunting the izard is a dangerous
sport, not. because the animal is a re-
doubtable antagonist that attacks as
soon as the hunter comes into view, but
because it lives on inaccessible de-
clivities, in the midst of frightful
precipices, where one false step on the
part of the pursuer means a terrible
death. The mountaineers of both
slopes of the Pyrenees sometimes pay
with their lives for the excitement
offered by the hunt of the izard. Even
while Monsieur Jove, to whom the
writer is indebted for the accompany-
ing photographs, was arranging his
expedition in the region, a fatality of
this kind occurred. An experienced
climber named Troc, who was far from
making his maiden effort, shot down
one of these animals. He made his
way to it and had lifted it to his
shoulders when a stone on which he
was standing gave way and he rolled
with his burden to the depths below.
What is hazardous for man proves no
obstacle for the chamois. It has been
asserted that it leaps over ravines
sixteen or more feet in width and
ascends or descends with ease formid-
able precipices. When a herd is feeding,
one of the animals keeps watch and :it
the first suggestion of danger give.-
forth a shrill note of warning. It is no
easy task, therefore, for any one to
make an approach. Yet, as Monsieur
Jove points out, an essential pre-
liminary to success in photographing
the animal is "seeing it before it
glimpses you, seeing it where it happens
to be, whether at one hundred meters
or at a thousand meters, and seeing it
at all hazards." The izard, with its
backward-hooked horns — a character
of chamois in general noted even by
Pliny — is an animal of striking ap-
pearance. It feeds, however, among
growths that have a russet color simi-
lar to its own and among rocks and loose
stones that have more or less the same
hue. It is easy to understand that
under such circumstances binoculars of
the best type are an indispensable part
of the photographer's equipment.
The field of action chosen by Mon-
sieur Jove and his companions was the
region of the Pic du Midi d'Ossau, a
majestic mountain 2885 meters high
which rises in the southern part of the
department of Basses-Pyrenees, a short
distance from the Spanish frontier.
That they might be the more free in
their movements, the hunters did not
burden themselves either with picks or
ropes. They even dispensed with
professional guides. All of the mem-
bers of the party knew the country
thoroughly however, and had had
previous experience in hunting the
izard, — all except Monsieur Jove; but
the photographs reproduced herewith
are evidence that he did not return
from the hunt empty-handed.
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A MOUNTAIN CLIMBER AT HOME
The Rocky Mountain goal is not a true goat but belongs to a group of ungulates more or
less intermediate in relationship between the typical goats and the true antelopes. He
rejoices in the scientific name of Mazama, is classed as an antelope, and his nearest
relatives are the gorals and serows of Asia. He stands a little more than three feet high
at the shoulder and as he is of stocky build, his body is as heavy as that of a medium-
sized deer. The Westerners say that "he lives on rocks and mountain scenery" and
all who have hunted him will agree that he has an abundance of both in his en-
vironment. Both sexes of the Rocky Mountain goat have short, black horns,
sharp at the tip and slightly curved, which are never shed. The picture
of the goat was secured by Mr. Tom Williams, a guide of Stanley, Idaho,
and is reproduced by courtesy of Mr. M.S. Benedict, U.S. Forest Supervisor
White Goats of the Sawtooth Mountains
By H. E. ANTHONY
^ssociateJCurator of Mammals'of the Western Hemisphere. American Museum
ONE of the most beautiful camp
sites I have ever had and, from
the point of view of material
secured, one of the most successful,
was in the Sawtooth Mountains of
Idaho. Here, near the shores of Stan-
ley Lake, in the northern pari of the
range, I spent the early part of the
autumn of 1915 doing general collect-
ing of mammals, with an especial
interest in the white or Rocky Moun-
tain goat.
The weather was ideal- cold, frosty
nights with bright sunshiny days, and
mornings when the grass was white
with heavy frost and a crackling fire
of dry boughs was the first focus of
interest upon arising.
The afternoon of the day after camp
was established I started out with the
young man whom I had engaged to
look after camp and cook the meals, to
make half a day's reconnaissance back
over the high country to the west . All
of the region about Stanley Lake is
very rugged and steep and the moun-
tains well deserve their name, the
Sawtooths. Viewed from a distance,
the sky line of this range is a series of
sharp, toothlike peaks, and a nearer
approach does not dispel the impres-
sion but merely confirms it. (beat
rocky ridges run up into crests, some
of them too sheer to climb, and every-
where is a succession of deep ravines
and elevated ranges. Huge piles of
frost-shattered rock lie along the base
of every peak and ridge, and wherever
there is enough soil for a root-hold,
the Engelmann spruce, like trim sen-
tinels, line the slopes. Every depres-
sion between the ridges hold- one or
more mountain lakes, crystal clear and
some of them so deep that their color
rivals the blue of the sky above. The
dust-free atmosphere allows the vision
to discern distant objects as if they
were near at hand, and far away in the
distance one can pick out the moun-
tain neighbors of the Sawtooths.
On the afternoon in question, we
climbed back of camp until we were
among the slide rock, dangerous for
unwary feet, and were looking dowm
into lake after lake as we topped the
successive rises. At these higher eleva-
tions the cony, or pika, makes its home,
and it is a common mammal in the
Sawtooth Range. The cony looks like
a diminutive rabbit, and is sometimes
called "the little chief hare," but it is
not a hare although somewhat related
to it. It has no visible external tail, is
about the size of a small guinea pig.
and in color a light gray or brownish
gray. It lives in the loosely piled
rock which has fallen down from the
disintegrating slopes and peaks, and
finds secure refuge in the thousands of
crevices that such a pile affords. The
food of the cony is the vegetation it
can find about the edges of the slides,
which it cuts and piles out on the rocks
to dry and cure in the sunshine, thus
making hay of it. When this vegeta-
tion is properly cured, the cony drags it
away under the rocks and stores it for
winter or a rainy day. Industrious
little creatures the conies are and their
hay piles are often of good size.
The most peculiar feature about this
strange little animal, found only at
high elevations and in rough, rocky
areas, is its call. It is impossible ade-
143
144
NATURAL HISTORY
Chipmunks daily haunted camp, giving us
their bright companionship in return for
stray morsels from our larder
The hay pile of the cony is frequently
stacked against the side of a large rock that
has a sunny exposure
quately to describe the sound it makes,
which has often been called a bleat but
might better be likened to the noise
produced by bending a piece of tin so
that it "screams." So utterly unlike
the cry of any other mammal is it that
anyone who hears it for the first time
is greatly puzzled, especially because of
its ventriloquial quality.
We had reached a deep cuplike
depression between the ridges, when a
faint tinkle of falling rock came to my
ear. After several seconds of such dis-
lodgment of loose slide rock, I located
the cause of the disturbance — two
Rocky Mountain goats crossing a low
divide, about a quarter of a mile away.
Even as I glimpsed them, they filed
away out of sight behind the row of
spruce trees that topped the divide.
Although they had apparently seen
me, the}- did not appear to be much
alarmed, moving off at a walk. It was
my first sight of Rocky Mountain goats
in their wild state and I was anxious
to sec more of them.
A short steep climb brought us to
where the goats had been circling the
brow of the ridge. It was necessary
to walk carefully, for the rock was
loose and slid down hill on the slight-
est pressure. Following through the
spruces not more than fifteen minutes
after the animals had passed, I reached
the descent down the side of the divide
and could see over to the next ridge,
across a ravine too precipitous for
human feet. There, on the other side,
where huge blocks of rock and sheer
cliffs formed the slope of the ridge,
stood a goat, a huge "billy," on top of
one of the most outstanding and con-
spicuous of the rocks, calmly watching
his back-track from a spot where all
the advantage of position was his. A
step and he could disappear around the
cliff, while to reach him an enemy
STANLEY LAKE
Set in a vast encircling wall of dense dark spruce of perennial green, the clear,
cool depths of this lake mirror the blue of mountain skies or the whiteness of wind-
banked clouds
14.-,
A JAGGED SAWTOOTH PEAK
The culmination of a long knifelike ridge, this peak stands sentinel over the ex-
treme northern end of the mountain range. This is the tall peak that is shown in the
mid-background of the illustration on p. 154
146
WHERE THE EYE RANGES ACROSS VAST SPACES
The clear atmosphere at this elevation permits wonderful vistas pasl rugged
crags, bold in outline, deep into the distance, where the horizon loses itself in the
vague blue outlines of remote ranges
i 17
148
NATURAL HISTORY
must needs toil down into the ravine
and be exposed to vision for most of
the distance across.
What a fine animal he was and what
a picture he made! Against the dark
rocks his body stood out so clearly that
it was difficult to conceive how he could
be colored more conspicuously. The
long tuft of hair that formed his beard
moved slowly with the breeze but
By far the most interesting of the birds
was Franklin's grouse or. as it is known
locally, the "fool hen." This grouse is
slightly smaller than the ruffed grouse and is
dark, almost black, in plumage, the males
having a bright orange mark over the eye.
The "fool hens" were found in small flocks,
in the heavy stands of pines and of Engel-
mann spruce. They showed very little fear
of man and, when encountered, merely ran a
short distance and stopped, or flew up to
perch in a tree six or eight feet above the
ground. It is this trust in its neighbors that
has earned the bird its name, but the species
is becoming rare because man has all too
seldom deserved the trust
otherwise he was as rigid as the rock.
Animal and setting made a picture that
one could never forget. The majesty
of the goat, the grandeur of the wild
rocky cliffs about him, and the im-
mensity of great heights and vast dis-
tances, were the dominant impressions
of my introduction to the animal.
Knowing that I could not get across
the canon as the goats had done, I
made a detour and approached the
white sentinel from a different angle.
Again I secured an excellent view of the
big "billy" but could not detect the
smaller of the two animals. I scruti-
nized the cliffs for some time and finally
disclosed my presence. At once the
goat on the rock whirled and clam-
1 >ere< I over 1 he cliff side to the more open
slopes at his back. The other goat
appeared from behind a rock, where
it had been hidden, and joined its
companion. Progressing at a walk,
or a stiff -legged run when the terrain
allowed, the goats had soon dis-
appeared where I could not follow.
This was the beginning of a series of
encounters that eventually brought me
t he specimens I needed and which took
me over much of the northern end of
the Sawtooths.
As the days went by, the weather
became colder, and our tent seemed in-
adequate as a shelter, especially as the
first snows were due. Still, the bright
clear sunshine of Indian summer held
out and I found much to interest me,
whether climbing over the summits or
staying down in the grassy meadow or
along the creeks and lake. The bird
life, while not conspicuously abundant,
was made up of some of our finest
species. Little flocks of Cassin's
finch — the males with bright pink
heads and breasts — small groups of
pine grossbeaks fully as beautiful in
their garb of softer, rose-pink and dull
The spruce struggles to maintain a roothold up to the very summit, and scattered clumps
of these trees dot the little mountain parks and basins wherever the rock has been concealed
bv the soil
The mountain neighbors of the Sawtooth Range arc not distant as the golden eagle might
travel, but for man there intervenes a wide forested valley miles in extent
loO
XATCRAL HISTORY
Stanley Lake is dominated by the huge rocky mass of the main Sawtooth Range
gray, added color to the dark green
boughs of spruce or pine. Tanagers,
bright yellow and red, showed dis-
trust of their strong coloring by keep-
ing well out of sight in the conifers.
Woodpeckers and flickers drummed on
i lead stumps, and out in the bushy
thickets on the meadow white-crowned
sparrows lurked.
Soft, fluff}-, gray Rocky Mountain
jays flitted like shadows in the forest
or visited the camp for scraps. At such
times their quiet, subdued notes are in
keeping with their harmonious color,
and one could not ask for more well-
behaved guests.
One day, as we were returning from
the upper part of the valley, where we
had been hunting, we heard a shot only
a short distance behind us on the trail.
Soon after we reached camp, a man on
horseback appeared and told us that
in an open meadow along the river he
had come upon a huge old grizzly bear
with her cub. It was his shot we had
heard and he had killed the voting bear.
Evidently luck had forsaken us that
day and we had missed encountering
the bear ourselves by the narrow
margin of five or ten minutes. A few
• lays later, one of a party of campers
jumped a bear about a half mile from
our tent.
One morning my assistant and I
started for a full day of hunting, carry-
ing our lunch in our pockets. It was
our plan to make a great circle through
the higher basins and then back to
camp. About noon we separated, and
I kept to a course that took me through
some very rough country. An hour
before sunset I was hurrying down a
deep, wooded ravine, flanked by a high,
rocky ridge to the north. I was anxious
to get over the roughest of the traveling
before the light failed, for I was still
miles from the big meadows of Stanley
Lake. Just to the left I discovered a
small goat — I should judge a two-year-
old — standing on a rock and watching
my progress. It was the first time I
had seen the animal at any distance
WHITE GOATS OF THE SAWTOOTH MOUNTAINS
151
away from the bare, rocky crests, and
it looked strangely out of place in the
ravine. After I had fired a shot which
set the echoes flying about the cliffs,
I chanced to glance up along the high
ridge which walled in the gulch to the
north. There, outlined against the sky,
where the last radiance of the declining
sun contrasted strongly with the gloom
of the dark ravine where I was, stood
the very patriarch of goats. I lost my
interest in the specimen I had just
secured and longed to add this splendid
fellow to the collection.
He was looking out over the depths
below him, and whether he saw me or
not I could not tell, but he had heard
the shot and was on his post of observa-
tion. At the very edge of a sheer drop
he stood as motionless as carved stone,
and but for the perfect silhouette he
made against the sky, I could not have
been certain that the mass was not a
light-colored piece of rock. To climb
up to him from directly below was out
of the question since he was at least
three hundred or four hundred feet
above, on a cliff that seemed straight
up and down. To shoot from where 1
stood was to take one chance out of a
thousand, either of hitting the goat or
of securing it afterward if I did hit it.
I gave up all hopes of reaching camp
that night and made a wide detour to
the west where a more gradual slope
offered a chance for reaching the
ridge.
Even then it took upward of half
an hour of the stiff est climbing to
reach the upper slopes, where I could
see the summit just ahead. It scarcely
seemed possible that I would find the
sentinel at his post. A click of hoot's
on the rocks warned me in time to see
the goat running to the west in an
attempt to pass me. He had become
suspicious of being cut off at the I op of
his crag and wanted to get back along
the main ridge itself.
When, as the result of my shot, he
fell in the midst of a stride, he lodged
squarely across a large bowlder that
held him from tumbling a great dis-
tance down the slope, and I found it
necessary to skin him without allowing
his heavy body to roll off this support.
It was just about dusk when the shaggy
white hide was free from the body and
it was imperative that I reach the gulch
before total darkness set in. A night
on the wind-swept rocks, without
even a twig for fuel, meant more hard-
ship than I cared for, and the shelter of
the wooded gulch seemed a haven
indeed. Straight down I clambered,
slipping and plunging in the loose rock
and earth. Now and then I came to
eight- or ten-foot drops where the skin
and head were thrown down first
before I made my jump. Had I
encountered a drop too great to negoti-
ate in this fashion, I should have been
held a prisoner indeed, for I could not
have climbed back the way I had
descended. Good fortune kept my
course away from such places, however,
and I arrived at the bottom just as the
dusk increased to such a degree that it
was difficult to see the dead wood lying
about. A pile of dry limbs thrown
down before the overhanging face of a
huge rock, a long drink from the cold
creek running down the little valley, —
and the stars had ushered in the night.
The loose rock was scraped away and
the big goatskin thrown down upon
the ground, hair-side up. More than
five feet in length, it made a soft . warm
couch, the more inviting after a fire
had been kindled near by. With the
rock at my back I lay where no wind
could enter, and with enough overhang
above so that any rain, falling st raight .
would be deflected. The niehl was
152
NATURAL HISTORY
clear, however, so that there was little
fear of rain. The flesh of the old goat
would have been tough and tasteless,
so only the liver had been saved, and
strips of this broiled on twigs held over
the fire furnished a satisfying meal. By
rolling about so as to warm my sides
alternately, I was able to pass a fairly
comfortable night and one immeasur-
ably restful compared to what I
should have had to endure on the bleak
ridge above. The next morning 1 had
a long and tedious hike before I had
packed in the two skins and heads
The last Rocky Mountain goat 1
saw, I met under circumstances that
reversed the usual procedure. I
had hunted along the crest of the high
mountain directly back of our tent and
had seen nothing there. As is so often
the case in the home territory of the
goats, there was a tall escarpment,
perhaps a little more than two hundred
feet high, along one face of the moun-
tain. From the top of this cliff I
leaned out as far as I dared and scanned
the talus slope below. Apparently
there was nothing to be seen. A
shapeless patch of white at the foot of
a small pine caught my eye and I
tossed a fragment of rock out into the
air to fall with a crash on the rocks
below The white object leaped into
definite shape, — a young goat stand-
ing clear of the tree and looking for 1 he
source of the disturbance. For once
he had been approached from the un-
expected quarter. Old hunters have
told me that Rocky Mountain goats
never look to see if danger threatens
from above, but always watch for it to
come up from below, and for this reason
are easy to approach if the hunter is
able to get above them. In this in-
stance, the animal's actions certainly
bore out the truth of their statements,
for it did not look upward to see if
an enemy had dislodged a rock from
above.
That goats are sometimes killed by
rocks that crash down on them would
seem to be highly probable. They
live in regions where rock is contin-
ually falling and occasionally their
trails take them where it would be
almost impossible to dodge such mis-
si les. I had the truth of this demon-
strated to me in a forcible manner.
I had climbed alone one day almost
to the top of this same high mountain
which overlooked our tent and all the
expanse of the Stanley Lake meadows.
The early morning had been bright
but, near noon, heavy clouds rolled
up and a storm was impending. When
the clouds were blackest overhead, I
was hurrying to reach the shelter of
the pines along the summit, and chose
as the most direct route a steep, rocky
ravine, scarcely more than one hundred
yards long, that ran down from a low
pass in the crest of the ridge.
The floor of the ravine was choked
with rocks of all sizes, fallen from the
ciags that formed the walls on either
side. This mass of slide rock was lying
at the angle of repose, that is to say,
the steepest pitch at which the rock
could maintain its position. Great
care was necessary to avoid breaking a
leg among these piled-up slabs and I
was about midway to the top when
a terrific thunderstorm burst. The
storm would have been a severe one
anywhere, but here in this walled-up
canon the ear-splitting crashes seemed
to herald the end of the world. To
make matters worse, rocks began to
descend from the side walls and from
the upper slopes of the talus and they
were by no means to be classed as
pebbles. Very luckily for me I was
heading for a huge rock, the size of a
house, which completely blocked the
WHITE GOATS OF THE SAWTOOTH MOUNTAINS
153
ravine from side to side and served to
dam back all the loose rock above it.
Under the jutting lee side of this rock
I was sheltered from missiles which
came down the ravine, and in no
danger unless one heavy enough to
break off the edge of my rocky eaves
was dislodged. Pandemonium broke
loose and thunder echoed and reechoed
from the rocky crags, with one roll
crowding close upon another. Hocks
hurtled down from the pass in abun-
dance, starting slowly at first but gain-
ing momentum until they struck the
top of some big rock with shattering
force, when the fragments sprayed the
slope below like shrapnel. I could
mark the progress of those that went
overhead by the whistle of their pas-
sage although many went to pieces on
the big rock that sheltered me. An
animal caught upon the exposed slope
The feet of the Rocky Mountain goal are large and well adapted to hold on rocky sur-
faces. He has need to be sure-footed for much of his wandering is over loose rock and
sloping roek faces. The photograph, secured by Mr. Tom Williams, is here reproduced l>\
courtesy of Mr. M. S. Benedict
154
X AT URAL HISTORY
would have escaped only by a miracle.
When the clouds passed by and the de-
tonating crashes of thunder had ceased
to jar the cliffs, I slipped from behind the
protecting rock and scrambled for the
pass wit h only one idea in my mind, to get
to the top in the shortest possible time.
More might be written here of the
days spent about Stanley Lake. It
might be told how the first snows came
and in a night changed the landscape
into a beautiful world of frosted white,
how the rigorous nights drove us to
forsake our tent and move into a
deserted log cabin on the lake shore,
and how we returned by wagon to
the railroad using four days in making
the journey. But since this was to be
an account of the white goat, we shall
leave him now. after the snowfall has
transformed his domain into a back-
ground which suits his coat so well that
our chances for seeing him. unless he
moves, are slight indeed.
Snow lasts the year round in many of the deeper basins along the ridge crest, but early
in the fall the entire country turns white and remains so until late spring
{
f %
J
The Story of an Eskimo Dog1
A GOOD story well told is always welcome, and here is one in the biography
of Polaris by Ernest Harold Baynes. It is the true life story of an Eskimo
dog, whose parents were among those selected by Peary to draw his
loaded sledges, under the worst possible ice conditions, on the final stretch of
the long trip to the North Pole.
The author needs no introduction to the members or to the scientific staff
of the American Museum of Natural History. He played a very important
part in saving the American bison from threatened extermination; he fired the
first gun on the right side in the nature-faking controversy which swept the
country a score of years ago; and he has done great service in the conservation
of bird life by the organization of more bird clubs than any one in America.
Many who have heard Mr. Baynes tell in his lectures the stories of his
animal friends, will be glad to learn that he has put this account in book form.
We would not expect the author, who helped stem the tide of sham natural
history, to humanize his animals or to be over-sentimental about them, and he
does not err in this way; yet he has given us a most appealing account, —
one that will rank in readableness with those two great dog stories of literature,
Rab and His Friends by Dr. John Brown, and Stickeen by John Muir.
The style is not that of the ordinary narrative, but rather the colloquial style
of the raconteur,-the energetic style used by Mr. Baynes in his inimitable lect ures.
The many humerous episodes add greatly to the attractiveness of the narrative.
The book is copiously illustrated with photographs by the author, and the
introduction was written by Captain Bob Bartlett, who sailed the "Roosevelt"
for Peary and the "Karluk" for Stefansson, and who said that Polaris was the
finest Eskimo dog in the world. — G. Clyde Fisher
^Polaris: The Story of an Eskimo Don, by Ernest Harold Haynes. The Macmillan Company, New York. 1922.
l .V,
The earliest representation of fishing with a rod appears on an Egyptian
tomb that dates back to 2000 B.C. From Beni Hasan, by P. E. Newberry
Fishing from the Earliest Times: A Review'
By E. W. GUDGER
Associate in Echthyology, American Museum
MR. WILLIAM RADCLIFFE'S
weighty tome is "so full of a
number of things" of great
interest — to borrow Stevenson's phrase
— that it is no easy task to write a re-
view of it, yet we may at least indicate
the great diversity of the valuable
data which the author has brought
together through his painstaking re-
searches.
In his introduction Mr. Radcliffe
traces the evolution of fishing imple-
ments from the close of the Old Stone
Age up to classical times. He draws
the parallel between the fishing tools
of the prehistoric fishermen and those
of the Bushmen, Tasmanians, and
Eskimos of a day just ending. He
endeavors to settle the question as to
what are the most primitive fishing
implements and finds that the weight
of evidence is in favor of the spear and
the gorge.
The next section, by far the most
important part of the book, consists
of seventeen chapters of 233 pages
devoted to fishing in classical times.
The author begins with the accounts of
fishing in Homer and ends with a dis-
cussion of pisciculture among the Ro-
mans toward the close of the Empire.
One can only indicate the wealth of
material filling these chapters to burst-
ing. Here are to be found accounts of
the dolphin as man's friend and helper
in fishing, of the Ichthyophagi, of the
earliest records of tunny-fishing, of the
use of fish as a sacrifice to the gods, of
the first acclimatization of fish, of the
use of the torpedo or electric ray in
medical practice, of the extravagant
prices paid by the Greek and Roman
gourmands for their nine most highly
prized fishes, of the sumptuary laws
passed by the Roman emperors to
keep down such prices, of fish in
mythology and in symbolism (includ-
ing the Christian fish symbol) and on
coins and medals, of Roman vivaria,
used first as mere storage places but
later for the breeding and rearing of
favorite fishes — the first known pis-
cicultural efforts in the western world.
In addition, the ichthyologist will
get exact references to the first descrip-
tions of the salmon, trout, and pike
and the first surmises regarding the
method of reproduction of the eel;
while the angler will find the earliest
known accounts of the use of the
jointed rod, the reel, and the artificial
flv.
1 Fishing from the Earliest T .mes. By William Radcliffe. New York, 1921. E. P. Dutton & Co. 478pp.,
10 pis., many text figs.
FISHING FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES
157
The next section, consisting of
seven chapters, deals with Egyptian
fish and fishing, the latter being traced
back to 2500 B.C. (according to Petrie
to 3500 B.C.) Here we find interesting
accounts of Egyptian fishing and
fishing implements, of the fish that
were taboo to the ancient dwellers
along the Nile and of the fish the}'
looked upon as sacred. Accompanying
these accounts are illustrations copied
2000 B.C. and on these bricks we find
listed also two hundred kinds of
Assyrian fishes, a dozen of which can
be positively identified today.
Fishing among the Jews is limited to
five short chapters, for, if one excepts
the account of the use of nets in Lake
Galilee and to a less extent of hand
lines and spears,
This picture, from a Roman mosaic at Sousse, illustrates different methods of catching fish,
the net and the trident for spearing being indicated in two of the examples and what are
believed to be bottle-shaped baskets in the third instance. The picture is derived from
Rente Arrheologique, 1897
from the tombs, including the earliest
known pictorial records of fishing with
the rod. the reel, and the net.
Next come eight fascinating chapters
on piscatology in Assyria, among the
topics treated, translated from the an-
cient bricks with cuneiform inscrip-
tions, being the earliest fishing cont ract
and the first record of poaching on fish
preserves, divination and augury by
the use of fish, Dagon and the fish gods,
and the origin of fish in the calendar.
Through these records in cuneiform,
the use of vivaria is traced back to
there is little more to be said of it than
can be related of the catching of snakes
in Ireland. There was no fishing for
sport, and no use of the rod, an imple-
ment which one might have expected
the Jews to bring back from Egypt. No
ichthyolatry was practiced in Judea,
but there was a taboo on scaleless fish.
Furthermore, the interested reader
may learn much about the fishes of
Tobias and of Moses, about Jonah and
the fish (not a whale) which gave him
refuge, and aboul the fish which re-
stored Solomon's ring.
158
X AT URAL HISTORY
Shorter still is the account of
Chinese fishing, for, since the author
does not trace the history of fishing
beyond 500 a.d., he has available as
sources only translations of the Chinese
manuscripts. However, the reader will
learn with interest that the early
Chinese were the first to engage in
fish-breeding and that the first arti-
ficial incubation of fish ova was effected
by filling the empty shells of hens'
eggs with fish spawn, and then entrust-
ing the hatching of the strange brood
to a confiding hen.
Mr. Radcliffe's book is alike enter-
taining and informing, touching as it
does on a multitude of subjects relat-
ing to fish and fishing from the remotest
times. The faults are few and, with
one or two exceptions, of no particular
detriment. In covering such a vast
field of time and so great a range of
subject, the book is somewhat dis-
cursive and diffuse, but I am not sure
that this does not add to its charm
The typography is excellent, though
one regrets to see Rondelet's name
persistently spelled Rondolet.
The sales of the book should and
undoubtedly will call for a second edi-
tion and when that appears, there
should be associated with the title a
subtitle indicating that the author's
researches trace the subject up to the
year 500 a.d. but not beyond. Then,
the next edition should have a bibliog-
raphy. Footnotes may be of value to
the general reader, but, since this
publication is a source book of great
value, the titles of the works referred
to should be collected and arranged
alphabetically at the end.
Mr. Radcliffe's monograph is liter-
ally sui generis, a unique work. Other
books on halieutics barely touch on
the beginnings or at most give a few
chapters to fishing among the Greeks
and Romans, but here we have an
octavo volume of 478 pages devoted
to the ancients alone. Fishing From
the Earliest Times is the most compre-
hensive treatment of the subject that
has been attempted thus far and
will probably hold an unchallenged
position in its field for many years to
come.
Two men engaged in fishing are shown on these coins from Carteia. The illus-
tration is taken from Descriptions generate des monnaies antiques de I' Espaanehy A. Heiss
The darkened portions on the map indicate the area of distribution of the crooked knife
The Story of the Crooked Knife
By CLARK WISSLER
Curator of Anthropology, American Museum
IX the American Museum collec-
tions from the Eskimo of Alaska are
curious knives with short, crooked
blades, suggesting the beak of a hawk.
The blade may be of iron or steel, the
handle of ivory, bone, or antler, curved
as seen in the picture on p. 160. Knives
of this character and similar knives are
found among practically all the forest
Indians of Canada, the area where it
is used extending to but not including
the Eskimo west of Hudson Bay and
across the continent into Siberia. The
Eskimo just west of Hudson Bay,
among which are those visited by
Stefansson, do not have it, nor do
those of Baffin Land and Greenland.
On the other hand, it is reported from
Labrador. This is a curious distribu-
tion reaching from Maine and Labra-
dor on the east to the interior of
Siberia on the west, curious because
only those Eskimo who live in the path
of this crooked-knife zone use the
implement. Furthermore, such a knife
is not used in western Europe, and the
Indians and Eskimo that know of Ll
hold it in an unusual way: i.e., they
draw the blade toward the body,
guided over the surface by the thumb.
It is interesting, therefore, to inquire
how and where this knife originated,
not merely for the history of this
particular tool, but because the im-
plement is typical of many elements <>i
culture. An understanding of one such
element may serve to explain what
is happening in our own national life
with its borrowings and adaptations.
Now, there are several ways by
which the knife could have appeared
in its area of distribution. For instance.
160
NATURAL HISTORY
• fori i Wf(r—jr^L
Specimens of the crooked knife of the Eskimo in the collections of the American Museum.
The blades are of metal and the resemblance in shape to the beak of a hawk is well illus-
trated in the upper specimen
it could have been brought in by trade
after the discovery of America, but
since we do not find it in the countries
from which these traders came, that
supposition must be abandoned.
Again, some native may have invented
it. Yet, if so, this must have happened
after the introduction of iron and steel
by traders, because these metals were
unknown in aboriginal times. This
supposition is quite possible and so far
agrees with the facts here presented.
However, people do not invent some-
thing from nothing, so we may expect
that this crooked knife of iron is a
modification of an older implement.
Turning then to our Eskimo collec-
tions, we find a similar knife with a
curved handle, but the tiny blade,
instead of being of metal, is of stone,
and in shape is straight instead of
crooked. One might, therefore, con-
clude that the crooked blade of iron
came in later as an improvement. Yet
Murdoch, who was the first to describe
these stone-bladed knives in 1892,
suspected the Eskimo of having made
merely a few of them to sell to collec-
tors, who seemed to favor stone tools.
In fact, he made a strong case against
the priority of these knives. But since
the appearance of his contribution we
have accumulated more data. Stefans-
son excavated old villages around Point
Barrow and among many thousands
of specimens he thus obtained are a
number of handles for the crooked
knife, about sixty in all. Most of these
lack blades, but a few have iron blades,
badly rusted, one a copper blade, and
five, blades of slate. There can be no
doubt that these stone blades were put
into these handles many years before
Murdoch visited Alaska, yet iron, too,
was, as indicated, in use even then,
and careful study of the slots cut in
the knife handles of the Stefansson
collection indicates that many were
These two Eskimo knives in the collection of the American Museum have a blade of slate,
but their general shape and character entitle them to inclusion in the crooked-knife group
THE STORY OE THE CROOKED KNIFE
161
originally fitted with blades of this
metal. There is one important point
of difference, though : these blades were
narrow strips of iron, ranging from one
to two inches in length, whereas the
crooked knives shown at the top of
p. 160 carry a blade held on by rivets.
Strange to say, we get light upon this
subject from an unsuspected quarter.
In Dakota, along the Missouri River,
lived the Mandan Indians, and from
the house ruins of their forefathers
have been gathered similar knives.
The curved rib of a deer is used for the
handle and in the Brower archaeological
collections in St. Paul, Minnesota, we
find these knives with blades of chipped
stone, bone, copper, and iron. Since
archaeological evidence shows that the
Mandan lived continuously in this
area, it is fair to conclude that the early
prehistoric form of this knife bore a
stone blade, that later copper was
sometimes used, and that finally, with
the coming of white traders, iron was
substituted; but it was still the same
kind of knife and employed in the
same way.
We have but glimpsed at an interest-
ing story in the culture of man, and
must close with a few comments. We
see that the iron-bladed crooked knife
is an improvement upon an older form,
so far found only in Alaska and Dakota.
Yet the chances are that this older
form once covered all the intervening
territory. That the Eskimo invented
it is unlikely, because, seeing that it
reached Dakota, it should also have
found its way into Greenland, as did
other Eskimo tools. Furthermore,
only the western Eskimo use it. We
suspect, then, that it was invented by a
Canadian tribe, many centuries ago,
and had time to spread to Alaska on
the one hand and to Dakota on the
other before the coming of the fur
The way the Eskimo holds the crooked
knife. The blade is drawn toward the per-
son using it
trade. When iron became abundant,
improved blades were made, and so
the modern form of the knife came to
prevail. Perhaps its distribution is
somewhat greater than that of its
humble stone ancestor, but of that we
cannot be sure, for in all matters of
culture, tradition and habit resist inno-
vations. Europeans and the peoples of
Central Asia do not draw the knife
toward them when working down a
piece of wood, as do the Indians and
Eskimo who use the crooked knife;
yet this was the way to use the old
stone knife. Naturally, then, the Ameri-
can native found the trader's knife
unsatisfactory in shape, but recogniz-
ing the superiority of its metal,
improved his own knife rather than
change his motor habit.
PROFILE
Lara Hirer Tunnel
t'. 2i. TliS,R',Cl*n)
The Lava Ri
er Tunnel
\ SI BTERRANEAN CONDUIT IN DESCHUTES COUNTY, OREGON, THROUGH
WHTCH AT ONE TIME FLOWED A WHITE-HOT STREAM OF MOLTEN LAVA
By IRA A. WILLIAMS
Geologist, Oregon Bureau of Mines and Geology
TOPOGRAPHICALLY the state
of Oregon is separated by the
Cascade Range into two parts,
western Oregon and "central" or
eastern Oregon. The summit line of
this range is marked by a series of
elevated mountain peaks the highest
of which are snow-limned the year
round and still carry upon their higher
slopes the dwindled remains of once
more-extensive glaciers.
Between and about these prominent
peaks, at many places upon the crest
and upper slopes of the range, there
are new lava flows, and cinder and
lava cones where eruption has occurred
within geologically recent times. In-
deed, it would appear that a good
portion of the superstructure of the
Cascades has been built up by suc-
cessive and repeated outpourings of
andesitic and basaltic lavas. Late
volcanic action continued also as a
dominating process over large areas
at the east base of the Cascade Range,
and hundreds of square miles of con-
tiguous central Oregon country are
dotted with craters which were the
focal points during periods of recent
violent volcanic eruption.
Large stretches of this interior
Oregon region — Oregonians call it
the Inland Empire — are still quite un-
settled. Stage routes cross it in vari-
ous directions. It has been live-
stock range for many years, and into
the scattered yellow-pine areas that
are not included in the national forests
the logging companies are now vigor-
ously pushing their operations. The
juniper, a member of the cedar family,
grows quite generally outside of the
pine belts, and it, too, is being har-
vested in quantity for pencil wood.
Settlement has been slow because of
the semi-aridity of the climate, this
limiting condition accounting also for
the generally sparse covering of vege-
tation that characterizes much of the
so-called sage-brush country.
On account of the low rainfall, soil
formation has progressed slowly and
rock surfaces are but little modified
by alteration or obscured by the accu-
mulation of the residues of rock decay.
As a result, many of the primitive
features of the later lava flows that
overspread large areas in central
Oregon are still in plain view today.
The existence of open craters leaves no
THE LAVA RIVER TUXNEL
163
doubt as to the points from which the
liquid lavas have issued. Cinder cones
are interspersed among the less con-
spicuous vents and represent the sites
where the products of the eruptive
forces, when they had acquired ex-
plosive violence, were flung out and
piled up in heaps on the surface of the
land.
A great variety of these recent
volcanic phenomena is to be observed
in Deschutes County, which includes
the geographic center of the state of
Oregon. The city of Bend, on the
Deschutes River, 150 miles south of
the Columbia, is the railroad outlet for
this region. Branches reach Bend
from both the Union Pacific and the
North Bank railroads, the main lines
of which thread the gorge of the
Columbia for a hundred miles or more
where it forms the northern boundary
of Oregon. The novel attractions of
this region are becoming known and
accessible to an increasing extent each
year as highway construction and
settlement progress. The writer feels
impelled to undertake the presentation
of these varied attractions; for there
are many reasons to believe that with a
small amount of additional exploita-
tion they will quickly become the Mecca
of a tourist traffic comparable with that
now enjoyed by Oregon's other wonder
places, — the Columbia River Gorge,
the Marble Caves of Josephine County.'
established in 1909 as a national
monument, and Crater Lake National
Park.
Bl For the present, however, attention
is to be called to but a single thrilling
spectacle, an outcome of only one of
the many interesting events which
must have accompanied the days of
dwindling volcanic activity, — the Lava
'See Natural History, September-October, 1920,
pp. 396-405.
River Tunnel. The applicability of
the name will be appreciated when it is
stated that this tunnel is but a distinc-
tive form of lava cavern. Other types
of caverns are found in the region but
that to be described is the only one as
yet explored sufficiently to leave no
question that it formerly served as an
underground conduit through which
coursed a river of lava, a stream or
succession of streams so seething hot
as to flow for a long distance like
water.
The entrance to this tunnel can be
reached by automobile over a side-
trip of a mile from one of the main
arteries of the state highway system.
the Dalles-California highway, at a
point twelve miles south of the city of
Bend. At the present time the region
is forested by a beautiful open stand of
yellow-pine timber. Logging opera-
tions are approaching the location of
the tunnel and these, if unretarded.
will greatly affect the attractiveness
of its surroundings. It is hoped that
before the day of complete deforesta-
tion has arrived measures may be
taken through one agency or another
to have the Lava River Tunnel and its
environs permanently preserved as
an outing and pleasure place as well as
a natural curiosity.
So inconspicuous is the surface
opening into this tunnel that on
approach one is quite unaware of its
proximity. Its position is indicated
by a mere corrugation in the lava sur-
face, away from the very brink of which
the stately pines give no suggestion of
its presence. The entrance consists of
.1 -hallow rocky trough at each end of
the bottom of which there is a dungeon-
dark opening. Careful examination of
it shows without any question thai
the existence of the underground pas-
sageway, 'he Lava River Tunnel, has
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THE LAVA RIVER TUX X EL
165
been revealed to us because here a
portion of its roof has collapsed. Each
way, to the southeast and to the north-
west from the entrance thus adventi-
tiously produced, the tunnel has been
traversed for a mile or more.
The tunnel entrance is near the
southeast corner of section 26 in
township 19 south, range 11 east from
Willamette meridian. Only the part
that extends northwest ward has been
at all carefully explored and it is in
this part that the accompanying under-
ground photographs were made.
The profile drawing shows a fairly
regular gradient of the floor, approxi-
mating two per cent. It is interesting
to notice also that the slope of the
ground surface above it is a compara-
tively even one and of about the same
angle from the horizontal. The roof
of the tunnel, that is, the thickness of
rock between its top and the surface
of the ground, ranges from eighty to
ninety feet. Measured from the
entrance to the point where it is choked
by a filling of volcanic sand, the north-
western part of the Lava River Tunnel
has a length of 5462 feet if there be
included in the calculation a number of
moderate crooks in its course. The
character and lay of the country arc
such as to suggest the likelihood thai
the Lava River Tunnel extends a
eonsiderable distance farther in a
northwesterly direction.
To enter the tunnel, the coolness of
whose darkening shadows is more often
than not, at least momentarily, a
welcome relief from outdoor tempera-
tures, one clambers down over a steep,
rather treacherous slope of large broken
blocks of basaltic lava, the wreckage
from the downfall of a portion of the
roof of the structure. At the foot of
this rocky slope it is apparent at once
that, we are entering a great bore which
runs through a body of solid lava.
For its entire length it is surrounded
by the basalt of this same flow, which
is at least a hundred feet from top to
bottom. Thinking of the tunnel as in
general near if not at the base of the
flow, we at once get the impression of
its having existed here as a great open
tube through which liquid lava moved
as a subterranean surging white-hot
stream, long after the enclosing rock,
itself at one time liquid lava, had come
to rest, cooled, and solidified. In other
words, this opening, the traversing of
whose winding course today excites so
strong a thrill of interest, is the con-
duit through which, while the supply
lasted, the molten stream continued to
flow down the slope of the old land
surface until it drained away just where
we do not know, though more than
likely through some outlet at a lower
level in the ancient canon of the
Deschutes River.
As we explore the length of the tun-
nel, the evidence is profuse that the
lowering of the stream was not an even
and continuous process, but one, rather,
of intermittent or fluctuating nature.
There were doubtless stages of flood as
well as intervals of sluggish flow, just
as in streams of water, and the posi-
tion of the lava surface rose and
fell accordingly. ( Hinging to the
tunnel walls today are remnants of the
stony current, in some places appear-
ing as mere projecting slaggy crusts
and in others as rounded overhanging
cornice-like shelves, that mark the
varying levels of the liquid stream.
( M'ten the entire walls are so decorated,
the protruding shelves at rare inter-
vals extending across from one side to
the other to form a falsi1 floor or
"upper deck" for a little distance.
The depth of the tunnel, from the
apex of its ceiling to its floor, ranges
That the lowering of fche lava stream was not an even and continuous process but one
of fluctuating tendency is abundantly evidenced by the slaggy remnants clinging to the
walls of the tunnel that mark the varying levels of the molten stream
The walls and ceiling of the tunnel are coated almost throughout with a glaze of greater
or less smoothness, and pendants, stalactite-like in form, decorate the roof in many places
166
THE LAVA RIVER TUNNEL
167
from twenty to thirty-five feet. Its
width from wall to wall is nearly as
great. Almost throughout, the walls
and ceilings are coated with a glaze of
greater or less smoothness and
pendants, stalactite-like in form, orna-
ment the ceiling in many places. These
are the lava-drip, clinging fragments
from the plunging current which,
while yet viscous, assumed by gravity
a hanging position, and now delusively
resemble the shapes of icicles or of
stalactites formed by dripping water
in limestone caves.
The deception is more striking still
when either a single one or a cluster
of these "lava-cicles" is examined
closely. It is found that they have a
highly vesicular texture within and on
the outside a dense and largely non-
porous casing. Many of the vesicles
are elongated up and down, and some
of the more spikelike and more drawn-
out of the forms are continuously
hollow for inches of their length and
have the lower end of the tube open.
The last-mentioned feature is so nota-
ble that one is stirred to wonder if
the shape and structure of these
pendants may not have been modified
to some extent in recent times through
the deposition of mineral matter by
trickling waters, evidence of the pres-
ence of which in certain seasons of the
year we see in abundance. Neither
chemical tests nor the petrographic
microscope, however, lends any assur-
ance whatever of the validity of this
conjecture. Chemical tests indicate
only a natural silicate slag in composi-
tion, while the microscope reveals the
presence (if a rudimentary set of
minerals characteristic of the volcanic
rock basalt, which are, of course,
formed only through the igneous
process of cooling from fusion.
We are thus left no alternative but
to conclude thai not only the mineral
composition but also the outer shape
and internal make-up of these ornate
features of our tunnel are normal re-
sults of this rather unique, still not so
very unusual phase of volcanic action, —
the period of activity, decadence, and
final disappearance of a river of lava.
The porous texture of the pendants is
due to the inclusion of rock gases when
cooling took place, while the open
hanging tubes are most easily ex-
plained on the theory that they were
formed by the solidification of a
scum or outside crust of lava slag,
from the inside of which the still
The form and character of the surface of a
lava stalactite is well illustrated by this speci-
men. Approximately one-sixth actual size
liquid froth drained out to the last
drop, leaving an empty shell and in
some instances even failing to seal the
tip end of the tube.
At a few places in the more than mile
length of tunnel that extends from the
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170
NATURAL HISTORY
opening to the northwest, portions of
the roof have broken down and one
must clamber with extreme caution in
the dungeon darkness over heaps of
large lava blocks. This is the excep-
tion, however, and throughout most
of its explored extent, the tunnel dis-
plays such a perfection of design as to
resemble the best of man-made tunnels.
Its dimensions and its shape were
determined by the pressure of the
moving stream of lava that was forc-
ing its way down the long slope while
the surrounding portions of the great
flood were congealing into solid rock.
After taking shape it accommodated
for a long time a fluctuating but in
general dwindling strength of current
until, the supply exhausted, the stream
went dry and its bed was deserted.
In the drying up or final draining
of the channel, portions of the molten
stream would settle into depressions
in the floor, there to cool and solidify.
As movement finally ceased, even
stretches of the bed were at the last
covered by a scraggy veneer of these
lava dregs, frozen into solid rock as we
now find them. The photograph
on page 169 shows a very character-
istic phase of this scoriaceous slaggy
lava floor. It now displays the very
features it possessed when first it
hardened and forward motion of the
ropy stream ended. In the view the
diagonal and rather indistinctly parallel
curving of the shadow lines on the
floor mark the direction of the strains
of flowagc, the tendency being for the
middle portions of the stream to forge
ahead in relation to the more slowly
moving side parts whose friction with
and tendency to freeze to the tunnel
walls became ever greater as the temper-
ature lowered and motion became less.
Where the floor of the tunnel is
not so paved with the hardened
final settlings from the lava stream,
which, by the way, produce a surface
that is rather more than usually
destructive of shoe leather, it is quite
generally covered by a rilling of volcanic
sand. In contrast, the sand affords a
surface most delightful to walk over.
While no evidence has as yet been
found to suggest that the tunnel was
ever occupied by a stream of water, or
that the sand filling could have had
that origin, its deposition in the tunnel
is an event post-dating entirely vaca-
tion by the lava stream, though long
before the present time. Where the
sand really did come from is an inter-
esting question. If has been suggested
that earthquake tremors may have
raised the sand through crevices from
beds of it which are known to exist
below the later basaltic lavas. It may,
on the other hand, have filtered in
through cracks from above. At any
rate, in places in the tunnel the sand
is many feet in depth, its surface
here and there approaching the ceiling,
and finally, as shown in the profile
sketch, it chokes the bore completely
blocking further penetration. In case an
attempt is made to open up the tunnel
further by excavation in the sand that
now closes its northwest end, it will
probably be found that at intervals its
course is interrupted by falls of lava
from its roof as well as by the sand.
The present surface of the sand
varies from a quite smooth or slightly
pitted condition to one of varied relief,
produced by the sculpturing action of
water dripping from the ceiling and
side-walls during the wetter parts of
the year. The accompanying photo-
graph shows the extent to which the
erosion of the sand has progressed in
places. Apparently the quantity of
water that finds its way into the tunnel
is so considerable at times that by its
THE LAVA RIVER TIXXEL
171
erosive action many of the common
types of land forms are reproduced on a
small scale. Here, molded in the sand
which composes the walls of this
diminutive Grand Canon, arc pinnacles
and pillars, sharp gulches and interven-
ing miniature mesas, — reproductions
on a pygmy scale of many of the land
features that often result from the
rapid work of water in comparatively
soft rock materials. The shelf beneath
the tunnel arch in the rear is the top
of the sand fill. From this level to the
bottom of the "canon" in the fore-
ground is a vertical depth of about
twenty-five feet.
Within approximately one mile of
length, represented by the northwest
part of our rock-bound tunnel — which,
as we have seen, is but the deserted
course of a once rapidly Mowing river
of liquid lava — are displayed, as might
not be appreciated at first thought,
very few of the characteristic features
thai would be presented by a similar
underground channel formerly occu-
pied by a river of water. In either
case there would be, of course, first of
all the bore itself. This tunnel came
into being and was maintained to the
end because of the heat and conse-
quent liquid state of a portion of a
lava flow. Once formed, its walls and
ceilings were glazed and tastefully < lee-
orated by the splashings from the tor-
rential white-hot stream, as to the tur-
bulence of whose rapids and cataracts
as well as 1 he serenity of whose pools,
we can only conjecture. When the
supply failed, portions of the lava
stream hardened, some clinging to the
shore lines as it were, shelves of it
fastening against the walls of the
tunnel, pools of it resting in the chan-
nel bed.
Similarly would a water stream
seek out a subterranean passage or,
more often than not, would find
one ready-made: and upon desertion.
water being a liquid ordinarily, would
drain away completely, the wet of its
splashings against the enclosing walls
evaporating into the air and even the
icy crusts of winter, if such there
were, disappearing with the succeeding
springtime. As a result there would
be found in after years no such indeli-
ble details of the record of past event-
as are open to inspection in this tun-
nel of the lava river where not only
main chapters are set forth, but a
profusion of successive paragraphs of
its story, and even poignant sentences
and lines that throw light on its life
history.
We revel in the reading of this
story, partly perhaps because much
of it must be done through the waver-
ing shadows of a flickering torch or
candle flame one hundred feet below
ground, but mainly because thereby
we are forging one more thrilling link
between the present and a most stir-
ring prehistoric past in central Oregon.
There is, too. a possible economic
application of our reading of the story,
since the projection of the tunnel in
a continued westerly direction beyond
where it is now sealed with sand, would
appear to take it within a short dis-
tance directly beneath the floor of a
proposed reservoir site which is to be
the nucleus of an irrigation project of
considerable magnitude.
Cape Mountain terminates the range which extends along Seward Peninsula, Alaska, the
westernmost extremity being known as Cape Prince of Wales. The mountain rises sheer
from the water's edge, but slopes more gently from the tundra country. The higher benches
were free of snow by June first, and migratory birds were abundant.
The Haunts of the Emperor Goose
By ALFRED M. BAILEY
the Colorado Museum of Natural History
CAPE PRINCE OF WALES, the
westernmost promontory in
North America, has long been of
interest to naturalists because of its
nearness to Asia, the two continents
being separated by a scant forty miles.
Bering Strait acts as a barrier, but the
Diomecle Islands serve as stepping
stones, so that Old-World forms of bird
life might well be expected to take
advantage of the short flight from the
Old World to the New. The Cape is
just south of the Arctic Circle — a
precipitous, rugged mountain which
seems to draw the winds from all
points, making the territory immedi-
ately around a veritable blowhole and
giving Wales, the little Eskimo settle-
ment, the unenviable reputation of
having the worst all-the-year-around
climate in Alaska.
I had made the long trip down from
Point Barrow by dog team over the
winter trail, a distance of about "")(»
miles, purposely to study the birds of
the Cape and to collect a group <>t
walrus. A backward spring with
much ice. southern gales, fog, snow,
and rain, made the nesting season
later than I was led to expect from my
experience in other parts of Alaska,
so that, although I was engaged in
collecting my walrus group until
nearly the latter part of June, there
was still ample time to do a little field
work among the nesting birds. Orni-
thologists are always interested in the
ivory gull, the Mongolian plover,
the emperor goose, and the spectacled,
Steller's, and king eider, and as this
region had never been worked by one
interested in birds, it was my hope to
172
THE HAUNTS OF THE EMPEROR GOOSE
173
take specimens of some of these rare
species. The spring work on the
Arctic pack brought me a series of
ivory gulls, and a Mongolian plover
was secured along the sandy shores of
Lopp Lagoon. The tundra at that time
was still in its winter cloak of white,
but as the higher benches of the Cape
became bare, the migrants from the
south arrived in numbers.
June found the tundra nearly free of
snow but the northern slopes of the
mountains were still white — only the
prominent shoulders being exposed,
and over the great expanse could be
seen the various kinds of Arctic birds,
carrying on their courtships and pre-
paring to rear their young. The sand-
pipers of different species were the
most common, but snow geese, cranes,
and swans hurried northward, and a
few red-spotted blue-throats drifted
across the channel from Siberia.
Lopp Lagoon, a great shallow lake
extending to the northward from Cape
Prince of Wales, is separated from
Bering Strait by only a narrow neck
of land. It was along this lagoon that
I hoped to spend some time. The
latter part of June all arrangements
were completed. The shore ice had
gone out, making it possible for us to
skirt the coast in the little skiff which
I had secured for the purpose, but the
adverse weather conditions and heavy
surf made it impossible for us to leave.
After a week's waiting I had the boat
pulled across the tundra to the shore of
the lagoon, and about midnight, July
3; got under way with two Eskimos,
Nagozruk and Tavok.
To an ornithologist the tundra at
midnight is a real delight, for the sun
is just below the horizon, giving relief
from the glare of the long Arctic day,
but with light still strong enough for
observations. The birds arc resting.
often flushing from under foot, al-
though the little sandpipers quickly
return to the nest once the intruder
has passed. On this particular evening
we flushed flocks of old squaws lined
upon the ice of the lagoon, for even at
this late date the ice had melted onh^
along the shore. A dozen or more red-
throated and Pacific loons milled about
overhead, darting by with arrow-like
directness and often as not, after
making a great detour, again passing
above us.
The first day's work on that trip
was strenuous, for the ice reached the
shore in many places, making it neces-
sary for us to drag the boat across, and
often the water was so shallow that we
grounded. Then, even though the
three of us tugged at the shoulder
straps, we would advance only inch
by inch — and sometimes we failed to
make any perceptible progress.
It was very windy on the Fourth,
but we made good headway notwith-
standing and picked up a few speci-
mens. The first emperor goose to fall
to a collector's gun is apt to furnish a
thrill. I had been studying the shore
line with the binoculars as we worked
along, and when I noted a pair of these
birds standing on a tundra hummock. 1
motioned to my Eskimos to take me
ashore. The ground was practically
level, but by taking advantage of
slight depressions I managed to get
within shooting distance before the
birds flushed, dropping the male upon
the ice of a small pond. Two hundred
yards beyond was another pair; the
stalking was repeated and this time a
female was taken. I had been in
plain sight all the time, from which it
may be inferred that the emperor goose
is ordinarily rather unwary. As I was
admiring the two birds I had secured,
I saw a long string of geese far out over
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176
XATURAL HISTORY
The first nest of an emperor goose that we found was on the small islet beyond the drift log.
Water birds prefer islands for nesting sites because of the greater protection from predatory
animals
Lopp Lagoon, fairly high in the air.
Thejr suddenly dropped close to the
ice and swerved directly ashore, the
whole string passing at close range —
and two more geese fell softly into the
moss.
We camped that evening on a gravel
bar, and as we felt a little "mukki"
we turned in about six o'clock and
slept until sun-up. The da\^ was
typical of the region — fog with driz-
zling rain — but we broke camp and
started on our tour of investigation,
visiting three small islands near by.
Several flocks of emperor geese were
seen, and in the course of the morning
I added four more birds and my first
set of eggs to the collection. The site
from which the eggs were obtained was
a little mound in a small pond on one
of the mud-lump islands and its dis-
covery was due to our flushing the
nesting bird. She did not allow us to
approach within thirty feet of her
before taking to wing, but she took the
precaution of covering her two eggs
with a mantle of down. I set my
camera with a long string leading over
a bank, thinking that unobserved we
might be able later to photograph her.
but upon our return after an absence
( >f t wo hours I found her still resting on
the sand bar on which she had first
alighted.
Emperor geese are the only forms
usually seen along Lopp Lagoon during
the nesting season, although I observed
a few snow geese and black brant dur-
ing the week. It has been supposed
that the center of abundance of the
emperor geese is on St. Lawrence
Island, but I believe they are equally
numerous along the flat coast land
bordering Kotzebue Sound on the
south. The natives told me that
Canada geese nested along the Serpen-
tine River, but I did not see a single
bird all spring that I could identify as
THE IIAUXTS OF THE EMPEROR GOOSE
177
such. The emperor goose is not much
larger in body than a male Pacific
eider, and is as unsuspicious, so it is
not difficult to bag. The geese fly
low over the tundra, skirting along the
edge of the lagoons, and flocks of
twenty or more often congregate on
the gravel bars, where they loom up
conspicuously. It seems that the
nesting birds off duty band together
with the immature and non-nesting
birds to feed, for several specimens
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Nest of the emperor goose. — Water birds of the Arctic usually conceal their eggs under
a mantle of down, as indicated in the upper picture. Predatory birds, especially jaegers,
are constantly working the turn Ira. searching for eggs, and destroy great numbers
At tin- mouth of the third river from Wales, which the natives call Mil-a-ka-tavik, is an
abandoned Eskimo village. Its caches and igloos are gradually disintegrating, but there
remains evidence of the prowess of the former inhabitants. When we visited the site,
numerous skulls of polar bears and walrus lay about and the gigantic hones of whales
helped support the igloos
Many of the Eskimos were "buried" near the abandoned village, the coffin being a rude
box fashioned from drift wood, which was merely placed upon the tundra and left to decay.
The Eskimos put the possessions of the "mukki-man" at the grave, old canoe frames, guns.
and dishes being scattered in the near vicinity
\ AT URAL HISTORY
179
which I took from flocks had their
breasts partly picked. These geese are
rarely seen far inland although they
occasionally nest along the ponds quite
far back from salt water. A roaring-
surf or grinding ice floes are ideal
backgrounds for these beautiful birds,
and we were continually seeing small
groups of them while working along
the coast.
We followed along the shore of the
lagoon, headed for the third river from
Wales. As the evening advanced, the
water became glassy and reflected the
snow-patched mountain ranges of the
mainland in the violet sheen, and
swimming ducks and loons were mir-
rored, their sizes grotesquely exag-
gerated. Several nests of glaucous
gulls on near-by shell keys were ad-
vertised by the adult birds hovering
overhead; long strings of old squaws
scurried across the water as the}7 took
to wing, and an occasional small flock
of geese curved away as we frightened
them from their evening roosting place.
The details of an ornithologist's
excursions afield are monotonous
enough, and mine were no exception.
for on rising each morning we had our
usual breakfast of rice, eggs, and fried
goose, followed by the tedious tramps
across the tundra. It was my custom
to send the Eskimos in the opposite
direction from that which I chose to
pursue, and when the}' found a nest,
they would mark it in order that I
might make positive identification
later.
The next few days were spent in the
vicinity of the third river, which the
natives called Mil-a-ka-tavik. Our
camp was located at its mouth, where
the remains of an old-time Eskimo
village still stand: a few ruined igloos
gradually disintegrating and the skele-
tons of some of the former inhabitants
scattered here and there. The natives
had "buried" their dead in crude boxes
of drift wood, which soon decayed,
allowing the moss-covered bones to be
scattered over the tundra.
Redpolls, Siberian yellow wagtails,
snow buntings, and longspurs congre-
gated about the village site, and I found
a nest containing four naked little wag-
tails under one of the foundations of a
Camp along the Mil-a-ka-tavik. — Our
tent was always placed where it could be
seen for a great distance, for there are few
landmarks upon the tundra to aid the
collector
decaying igloo. The semipalmated
sandpiper replaced the western, which
was the common form at Wales, only
twenty miles away, and already the
little chicks were beginning to appear.
Red-backed sandpipers were numerous
and an occasional Aleutian curved
away at our approach. We found
collecting profitable enough in that
vicinity, taking a few eggs and speci-
mens of the different jaegers, yellow-
180
NATURAL HISTORY
billed loons, and Steller's eider. Dur-
ing the entire time the wind blew with
such severity on shore that we could
not venture into Bering Strait as was
my desire. I had intended to run down
the coast about thirty miles, but under
the circumstances I finally had to give
up the idea and instead headed for
Mint River, on the mainland shore of
Lopp Lagoon.
difference in scenery. The mountain
ranges were clear cut, with their snow-
patched valleys standing out in con-
trast with the blue ridges, and great
snow banks lining the steep walls where
the stream had cut its way through the
high tundra. Several pairs of Pacific
godwits, a flock of curlews, and numer-
ous loons were seen, while willow ptar-
migan were continually flushing, so
Habitat group
of the emperor
goose at the
Colorado Mu-
seum of Nat-
ural History.
These geese
rarely occur
far inland al-
though they
occasionally
nest along
ponds far back
from salt
water
It was a wonderful day. the finest of
the trip, and Mint River proved an
attraction to me because of its wil-
lows, some of them being five feet or
more high — the first trees I had seen
in more than a year! As we entered
its shallow mouth, three geese dropped
on a bar about one hundred yards
away and Nagozruk showed his skill
with the rifle by killing one of them.
The river was so swift we had to
tow our boat along until we could find
a suitable camping place above the
muddy flats bordering the lagoon, but
the work was enjoyable because of the
oloiado Museum of Natural History
that I could hardly wait until camp
was pitched and I was free to go afield.
I scarcely hoped to find nesting
geese so far back from the lagoon, but
worked the shore of Mint River care-
fully while the Eskimos went far back
on the tundra. Cranes, loons, a pair
of swans, and various shore birds
were noted, and an occasional distant
flock of emperor geese, but no nests of
the last mentioned were found until
my return toward camp when I nearly
walked upon a brooding bird. The
nest was about twenty feet back from a
small pond, on a moss-covered mound.
THE IIACXTS OF THE EMPEROR GOOSE
1S1
The eggs were very conspicuous against
their dark background, and a long-
tailed jaeger circling near seemed quite
interested.
The next day I covered a chain of
ponds lying along the foothills of the
mountain range, really on a search for
the eggs of the yellow-billed loon, and
there found my last set of goose eggs.
Although it was July, the day was cold,
disagreeable, and drizzly, with occa-
sional flurries of snow. I had been
out several hours with little success
when I finally saw a goose feeding
along a large pond, on which were also
several yellow-billed loons. As I
approached, the goose flew, and then as
I neared the feeding grounds, I flushed
the mate, which alighted in the water
within twenty-five feet of me. The
nest from which the bird had flown was
made up of coarse grass, lined with
down, and contained five eggs. They
were rather badly incubated as were
the others which I took on the trip,
including the set of two.
The following morning we started
on our return trip to Wales, twenty-
five miles away. A couple of yellow-
billed loons were collected but for
the most part we were too busy to
hunt. We rowed and towed against
a head wind, and at sundown had
reached the first river, about eleven
miles from the village; then we fol-
lowed along the seaward shore of
Bering Strait until we were forced to
land because of the ice blocking the
channel. We had no food but bird
meat and not a dry piece of clothing
among the three of us, so we cached
our specimens and walked the rest of
the way to Wales, getting in at seven
o'clock in the morning, tired but satis-
fied with our little jaunt over the
domain of the emperor goose.
;
w
The drifting pack
Natural Root Graft and the Overgrowth of
Stumps of Conifers
By C. C. PEMBERTON
THE natural graftage which so
frequently takes place between
trees of the same species is a
phase of plant life well worthy of the
attention of the nature lover. When it
occurs between roots of coniferous
trees, it often produces a result which is
of great biological interest and which
has, in the past, provoked much dis-
cussion and comment.
As an art of the horticulturist, graft-
age has been known and practised
from time immemorial and its uses and
mode of accomplishment have, there-
fore, received abundant study and
experimental research.
Natural graftage, on the other hand,
has received comparatively scant
attention. It has been looked upon
largely as an accidental natural phe-
nomenon. That it is in any way a
tropism or a parasitic reaction does not
seem to have been fully recognized.
The frequency of its occurrence, the
causes conducive to its attainment .
and the results that follow, have not
apparently received much attention.
Natural grafts between the stems
and branches of a single tree, or
between those of different individuals
of the same species, have been noted
very often. The union has generally
been attributed to the different mem-
bers coming in contact with each
other and friction and pressure expos-
ing the cambium and causing a graft.
Natural grafts between roots — either
by the inarching of those of a single
tree or the grafting together of the
roots of several trees of the same
species — is a well-known occurrence,
though to what extent and under what
circumstances these grafts will occur is
182
at present unknown and the causes
conducive to the result are very difficult
to determine. One reason for this is
that in broadleaf trees (and a tew
conifers) root sprouts may develop to
such an extent that there is every
appearance of root graftage on an
extensive scale.
The clearing from the land of the
virgin forest growth with which this
continent was originally provided must
for several centuries have given plenty
of opportunity to agriculturists to
study the phenomenon and to observe
whether root graft prevailed as a rule,
or whether it was a rare occurrence,
and also to determine what conditions
were favorable to root graft. It does
not seem, however, to have been
deemed worth while to collect data.
In a number of species of conifers
a very spectacular phenomenon has
drawn attention to the prevalence of
root graft. It consists of a peculiar
condition of vitality which the stumps
of coniferous trees sometimes retain
after the stems have been felled and
the stumps thereby deprived of foliage.
These stumps heal over the cut and for
years continue to form fresh, woody
matter. The characteristic first at-
tracted attention in Europe a good
while ago and it has since, from time
to time, raised considerable discussion.
It is now generally conceded that the
cause is the grafting of the roots of
the stump with those of standing trees
of the same species in the vicinity.
Some people, however, still have doubts,
especially where stumps are found very
remote from standing trees.
These overgrown stumps have been
found in various parts of the world.
NATURAL ROOT GRAFT
183
They seem, however, to be absent
from the eastern part of Canada and
from the northern and eastern portions
of the United States. If it is a fact
that they are entirely absent from these
regions, then the circumstance may
be due, perhaps, to the long resting
period during the winter in these
localities, which may in some way
prevent natural graftage of the roots.
The outside bark may harden and lose
vitality more quickly.
Irrespective of root graft being
indicated by the presence of capped-
over stumps, it is often observable
directly in Douglas fir, the big roots of
which spread along the surface of the
ground. Sometimes this root graft
between adjacent trees will develop
into quite a bar, or wall, of wood
connecting the two trees. Very exten-
sive continuity of root systems has
been noted in western hemlock
(Tsuga heterophylla) on the west coast
of Vancouver Island, where erosion has
exposed the roots to view. It has not
been determined, however, whether
this is due to root grafting or sprouting.
Graftage is not due to contact and
pressure alone, for there are plenty of
instances where trees of the same
species are found with their stems
or roots tightly wedged together but
without graftage ensuing. The point
whether the bark remains vital or does
not do so is, therefore, when the trees
are of the same or closely allied species,
probably the deciding factor. Many
instances are to be found where stems
or roots of trees of remote relationship
are wedged tightly together, but noth-
ing in the nature of graftage has taken
place. In this connection it should
not be overlooked that it is said thai
graft hybrids can be produced artifi-
cially and the finding of natural grafts
actually existing between trees of
remote genera has also been reported.
The biological aspect of the phe-
nomenon of natural graftage and of
its attendant power in coniferous trees
of maintaining the vitality in distant
stumps, so that they cap over, is of
absorbing interest. Evidently it is an
indisputable fact that with some coni-
fers a foliage-possessing tree can, by
root graft, transmit life-giving sap to
the stump of a felled tree of the same
species. It also appears that this
stump can in turn transmit the sap by
further root graft to remote stumps
which are too far away from the foliage
tree to enable direct root graft to take
place. A chain of indirect root grafts
may, therefore, be the explanation why
apparently isolated stumps show bulky
overgrowth.
The practicability of the application
of this wonderous creative power to
economic use may be worth investiga-
tion. The root graftage should be
capable of artificial accomplishment
without much difficulty. Metal or
concrete tops for use or ornament
could be inserted on freshly cut stumps
and would then become enveloped by
the overgrowth. The stumps would
thus serve as living pillars. Once root
graft were established, the life of a
stump could be made coextensive with
that of the living tree from which it
derived its vitality. On the other
hand, if the standing tree utilizes the
root systems of the stump, then trees
in positions of drouth and paucity of
soil might, by root graft, be made to
obtain water and nutrition from stumps
in damp, rich soil.1 In fact, a wide
field for experimental research and in-
vestigation of the1 phenomena of root
graft and overgrowth of stumps seems
to await exploration.
■In California root systems of "gophered" orange
tni- are Baid to 1" successfully renewed by ingrafting
saplings t<> the trunk of the "gophered" tree.
Natural Graftage
DIFFERENT PHASES OF THIS PHENOMENON ARE ILLUSTRATED BY THE
FOLLOWING SERIES OF PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN IN THE OPEN
PARKLANDS OF THE SOUTHERN PART OF VANCOUVER
ISLAND IN THE VICINITY OF VICTORIA
Described By C. C. PEMBERTON
NATURAL GRAFT OF STEMS
Natural graftage between stems and branches arises in a variety of ways. In the picture on the left are shown
two stems of the Garry oak, Quercus Garryana, that are grafted together. When subsequently this compound tree
was felled, the two stems broke apart and disclosed the mode in which the graft had occurred. In stems of trees the
descending sap causes an increase of girth to take place by degrees downward. In this instance it could be seen that
the graft had started at the top where the stems, due to their respective girth increases, had met. The impact had
evidently induced the graftage, which had proceeded thence in a curved or horseshoe shape outward and downward.
At the lower end there is a space in which the stems of both trees have retained their bark intact.
In the picture on the right the tip of a branch from the stem of a western red cedar, Thuja plicata, evidently
became grafted to the stem of another cedar of this species. The branch thus linking the two trees seems to have
formed a guide for the girth increases of both stems, which approached each other along the branch and culminated
in a natural graft of the stems. Since the picture was taken, the trees have been destroyed by fire
184
In this instance it is apparent that the roots of two Douglas fir trees, Pseudotsuga taxifolia, crossed each other's
path and that at the point of contact a complete natural graft took place. The Douglas fir on the right is flanked
by two grand firs, Abies grandi.<, while other grand firs are to be seen in the background
As a result of pressure, due to their being crowded together in a pocket of soil, five saplings of the Douglas fir
Pseudotsuga taxifolia, became firmly grafted together. They were subsequently overturned in a gale
IS.",
WHERE CRAFTAGE EAS EAILED TO TAKE PLACE
This illustration not only tends to show that trees of distant relationship do no t read ily mtergraft -n « hen
pressed tightly together, but also incidentally emphasizes the great difference m mode of growth form between the
I-nHerous6 trees of the fir type and broadleaf trees. One of the lunbs of the Garry oak Q^J££££
crossed the path of a Douglas fir, Pseudotsuga laxifolia, that was pushing its way up* ard. The j th ea e of
each subsequently brought them into contact but no union or graftage followed and the fir graduallj o^rcame
oak either by suppressing it through shade or by choking it through constriction
A seedling grand fir, Abies grandis, had lodged practically over the top of a large lateral root from a big Douglas
tii , Pseudotsuga taxi/olia. As these two trees of more or less distant relationship grew larger, the base of the stem
of the grand fir, as well as its roots, came in contact with the underlying roots of the Douglas fir and there was
evidently great pressure, for the roots of the grand fir indented those of the Douglas fir. No graftage, however,
resulted from the pressure. After the felling of the trees and the consequent drying out of the roots, they rattled when
shaken and. after they were sawed apart, the bark of each species proved to be intact
\\ hen there i- depth of soil, the grand fir, Abies grandis, 1 1 ; » .~ often a large tap root and also spreading lateral
secondary root:-. When the rich top soil is .-hallow and underlaid by Stiff hard gravel or clay, the tap root is pre
vented from growing to a great depth. The lateral roots, however, are prone to send down a -cries of roots like tap
roots. These come from the underside of the lateral roots like the prong- from a harrow and penetrate down to the
hard soil or clay. The two grand firs shown in the illustration hail been growing on a gravel mound and tic down-
ward direction of all of the roots was undoubtedly due to a quest for moisture and nutrition supplemental to the
potent tendency of this tree to react to gravity. The lateral roots thus drawn downward had crossed each other's
oath- ami the girth increase of each had induced graftage
ls7
tm
STUMP AND ROOT SPROUTS
In the center of the picture is a large stump of a Garry oak tree, Quercus Garryana. On the left is a sapling
that has sprung from the rim of that stump. On the right is another sapling which is apparently a root sprout.
As well as being examples of stump and root sprouts, both saplings show the healing-over of cuts made in the
pruning off of limbs, and it is noteworthy that the healings in these cases are in the form of a ring from the outside,
uniting in the center into a cap of wood. The cap will not form over a hollow; there must be wood or
some other material to support it. In contrast to the broadleaf trees, few conifers can produce stump or
root sprouts and consequently, unless united through root graft to a tree of the same species still possessing its
crown, the stumps of most species of conifers die
The assertion that living .-tump.-, such as those of the Douglas fir, Pseudotsnga taxifolia, in the illustration, could
e\ist at all was at first received with derision. It was deemed impossible that stumps eould remain alive after tin
loss of their foliage through the felling of the stem and without developing new foliage by stump sprouts. When,
however, it was proved that stumps did actually remain alive in this miraculous manner, the cause became a
subject of much controversy. That the living condition was a phase, or result, of natural graftage of roots was
doubted, and many considered that the phenomenon might be due to the reserve material which enables stumps o(
broadleaf trees to sprout from the rim of a felled individual. It is now generally admitted, however, that the root-
graft theory is the true explanation of the occurrence. The stumps in the illustration are good examples of the
appearance commonly presented by the healing and overgrowth. In this instance the root graft has evidently been
induced by the shallow soil, and the healing of the more remote stumps is as potent as that of the stump of the twin
stem of the foster tree.
These stumps, as can be seen, are veritable living posts Inasmuch as small saplings can cause the overgrowth
of the stumps of trees of much greater size, it is conceivable that by artificial root graft the foster trees could be
renewed from time to time and that, therefore, the posts could be made to last forever
In this illustration the overgrowth of stumps of grand lit is shown. The stumps are situated between the two
foster trees of the same species. The grafting togethei ,,i the roots of the stumps ami those of the foster trees is plain-
ly visible on the ground, though not shown m the photograph. In tin- instance 'he capping-over of the stump- i-
not completed and the overgrowth has not materially increased for several years Quite often the center of the
stump decays and leaves merely a rim of live wood
1 vi
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NOTES
VERTEBRATE FOSSILS
A Forerunner of the Horned Dino-
saurs.— The hope — one might almost say the
conviction — has been entertained from the
time the Third Asiatic Expedition began its
work that it would discover in the fossil beds
of Asia the prototypes of certain of the forms
inhabiting western North America during the
latter part of the Age of Reptiles and the early
part of the Age of Mammals, thus tending to
substantiate the view held by Professor
Henry Fairfield Osborn, Dr. W. D. Matthew,
and others, that these forms were immigrants
from the Old World. An important piece of
evidence of this character has recently come
to light. A skull casually discovered by Mr.
J. B. Shackleford, the photographer of the
expedition, during a brief halt made in the
course of the trip into Mongolia last summer,
turns out upon examination to be of a type
ancestral to the ceretopsians, which are known
only from the Upper Cretaceous. These
herbivorous dinosaurs, that carry on their dis-
proportionately large head an armature of
horns — two in the case of Dicerafops, three
in the case of Monoclonius and of Triceratops
— are among the must grotesque and startling
of the goblin-like animals of the past.
Standing in front of the huge skull of
Triceratops prorsus in the American Museum
and extending one's arms with fingers out-
stretched, one covers roughly the length of the
head from the beaklike mouth to the bony
crest at the back of the skull. Compared with
this specimen, the skull, eight inches in length,
of the recently discovered ancestral form of
the ceratopsians is tiny indeed. Moreover,
the latter lacks the horns that are so conspicu-
ous on the ceratopsians of the Upper Creta-
ous. Nevertheless, its relationship to these
ceratopsians is evidenced by the fact that the
jaws, teeth, and the portion of the crest
below and behind the eyes are similar to
the corresponding parts in these reptiles.
Could the newly discovered fossil be
merely the young of a horned species? The
assumption is negatived by the fact that most
of the sutures, or lines of contact of the skull
bones, are well united and the teeth are much
worn. The specimen is not an immature
individual but an ancestral type, standing in
much the same relation to the ceratopsians
of the Upper Cretaceous as the primitive
hornless titanotheres of the early part of
the Age of Mammals stood to their gigantic
descendants.
Dr. W. K. Gregory and Mr. Walter Granger
are jointly preparing a paper that will be
published in the American Museum series,
.Xovitates, and that will describe this remark-
able skull and other parts of the skeleton that
are little by little being worked out from the
rock in which they were embedded.
NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY
The Pygmy Elephant. — A great event in
the annals of the New York Zoological Society
was the recent arrival at this port of a second
specimen of the pygmy elephant, known as
Loxodoii pumilio. The first specimen, which
reached the Zoological Park in 1905, was the
type of this pygmy species, for, while it was
still in the possession of Carl Hagenbeck
prior to shipment to this country, it was used
by the Berlin naturalist, Doctor Noakes, for
the scientific description of the species. This
precious type animal, on its decease after a
painful illness, was presented to the American
Museum and in due time will be mounted and
placed on exhibition.
The second young pygmy elephant, a
female about two and one-half years old,
reached the Zoological Park at half past six on
the evening of December 6. The little creature
is only thirty-six inches high; it is plump and
hardy and seems fully resolved to live and to
enjoy life. It is a little weak in its right hind
leg, of which the fibula was once broken, but
the injured part has been placed in a brace by
Doctor Blair until the leg becomes strong.
The arrival of the pygmy caused a great
sensation. Its advent was heralded abroad
by all the newspapers and by radio. Several
newspaper men, armed with cameras, went to
the Park early on the morning of December 7
and photographed the pygmy under flash-
light. These photographs were sent all over
the United States.
Thus through the acquisition of the first and
second specimens of the pygmy elephant from
the type region of the Congo and West Africa,
this animal, long regarded as mythical, has
come into the light of science as an established
fact. The new specimen was obtained through
persistent efforts on the part of the New York-
Zoological Society and the discovery in
192
NOTES
193
London of a man, Captain E. A. Cunning-
ham, willing to share the risks involved in its
pursuit and capture. We learn that the
Zoological Society paid a very handsome price
for the animal but the little elephant is cer-
tainly worth the sum expended, because it is
one of the greatest of zoological rarities.
ASIA
Motion Pictures of the Expedition to
Mongolia. — On January 17, Mr. J. B.
Shackleford, the official photographer of the
Third Asiatic Expedition, gave a preliminary
demonstration in the American Museum of
the motion pictures he secured during the
trip which Air. Roy Chapman Andrews and
his associates made with auto trucks and
laden camels into the heart of Mongolia.
Of such a spectacular and valuable character
have been the discoveries of the expedition in
this neglected area of the Old World that
unusual interest attaches to the motion pic-
ture record of the undertaking, indicating as
that record does, through the swiftly chang-
ing scenes flashed upon the screen, the
diversity of the work in which the expedition
has been engaged and the bizarre attractive-
ness of the region traversed. President Henry
Fairfield Osborn, in his remarks at the close,
said the pictures were as valuable in present-
ing nomad life as those of "Xanook of the
North" in making known the life of the Arctic.
Mr. Louis D. Froelick, the publisher of Asia,
who was also present, paid tribute to their
quality and expressed pleasure that the
American Asiatic Association ami Asia on the
one hand and the American Museum on the
other were jointly associated in the expedition.
The pictures shown were' devoted to that
portion of the trip that lay beyond Urga.
The opening scene showed the stately camels
— seventy-five in number and each bearing a
well-distributed burden of (500 pounds — as
they struggled to their feet at the breaking-up
of camp, to resume their (nidging progress
into the desert. The plodding caravan and
the scouting automobiles passed many scenes
of quaint interest. The religions edifices of
the lamas, reminiscenl in their architecture
now of Thibet, now of China, and aflutter
with prayer flags attached ;it close intervals
along a rope; the hordes of curious priest--
hurrying out to view the Christian foreigners
— gave place to scenes of practical life, such as
the tending of flocks and the making of felt,
or of festive gatherings of the nomads with
horse-racing and feasting. Natives clad in
Chinese cloth, children naked except for the
little bag, with prayer enclosed, that is hung
about the neck of all Mongolians, were shown
moving among their flocks or loitering about
the encampments.
There were many pictures of the game of the
region, including conies and hedgehogs, ante-
lopes and wild asses, and birds of many
species. Now and then an automobile would
set out in pursuit of a small herd of antelopes
or a group of wild asses, in order to test their
speed and endurance. Beautiful was the
action of the animals as they strained to the
utmost to escape the fantastic thing on wheels
that chased them over the sands. One wild
ass was pursued for thirty-two miles before he
permitted himself to be captured, only to find
that after being petted, tended, and refreshed,
he was again to be allowed his liberty.
A picture that combined unusual popular
and scientific interest was that of the dis-
covery site of Baluchitherium, the spectacular
land mammal (related to the existing
rhinoceroses but towering above them in size'
that is one of the most valued finds of the
expedition.
The Faunthokpe Indian Expedition. —
Several letters reporting the progress of the
Faunthorpe Indian Expedition have been re-
ceived from Col. J. C. Faunthorpe by Prof.
Henry Fairfield Osborn. Brief as has
been the time since the expedition began its
work, the specimens already obtained assure
the American Museum a series of groups of
unusual attractiveness, while the helpful
interest manifested in the expedition by the
British government officials and the native
princes has in more than one instance opened
the way to securing specimens that without
their permission and cooperation would have
been unobtainable. His Excellency the
Viceroy of India is presenting to the Ameri-
can Museum a group of tigers; His Highness
the Maharaja oi Mysore, will permit the
expedition to shoot an elephant within his
territory and has kindly offered to give the
expedition all necessary assistance; and the
hope is entertained that His Excellency the
Governor of Bombay will see his way to
allowing the expedition to secure a specimen
of the interesting Indian lion. The govern-
ment of India, at the request of Colonel
Faunthorpe and in deference to the interest
in the expedition taken by Lord Heading, has
194
NATURAL HISTORY
instructed all the local governments to assist
the undertaking.
Colonel Faunthorpe has secured four speci-
mens of the swamp deer, three of the speci-
mens being stags and one a doe. The antlers
of one of the stags are of record proportions,
as the}- measure thirty-nine inches from tip
to tip and have twelve points. On the same
day that these animals were shot, three speci-
mens were obtained of the swamp partridge,
a rare bird of restricted range, as well as a
number of birds of other species. An otter
and a hyena were also secured.
A cablegram from Mr. A. S. Vernay, of
later date than the letters from Colonel
Faunthorpe, indicates (hat the expectations
of the leaders of the expedition are being richly
fulfilled. Materials for a nilgai group and for
a chital group have been collected. A splendid
sambur has been taken and mention is made
of a rhinoceros hunt apparently in prospect
in eastern Nepal.
Even before his departure from London Mr.
Vernay evidenced his interest in the purposes
of the expedition by purchasing twenty-one
specimens of an Indian hornbill, Ptilolsemus
austeni, originally a part of the Coltart Col-
lection, and he has presented them to the
American Museum.
THE MUSEUM PRESS
For twenty-two years Natural History
and its predecessor, the American Museum
Journal, were printed outside of the
Museum. With the January-February
issue of the current year a new policy was
inaugurated, the magazine being printed
within the Museum itself. This is a momen-
tous step for Natural History and at
the same time evidences the impressive
growth in the facilities and output of the
Museum press, which now prints all of the
publications of the Museum, in addition to the
labels, cards, stationary, and other odds and
ends that are required. Starting in the attic
of the Museum on April 10, 1903, with but a
single workman and a small hand press, the
printing establishment has grown until now it
occupies the greater part of one wing of the
basement, employs a force of twelve individ-
uals, and has available three job presses and
two cylinder presses — one with a Dexter
suction feeder and an automatic pile delivery
— a double monotype keyboard, and two
monotype casting machines. In addition to
the printing establishment, the Museum has a
bindery that dates back to the fall of 1903 and
that employs today five individuals. Mr.
Stephen Klassen and Mr. E. P. Forshay, in
immediate charge respectively of the printing
establishment and of the bindery, have both
been connected from the very start with their
respective departments and have witnessed
all the stages in the development of the Mu-
seum press.
One of the most important of these stages
was reached in 1919, when the Museum first
assumed the printing of its scientific publica-
tions. The magnitude of this undertaking is
indicated by the fact that in the year 1922
alone there were printed of the Bulletin more
than 1200 pages, of the Anthropological
Papers more than 500 pages, of Novitates
more than 200 pages, not to mention the issu-
ance of guide leaflets and handbooks.
In 1922, for the better coordination of the
work of related departments within the
Museum, a division of education, books,
publication, and printing was established
under Mr. George H. Sherwood as curator-in-
chief, with Dr. Ralph W. Tower in charge of
t he library and of publications.
With its demonstrated capacity for handling
efficiently work that requires more than aver-
age accuracy and care, the printing plant of
the Museum is extending its facilities to
Natural History, and the January-Febru-
ary issue is evidence of the high standard of
excellence with which it has begun its work.
CONSERVATION
The Animals of the Yellowstone. — The
need for protecting the mammals is demon-
strated not only by their rapid disappearance
in areas where they are hunted, but also by
the heavy losses suffered by herds located in
parks or sanctuaries, as the result of an un-
favorable season or of some epidemic.
The antelopes of Yellowstone National
Park began the spring of 1922 with their
number reduced by twenty-five or more per
cent. During the winter the snow had been
softened by an interval of mild weather and
had then been crusted over by the succeeding
cold spell. The iced surface thus formed
broke under the sharp hoofs of the antelopes,
which, impeded and floundering, fell victims
to the wolves and coyotes. Forage, too, was
hard to obtain in the low valleys where the
snow drifts are deep. In the Sixth A n una I
Report of the Director of the National Park
Service it is stated that "The antelope herd of
XOTES
195
the park is likely to be exterminated unless
range north of the park can be provided."
The same Report states that the herd of
tame buffalo in the Yellowstone has been the
victim for the third time of an outbreak of
hemorrhagic septicemia, which occurred dur-
ing March and April, 1922. Fifty-two
animals succumbed to this disease, — a loss
that is more than offset, however, by the birth
of 108 calves. Through this increase the herd
numbered, at the time the Report was issued,
.578 head. In view of the hardships experi-
enced in former winters by the elk, it is
gratifying to learn that during the winter
covered by the Report, the forage was abun-
dant, due to the fact that the heavy winds
blew the high slopes bare of snow.
Conservationists to Gather in Paris. —
An international congress for the protection
of nature and of natural monuments is being
arranged by three French societies, la Societe
nationale d' Acclimatation de France, la
Ligue francaise pour la Protection des Oiseaux,
and la Societe pour la Protection des Paysages
de France. The congress is to be held in
Paris in the beginning of June of this year and
will be divided into five sections, dealing
respectively with animals; plants; rocks,
natural grottos, and minerals; waterfalls
and water courses and other features of the
landscape; and national parks, public gardens,
and preserves. So many of the problems con-
fronting the conservationist are international
in character and for their solution require the
cooperation of nature lovers everywhere,
that a gathering of this character is certain to
have far-reaching importance.
Conservation of Marine Mammals and
Fish. — We are glad to be able to print, by
way of supplement to Doctor Murphy's
article (pp. 135-37 of this issue) the admir-
able resolutions unanimously adopted by the
California Academy of Sciences, January 3,
1923, after a full and free discussion.
Whereas, It is known that many valuable
species of marine mammals such as fur seals,
sea otters, elephant seals and whales, and
many species of important food fishes such as
salmon and halibut, formerly occurred in the
Pacific in such vast numbers as to constitute
the objects of fisheries whose annual products
were worth more than one hundred million
dollars, and
Whereas, Nearly all of those greal natural
resources have been seriously depleted, many
of them even to commercial extinction,
through greed, short-sightedness and ill-
considered fishery methods, and
Whereas, It is known that small remnants
of fur-seal and sea-otter herds and small
numbers of whales and of other commercially
valuable species still remain in certain places,
and
Whereas, The rapid recovery of the Alaska
fur-seal herd in the short period of ten 3rears
from complete commercial ruin to an annual
production of more than $1,500,000, as a
result of the international fur-seal treaty of
1911, demonstrates conclusively the wonderful
recuperative power of such depleted natural
resources of the sea under international co-
operation, and justifies the belief that other
depleted fisheries can be rehabilitated through
similar cooperation among the nations con-
cerned, and
Whereas, It is conservatively estimated that
these resources when rehabilitated will yield
to the world a regular annual product of more
than one half-billion dollars in value, therefore
be it
Resolved, That the California Academy of
Sciences strongly recommends that the
various countries bordering on, or interested
in, the Pacific, take such steps as may be
necessary to bring about an International
Treat y "for the restoration of the vanishing
resources of the Pacific to their former abun-
dance, that they may be maintained for all
time as the objects of great commercial
fisheries of which they are easily capable, and
be it further
Resolved, That the California Academy of
Sciences recommends that the governments of
the countries bordering on the Pacific enter
into correspondence for the purpose of estab-
lishing an International Commission for the
scientific study of the biology, physics, and
chemistry of the Pacific in the interest of the
restoration, proper utilization, and conserva-
tion of its vanishing natural resources.
Similar resolutions were unanimously
adopted at the Pan-Pacific Commercial
Conference.
PASTEUR CENTENARY IN THE
AMERICAN MUSEUM
A Tribute by Prof. H. F. Osborn. — In
the issue of Natural History for January-
February a brief account was given (p. 99) of
the ceremonies held at the. American Museum
on the evening of December 27 in com-
memoration of the Pasteur centennial. For
the benefit of those who were unable to attend
the gathering as well as of those who, having
attended it, desire a printed record of the
tribute delivered on the occasion by Prof.
Henry Fairfield Osborn, we print below the
passage that by invitation of the presiding
officer. Dr. George 1'". Kunz, he read, with
some slight alterations of the text, from his
\, ip Order of Sainthood (New York, 1913).
196
NATURAL HISTORY
Among all the groat scientific men whom the
nineteenth century produced Pasteur ranks
supreme as a benefactor of mankind. He
played the original and creative part in the
movement for the prevention and relief of
human suffering. . . It is far under the
truth to say that he has saved more lives than
Napoleon destroyed. In Nature he found the
causes of a very large part of human suffering;
in Nature he also found the means of con-
trolling or averting suffering. His attitude
toward his fellow men was one of noble
compassion. . . .
... It is interesting to imagine what
tributes might have been rendered to Pasteur
if he had lived in the period of the early saints
of the Church, and had won the love of his
generation and the reverence of succeeding
generations by his mighty works. It is
interesting to surmise what would have been
the attitude of the early Church toward such
a benefactor of mankind. Our belief today is
that Pasteur will ever stand as a symbol of
the profound and intimate relation which
must develop between the study of Nature
and the religious life of man. between our
present and future knowledge of Nature and
the development of our religious conceptions
and beliefs.
... If Newton opened to us the new
heavens, and Darwin showed us t lie new cart li,
Pasteur showed the way to the physical re-
demption of man. If we were to rewrite the
Litany in the twentieth century, for the pas-
sage, "From plague, pestilence, and famine,
good Lord, deliver us," we should read.
"From ignorance of Thy Laws and dis-
obedience of Thy Commands, good Lord,
deliver us."
. . . The life-work of Louis Pasteur was
more than humanitarian, it was more than
scientific, it was religious. He regarded
natural processes which in their superficial
view appear relentless, cruel, wholly' inex-
plicable, as part of a possibly beneficent order
of tilings; he again revealed through his
profound insight, through his unparalleled
toil, and in spite of the discouragement, and
even scorn on the part of his contemporaries,
deeper laws, which are beneficent, protective,
and restorative in action. . .
We shall institute a new order of sainthood
for Louis Pasteur. We find no one more
eminent for consecration, piety, and service
in life and character than this devout investi-
gator. Entrance to this order shall be granted
to those who through the study of Nature
have extended the bounds of human knowl-
edge, have bestowed incomparable blessings
on the human race, have relieved human
suffering, have saved or prolonged human
life. A statue of Louis Pasteur placed in the
Cathedral of St. John the Divine will pro-
claim our faith that the two great historic
movements of Love and of Knowledge, of the
spiritual and intellectual and the physical
well-being of man, are harmonious parts of a
single and eternal truth.
On the base of the statue will be inscribed
the words written by Pasteur in the most
perplexing period of his life:
GOD GRANT THAT BY MY PERSEVERING LABORS I
MAY BRING A LITTLE STONE TO THE FRAIL AND ILL-AS-
SURED EDIFICE OF OCR KNOWLEDGE OF THOSE DEEP
MYSTERIES OF LIFE AND DEATH WHERE ALL OCR INTEL-
LEI IS HAVE SO LAMENTABLY FAILED
PASTEUR EXHIBIT
In a later issue of Natural History will
appear, it is hoped, an illustrated article
dealing with the Pasteur exhibit that has been
on view for several weeks in the hall of fores-
try, American Museum. Only brief allusion
is here made, therefore, to this exhibit, which
has been brought together through the enter-
prise of Dr. George F. Kunz, with the co-
operation of several public bodies and of
interested individuals. The exhibit presents
graphically the personal side of the life
of Pasteur and with especial emphasis
the whole series of discoveries that are linked
with his name, as well as data concerning a
number of subsequent developments in the
field of research in which he blazed the way.
A .1 A PA XESE DELEGATION VISITS THE
MUSEUM
I )n January 30 Director F. A. Lucas con-
ducted through the American Museum a
delegation of raw silk manufacturers from
Japan, pointing out to the members of the
party the significance of the different exhibits
in the Museum, so many of which have been
prepared under his supervision. Apart from
the general interest that the Museum has
for all visitors, it has a more or less special
appeal for those engaged in the silk business.
Not only is there among its exhibits of insects
and their work an array of material relating
to Bombyx mori, the industrious little moth
t hat just before pupating spins the silk out of
which the world's most beautiful raiment is
made, but in the hall of birds are shown by
courtesy of Messrs. Johnson, Crowdin and
Company a series of ribbons designed by Mr.
Emil Speck, the coloring and patterns of which
were suggested by the plumage of different
birds. The ancient Indian fabrics in the
Museum have been repeatedly studied by
designers of textiles, and their color schemes
and figurations have been adapted and used
in the fabrics produced by the mills.
PARE VOLUMES PRESENTED TO THE
LIBRARY
The Library of the American Museum is
indebted to Mr. Ogden Mills for his generous
NOTES
197
gift of certain rare volumes, several of which
were a part of the Ornithological Library of
the late William Purely Shannon. The gift
embraces thirty-four works, one of which,
Buffon's Histoire naturelle des Oiseaux, con-
sists of ten volumes. The acquisition of this
work meets a need of long standing. Pub-
lished in the last quarter of the eighteenth
century, it is valued not only for its text but
for its beautiful -planches enluminees, engraved
by Martinet under the supervision of E. L.
Daubenton. Another work embraced in the
gift of Mr. Mills is the sumptuous Monograph
of the Pittidse or Family of Ant-Thrushes, by
Daniel G. Elliot.
PUBLIC EDUCATION
Mr. G. H. Sherwood Addresses the
Municipal Engineers. — At the annual
meeting on January 24 of the Municipal
Engineers of the City of New York, held in
the Engineering Building, 29 West 39 Street,
Mr. George H. Sherwood, curator of public
education, was the speaker of the evening,
addressing the gathering on the topic, "The
American Museum of Natural History and
Its Activities." He traced the history of the
Museum, its organization, and the sources of
its financial support, rendering account of the
stewardship of the Museum in the expenditure
of funds with which it is entrusted, one-third
of which are provided by the city. He dwelt
on the different fields of science exemplified
in the work of the Museum and made clear
that the value of the habitat groups in the
Museum is derived from the fact that they
are restorations of actual scenes, in which
care has been taken that not only the main
features of the landscape, as represented by
the painted backgrounds, but such details as
soil and plant growth, shown in the fore-
ground, shall be faithfully and minutely re-
produced from data supplied by the collector.
Mr. Sherwood gave an account of the work
of the Museum's department of education
among the public schools of the greater city,
through the distribution of lantern slides and
traveling collections and through lectures
delivered by the departmental staff both at
the Museum and in the schools themselves.1
Finally, with special cognizance of the fad
that he was addressing an audience interested
in engineering, he spoke of the exhibit of
S>in ura, one of the minute dwellers in our
'For a full account of the department of education,
the reader is referred to Mr. G. 11. Sherwood's article
n N vtihai. History, March Vpril, 1922, pp. lint 1 2
city water pipes that at times has spoiled
the taste of our most popular beverage. A
glass model of this protozoan animalcule,
enlarged many diameters, was shown in the
Museum during the height of its unpleasant
activities last year and was viewed by throngs
of visitors that were curious to know about
this microscopic trouble-maker.1
New York Training School for Teach-
ers.— On January 22, the department of
public education, American Museum, held
its semi-annual reception for the faculty and
graduating students of the New York Train-
ing School for Teachers. The guests
assembled at two o'clock in the auditorium,
where Curator George H. Sherwood explained
to them the various ways in which the Mu-
seum renders aid to the schools, illustrating
his address with stereopticon views pertinent
thereto. Dr. G. Clyde Fisher, associate
curator, illustrated the use of the motion
picture as an educational medium by throw-
ing on the screen and explaining a film en-
titled "Through Life's Windows," which
shows the structure and function of the
human eye. Mrs. G. K. Noble, assistant
curator, followed Dr. Fisher, presenting a
series of pictures illustrative of the work
done in the department of preparation of the
Museum, and including such operations as
glass-blowing and modeling in wax, as well as
taxidermy.
The visitors were then conducted by mem-
bers of the Museum staff through the exhibi-
tion halls and the department of education,
and at four o'clock tea was served in Morgan
Memorial Hall.
The American Nature-Study Society, of
which Prof. William G. Vinal is president and
Mrs. Anna B. Comstock is secretary, held its
annual meeting in Boston, December 28-30.
1922, and discussed from many angles the
aims, problems, and possibilities of nature
study in our schools, in the home, in summer
camps, among scouting organizations, ami
through other agencies. On December 28 a
dinner was given in honor of Mrs. Comstock,
on her retirement as professor of nature study
at Cornell University. Dr. Clarence Weed
acted as t oast master on this occasion and
among those who spoke were Dr. L. O.
Howard, Prof. Vernon L. Kellogg, Mr. John
L. Randall, Prof. E. Laurence Palmer. Miss
See Natural Hibtory, January February, 1922
,, Ml!
198
NATURAL HISTORY
Mabel Turner, Dr. George W. Field, and Dr.
G. Clyde Fisher, — the last mentioned being
the representative of the American Museum
at the gathering. On the day following, Dr.
Fisher delivered an illustrated address on a
subject that has never failed to enthrall his
audiences, namely, "John Burroughs." Other
impressive addresses given in the course of
the session — and only a few out of a number
worthy of mention can here be indicated —
were "Nature Study of the Various Scouting
Organizations, " by Prof. E. Laurence Palmer,
"What Do I Expect That Nature Study
Should Do for My Child?," a symposium
presented by the Rev. G. Manley Townsend,
Dr. Henry P. Lovewell, and Mr. F. Schuyler
Mathews, and "Nature Study and Garden-
ing, " by Mrs. Comstock.
INSECTS
Entomological Society of America.
One of the interesting features of the seven-
teenth annual gathering of the Entomological
Society of America, held December 26-9 in
Boston and Cambridge, was t lie presentation
of a symposium entitled "Adaptations of
Insects to Special Environments." Dr. F. E.
Lutz, curator of entomology at the American
Museum, contributed to this symposium a
paper on the "Adaptations of Insects to the
Fertilization of Flowers." At the business
session Doctor Lutz was elected second vice
president of the society; Prof. T. D. A. Cock-
erell (honorary fellow of the Museum) and
Dr. William S. Marshall were elected respec-
tively president and first vice president.
MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES
The Galton Society, which was founded
in 1918 for the study of the origin and evolu-
tion of man and of the physical and mental
qualities of human races, holds its regular
meetings in the Osborn Library, American
Museum. In the first meeting of 1922 Pro-
fessor Brigham, of Princeton University,
gave a detailed analysis of the army intel-
ligence tests, with reference to the com-
parative ratings made by representatives of
the principal countries and races of Europe.
In the December meeting Dr. Laughlin
showed the results of an analysis of the social
qualities of different groups of the population
of the United States, according to the country
of origin of the parents. The data were
drawn from the records of prisons, state hos-
pitals, and institutions for the feeble-minded,
insane, and other types of the socially inade-
quate. The analysis was worked out on the
quota fulfillment basis — 100 per cent, indicat-
ing that the particular racial or nativity
population-group attaining this percentage
had supplied its even share to the specific
type of degenerates in institutions. The
results indicated wide differences among the
various racial and national groups of our
immigrants. For example, in insanity, quota
fulfillments by per cent run as follows: Japan,
42.85; American negro, 57.23; Switzerland,
69.23; native white, both parents native-
born, 73.27; China, 78.33; United States, all
native-born regardless of race or color, 83.98;
Rumania, 100.00; native white, having one
parent native, one foreign-born, 103.90;
native white, both parents foreign born,
108.49; Canada. 124.42; all Asia, 130.00;
Austria-Hungary, 134.26; Mexico, 137.50;
Greal Britain, 156.81; Italy, 157.53; France,
158.33; Netherlands, 171.66; Greece, 172.72;
Germany. 174.53; West Indies, 180.00; Portu-
gal, 181.66; Southern and Eastern Europe,
I 88. •")(); all foreign born, 192.85; Scandinavia,
193.33; Northwestern Europe, 198.36; Turkey
in Europe, 200.00; Russia, Finland, and
Poland, 265.95; Bulgaria, 300.00; Ireland,
305.44; Serbia, 400.00. These investigations
have been conducted under the auspices of
the Committee on Immigration and Natural-
ization of the U. S. House of Representatives
and have proved of great use in the shaping
of immigration laws designed to restrict the
number of undesirable immigrants.
American Society of Zoologists. — At the
twentieth annual meeting of the American
Society of Zoologists, held December 27-9
in connection with the gathering in Boston
of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, a paper entitled "A New
Liver Fluke from the Monkey" was read by
Dr. Horace W. Stunkard, research associate
in parasitology at the American Museum,
and papers on "The Proper Wording of
Titles of Scientific Articles" and on " 'The
Bibliography of Fishes' " were presented by
Dr. E. W. Gudger, associate in ichthyology
in the Museum. "The Pre-Linnsean Section
of 'The Bibliography of Fishes'" Doctor
Gudger discussed on December 27 before the
section on historical and philological sciences
of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science.
XOTES
199
GEOLOGY
A Tribute to Dr. E. O. Hovey. — To
commemorate the completion of sixteen years
of service that Dr. E. O. Hovey, curator of
geology and invertebrate palaeontology,
American Museum, has rendered as secretary
of the Geological Society of America, his col-
leagues presented him, at the annual meeting
of the Society in December, with a beautiful
silver cup, on which is inscribed:
Geological Society of America
To
Edmund Otis Hovey
Secretary
1906-1922
The presentation was made by Professor
James F. Kemp of Columbia University.
The following tribute was entered upon the
minutes:
At the present annual meeting Dr. Edmund
Otis Hovey, Secretary of the Society since
December 1906, is, at his own wish, retiring
from office. The undersigned committee has
been appointed by President Schuchert to
prepare an appropriate resolution and present
it for action by the Society.
Doctor Hovey has held for sixteen years the
responsible and exacting office of Secretary.
During all this time he has shown exceptional
devotion and unsparing fidelity in the dis-
charge of the duties of his office. Under his
tenure the Society has maintained the high
ideals with which it started on its career
thirty-four years ago, and has done so in no
small degree because of the influence and
sound judgment of its Secretary. The publi-
cations have also held true to the exalted
standards now long established.
Doctor Hovey has witnessed during his of-
ficial life, and has shared in carrying through
one important change in policy and organiza-
tion,— that relating to the affiliated societies.
The Paleontological Society became the first
affiliate, the Mineralogical Society of America
the second, and last year the Society of
Economic Geologists joined the group. By
this wise arrangement excessive and weaken-
ing subdivision is avoided, while a large
degree of practicable unity is maintained.
The Geological Society desires to express
and record upon its minutes a warm and
cordial expression of appreciation of the un-
selfish service given by its retiring Secretary
and to wish him the successful completion
of the scientific labors to which he desires to
give his entire efforts and attention.
(Signed) James F. Kemp, Chairman.
John M. Clarke
R. A. F. Penrose, Jr.
Dr. ('. A. Mati.kv. During his recent
sojourn in America. Dr. C. A. Mat ley,
geologist to the government of Jamaica,
visited several of our scientific institutions.
including the United States National Mu-
seum, the United States Geological Survey,
and the American Museum, and conferred
with the several scientists working in his own,
or closely allied, fields. In a letter, under date
of January 11, 1923. addressed by the British
Ambassador, Sir A. Geddes, to the Hon.
Charles E. Hughes, Secretary of State, cordial
thanks are expressed for the kindness shown
Doctor Matley at all of the institutions
visited. Of the American Museum's scientific
staff. Dr. W. D. Matthew, Mr. H. E. An-
thony, and Dr. Chester A. Reeds, received
special mention in this connection.
Dr. Matley is an English geologist of dis-
tinction who had done important geological
work in India previous to his Jamaican ap-
pointment. Among other things he discov-
ered a Cretaceous dinosaur quarry near Jub-
bulpore which has yielded specimens that are
of great scientific interest, especially when
considered in connection with recent discover-
ies made in Africa and in connection also with
the American Museum's finds in Mongolia.
On his present assignment he is absorbed
chiefly in economic work, but he hopes that
in pursuing his tasks he may chance upon
fossil remains having a bearing on the geology
and former land connections of Jamaica.
The American Museum staff appreciated the
privilege of discussing with him the evidence
on these several problems of mutual interest,
and profited greatly by his information and
comments.
ARCHAEOLOGY
Prehistory of Max in Europe. — Since
1912 the American Museum has renewed an
interest in European archaeology which began
many years ago in the acquisition of valuable
collections long unappreciated. The call of
Mr. X. C. Nelson, of the University of Cali-
fornia, as associate curator of North American
archaeology in the American Museum, has
enabled the Museum to devote attention to
the archaeology of the Southwest and to the
archaeology of Europe through encouraging
Mr. Nelson's activities in both lines. Studies
in the Southwest have greatly profited by
the application to this field of the far-
advanced archaeological methods of France.
The methods of work in the two widely sep-
arated areas are similar — both converge in
the writing of two separate chapters in the
prehistory of man. In the Southwest Mr.
Xelson has been aided by the generous provi-
200
NATURAL HISTORY
sions of the Archer M. Huntington Fund; in
western Europe by successive appropriations
from the Jesup Fund. It was by aid of the
latter fund that he made his third and longest
archaeological tour in Europe in the period
between May 31 and December 4, 1922.
Through his three successive journeys Mr.
Xelson is now able to arrange the Museum's
entire archaeological collection from Europe in
accordance with the results of the most recent
researches, to note the main gaps, and to
plan how these gaps may gradually be filled
through exchange or purchase, until finally
the American Museum shall be in a position
to present a complete and representative
exhibition collection of the whole prehistory
of man in Europe. Emphasis is laid upon
exhibition, because it is obvious that no
attempt need be made to build up a research
collection, as Europe is not the Museum's
research field.
"La Prehistoire," ky Dr. Louis Capi-
tan. — This book,1 a copy of which Doctor
Capitan has recently sent to Professor Henry
Fairfield Osborn, is a duodecimo of 157 pages
and 26 plates, which presents in a most con-
cise and attractive form the whole story of
the Stone Age together with the Copper Age
and the Bronze Age, concluding with the two
earliest stages of the Iron Age.
It is especially welcome, as it brings the
reader up to the date of the most recent dis-
coveries, an undertaking for which the dis-
tinguished author is exceptionally qualified.
Born in 1854, from his youth up he evinced
an active interest in prehistory, and as early
as 1878 he contributed a prehistoric exhibit to
the Exposition of that year. Since then he
has made a very extensive collection of pre-
historic, archseologic, and ethnographic speci-
mens, which he has presented to the Musee de
Saint-Germain.
In 1893 he commenced his researches and
explorations in Dordogne in the valley of the
Vezere, in collaboration with Peyrony, to
whom he imparted his methods of strati-
graphy— that is to say, the study of archse-
ologic deposits excavated strictly layer by
layer, a method which had never before been
used in Dordogne.
In 1901, with Peyrony and Breuil (another
of his pupils), both of whom are now recog-
nized authorities, he discovered successively
the two great caves of Combarelles and Font-
de-Gaume near Les Eyzies, the walls of which
i Published by Payot & Cie, Paris, 1922.
are covered with engravings and paintings
made by men of the Glacial Epoch, at least
ten thousand or twelve thousand years ago.
The observations and reports of these three
savants completely settled the question of the
age and authenticity of these earliest works of
art, and the results of their research are em-
bodied in the magnificent illustrated work.
La Caverne de Font-de-Gaume aux Eyzies,
that appears under their joint names.
Lack of space renders it impossible to give
even the titles of the hundred and more
important works devoted to prehistory which
have been published by Dr. Capitan, but an
idea of the extensive scope of his work is
obtained when we consider that he is professor
at the College de France, in charge of the
course on American antiquities; professor
i if prehistoric anthropology at the Ecole
d' Anthropologic; that he has been for thirty
years past a member of the Commission des
Monuments megalithiques, and is at present
vice president of the prehistoric section of
the Commission des Monuments historiques —
being especially occupied in securing the
preservation of the caves and archseologic
deposits of Dordogne, and of the huge mega-
lit hie monuments of Brittany; and — in the
Commission muhicipale du Vieux Paris —
chairman of the committee on excavations,
which studies with painstaking detail all
excavations made in the sub-soil of Paris.
It is on these various accounts even more
than on his medical record that he was elected
a member of the Academic de Medecine.
He is also an Officier of the Legion d'Hon-
neur, for military service, having served as
physician in charge of the department of
contagious diseases in the military hospital of
Begin at Vincennes throughout the late war.
In La Prehistoire, his most recent book, the
open-minded and progressive spirit of Doctor
Capitan is especially exemplified by his
acceptance of the human origin of the worked
flint implements of Pliocene age recently dis-
covered at Foxhall :
At Ipswich, Norfolk, England, Mr. Reid
Moir has drawn attention for some years
back to the existence of flints which he be-
lieved to be worked, at the base of the Crag,
a marine deposit of Late Pliocene age, and
consequently Tertiary. The study of these
Hints and of the strata where they were found
in situ by Breuil and Burkitt, and later by
myself, with several colleagues competent to
pronounce judgment, makes it possible to
assert that at least some of them — although
not many — have unquestionably been worked
XOTES
201
and retouched in order to produce tools for
planing, scraping, and piercing. All the
experts to whom we have shown them are of
the same opinion. It is necessary, therefore,
to assign a considerably earlier date to the
appearance of the first implements fashioned
and used by the first hominids, who must
thus have been witnesses of the beginning of
the great Glacial Epoch.
On the much more debatable evidence con-
cerning the existence of worked flints signaliz-
ing the presence of man in epochs earlier than
the Pliocene, he writes:
Perhaps it may prove possible to assign
an even earlier date. Our reference is to the
flints noted by Rames in 1877 at Puy-Courny
near Aurillac, Cantal, in sands belonging to
the Late Miocene (Middle Tertiary), and
lying beneath an eruption of basalt. Certain
of these flints are identical with Mousterian
implements. I myself have unearthed blades,
scrapers, and piercers which seemed to me
most probably worked. But the matter is by
no means so certain as at Ipswich. Moreover,
the fact would imply such sweeping conse-
quences that one understands the hesitation
of many savants in accepting it. Unfortu-
nately, no human fossils have ever been found
in these deposits, nor at the neighboring site
of Puy de Boudiou, where Lacroix has found
flints even more amazing. It is therefore
wise to leave the matter in abeyance.
There is no need to refer to the crackled
flints of Thenay, belonging to the Oligocene
( Early Tertiary) , noted by the Abbe Bourgeois
in 1863. Their form is due to purely natural
causes.
On the question which is most debated of
all, namely, the value of eoliths, he expresses
the following opinion:
Among the innumerable flint fragments
and flakes from all the geologic levels, many
series are found in which the marginal re-
touch, or the forms like lance-heads, points,
tools with cutting edges, or even with dinted
sides, would seem to indicate that they were
used for puncturing, piercing, scraping, and
hammering. Rutot, an acknowledged savant,
and curator of the museum of Brussels, con-
siders them as the earliest stages of human
handiwork, and has named them 'eoliths.'
If Rutot's theory is correct, if such implements
are innumerable and often authentic as they
occur in all archaeologic deposits, they are our
tools of use or chance (see Plate II), They do
not seem, however, to present such unmistak-
able evidences of being intentionally worked,
that from them alone one could assert — as
Rutot thinks — that they were fashioned with
deliberate intent, and must therefore have
been the work of men or hominids. It follows
that we cannot admit, with Rutot, from this
evidence alone, that the existence of eoliths at
Boncelles, near Liege, at the very base of the
Tertiary, or at a number of other very ancient
sites, constitutes a certain proof of the exis-
tence at that timeof man or even of pre-man.
ANTHROPOLOGY
The Aztec Ruin, one of the most interest-
ing survivals from the past in our Southwest,
has been created a national monument by
proclamation of President Harding in recog-
nition of its great antiquity and historical
interest. This action has been made possible
through the donation of the site to the govern-
ment by the American Museum, in fulfillment
of the wish of Mr. Archer M. Huntington, who
supplied the funds through which the Museum
originally acquired the site and who defrayed
the expenses connected with its exploration
as part of his contribution to the Survey of
the Southwest. Mr. Huntington has always
taken great interest in the history and pre-
history of that part of the New World that
was occupied by the Spaniards and this gift
to the nation, which is virtually Mr. Hunt-
ington's gift, although presented in the name
of the American Museum, is another instance
of the generosity of this patron of early
American history and art. The excavation
of the ruin has been in progress since 1916.
being in charge of Mr. Earl H. Morris, who
has resided on the site. More than one-half
of the ruin has been unearthed, including
the famous "painted room," and a number
of objects that have enriched our knowledge
of the past have been brought to light. As a
result of the transfer of ownership, Mr.
Morris becomes the government custodian of
the monument. It is fitting that a spot of
such interest should be preserved, to quote the
President's words, "for the enlightenment and
culture of the Nation."
Mr. James A. Teit, who died at Spence's
Bridge, British Columbia, October 30, 1922.
made very great contributions to the work of
the American Museum without ever having
held an official position in that institution.
A Scotchman from the Shetland Islands, he
came to Canada when a young man and later
settled among the Thompson Indians of
British Columbia, acquiring a thorough speak-
ing knowledge of their language. His resi-
dence among them gave him an opportunity
for securing ethnological information and his
intelligent interest in them prompted him to
make the best use of that opportunity. Under
the inspiration and personal guidance of
Professor Franz Boas, who directed the work
of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Mr.
Teit gathered and prepared for publication
the material contained in the Memoir. '"The
202
NATURAL HISTORY
Thompson Indians of British Columbia"
(Publications of the Jesup North Pacific
Expedition, Vol. I, pt. 4, pp. 163-392, 1900).
Later his work was extended to neighboring
related tribes and similar studies appeared on
"The Lillooet Indians" (Vol. II, pt. 5, pp.
193-300, 1906), and "The Shuswap" (Vol.
II, pt. 7, pp. 443-789, 1909). As a continua-
tion of Mr. Teit's work among the Thompson
Indians, "Mythology of the Thompson
Indians" (Vol. VIII, pt. 2, pp. 199-416)
appeared in 1912. The extensive and carefully
made ethnological collections of the Museum
from these three tribes were gathered by Mr.
Teit.
In addition to the work for the Jesup
Expedition described above, Mr. Teit made
a survey of the Salish dialects and the dialects
of neighboring Athapascan tribes, a study of
the Tahltan Indians, and, with the late Dr.
H. K. Haeberlin, a thorough study of Salish
basketry. Many of the results of his later
work are still unpublished. It was mainly
financed by Mr. Homer E. Sargent of Chicago,
who became acquainted with Mr. Teit on a
hunting trip in 1902 and remained his de-
voted friend until Mr. Teit's death. The
more recent work, like the earlier work, was
planned and directed by Professor Franz Boas
from whom the facts contained in this note
have been obtained.
Reception for the Pueblo Indians. — On
January 26 the American Museum accorded
a reception to the delegation of Pueblo
Indians that had crossed the continent to
register a protest against the Bursum Bill,
which through the invasion of their property
rights would render still more precarious the
existence they have been maintaining for
centuries on their patches of irrigated desert
in New Mexico. These visitors, bewildered
by the sky-scrapers of New York and the
thunder of subway and elevated trains, and
chilled to the bone by our inclement winter,
must more than once, in spite of the cordial
reception extended to them everywhere in the
city, have longed for the sunny quiet of their
adobe villages. Accordingly, in preparing for
their entertainment, Dr. P. E. Goddard,
curator of ethnology, American Museum,
arranged to show in the auditorium moving
pictures of scenes that would be reminiscent
of home. The life of the Hopi pueblos, with
its daily domestic routine and its picturesque
observances, including the snake dance, the
flute ceremony, and the lalakonti, was accord-
ingly shown on the screen. Several of the
Indian visitors from New Mexico had never
been to Arizona, where the Hopi are located,
and their first acquaintance with the ways of
their neighbors was derived from these films.
Later the Indians were conducted to the
Southwest Indian hall, where they were able
to examine the ethnological collections illus-
trative of the civilization of their own and
related pueblos and to speak to the gathering
of white men sympathetic to the cause which
they are pleading. Their legal representative,
Mr. Wilson, outlined in detail the progress of
the struggle which is being waged in Washing-
ton against the recalcitrant few in official life
who persist in defending the Bursum Bill in
spite of its obvious iniquities. Mrs. Atwood,
to whose initiative it is due that defensive
measures on behalf of the Indians were under-
taken, was then introduced by Dr. Goddard
and received an ovation of hand-clapping as
she bowed acknowledgment. The represen-
tative from the pueblo of Isleta brought the
exercises of the afternoon to a conclusion,
addressing the audience in a dramatic speech
that came straight from the heart, in which he
pleaded for that justice to the Indian that
lias been so often denied him.
Addresses by Anthropologists. — On De-
cember 27 Dr. Clark Wissler, curator of
anthropology, American Museum, addressed
the section of anthropology of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science,
on "Cooperative Research in Anthropom-
etry." On the same occasion. Dr. Milo
Helhnan, research associate in physical
anthropology, presented by title "Observa-
tions on the Eruption of Teeth in Relation to
Growth and Development."
At the meeting of the American Anthropo-
logical Association on December 28, Mr. N. C.
Nelson, associate curator of archa-ology,
American Museum, presented some " Notes on
the Progress of Archaeology in Europe."
The Art Work of Mr. E. W. Deming. —
From December 10, 1922, to January 10,
1923, there was exhibited at the Brooklyn
Museum a series of paintings, decorations,
bronzes, and book illustrations of American
Indians and of animals of the Western Hemi-
sphere by Edwin Willard Deming. The artist .
some of wrhose paintings figure as murals in the
American Museum, has been interested in the
red man from .childhood, having played in the
sixties with the Winnebago youngsters that
accompanied their elders on the winter hunt-
XOTES
203
ing and trapping trips to the district in ( >hio
where he then lived. As a young man most of
his time was spent studying and sketching the
Indian tribes from Hudson Bay to southern
Mexico. He lived among the Indians of
Oklahoma before that area was opened to
settlers; he sojourned in the camp of Sitting
Bull when the Sioux were dancing the big war
dance just before the Wounded Knee fight;
he has been adopted and named by the Black-
foot Indians and by the Pueblo.
His art work gives evidence of the breadth
of his studies and the extent of his travels.
Included in the exhibition at the Brooklyn
Museum were scenes ranging from Hudson
Bay to the jungles of South America, and
from the still-existing terraced-house com-
munities of Arizona and New Mexico to the
vanished Indian life of our eastern coast in
the far-off days of the Dutch occupation.
Animal subjects, represented both by paint-
ings and by bronzes, gave further proof of Mr.
Deming's breadth of interest and artistic skill.
BIRDS
Mr. James P. Chapin, assistant curator,
African birds, in the American Museum, pre-
sented a paper entitled "Ecological Aspects
of Bird Distribution in Tropical Africa" before
the American Society of Naturalists at their
gathering in Boston and Cambridge during
the closing days of December.
At a meeting of the Executive Committee
of the American Museum of Natural History,
held on December 20, 1922, the following
resolution was unanimously adopted:
Resolved, That the Trustees desire to express
their deep appreciation of the valuable re-
searches of Doctor William Morton
Whkeler in biological science and especially
in the field of entomology, who, through his
indefatigable energy and keen perception,
has advanced this science and brought fame
to the American Museum of Natural History,
the service of which he entered in the year
1903. In the light of these achievements, the
Trustees are glad to comply with the recom-
mendation of the Scientific Staff that the
Board confer upon him the highest scientific
honor within their power and hereby take
pleasure in electing Doctor Wheeleb an
Honorary Fellow.
At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of
the American Museum of Natural History,
held on February 5, 1923, the following resolu-
tion was unanimously adopted:
Resolved, That the Trustees appreciate the
keen interest of COLONEL .). C. FattnthoRPE
and Mr. Arthur S. Vernay in the Museum
as expressed in their organization and con-
duct of the Faunthorpe Indian Expedition,
and in recognition of their contribution to
the cause of science take pleasure in electing
them Honorary Life Members of the Ameri-
can Museum.
At the same meeting the following resolu-
tion was passed by affirmative vote of all
present :
Resolved, that in accordance with the recom-
mendation of the Scientific Staff, as recorded
in the minutes of its meeting of January 9.
1923, the Trustees hereby elect the following
Corresponding Members of the Museum for
five years ending 1928:
Dr. J. G. Andersson, Mining Adviser to the
Chinese Republic, Peking, China; Dr. F. A.
Bather, Deputy Keeper of Geology, British
Museum (Natural History) London, England;
Dr. Robert Broom, Douglas, South Africa;
Dr. Lucius C. Bulkley, Medical Missionary,
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Mission-.
Petchaburi, Siam; Dr. L. Capitan, Ecole
d'Anthropologie, Paris, France; Dr. Charles
Chilton, Professor of Biology, Canterbury
College, Christchurch, New Zealand; Dr.
Robert Dabbexe, Museo Nacional, Buenos
Aires, Argentina; Dr. Carlos be la Torre,
Rector, University of Havana, Cuba; Dr.
Emmaxuel de Margerie, University of
Strasbourg, France; Dr. Victor Gold-
schmidt, Professor of Mineralogy, University
of Heidelberg, Germany; Mr. F. H. Haines,
Brookside, Winfrith, Dorset, England; Dr.
Archibald G. Huntsman, Professor of
Biology, University of Toronto, Ontario,
Canada; Dr. Alfred La Croix, Professor of
Mineralogy, Museum d'Histoire Naturelle,
Paris, France; Dr. Adolpho Lutz, Instituto
Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Miss
Bertha Lutz, Secretaire, Museo Nacional de
Historia Natural, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil;
Hermano Apolinar Maria, Instituto de La
Salle, Bogota, Colombia; Hermano Nice-
foro Maria, Instituto de La Salle, Bogota,
Colombia; Dr. G. Elliot Smith, Professor
of Anatomy. University College, London,
England; Dr. Baldwin Spencer, Honorary
Director, National Museum of Victoria, Mel-
bourne, Australia; Dr. Shigeho Tanaka,
Professor of Zoology. Imperial University of
Tokio, Japan; Dr. Friedrich yon Hxtene,
Professor of Geology, University of Tubingen,
Germany; Dr. Karl Wejngand, Had
Mergentheim, Wurttemberg, Germany.
In addition to those mentioned above, the
following persons have been elected members
204
NATURAL HISTORY
of the American Museum since the last issue
of Natural History made its appearance:
Benefactors: Messrs. Edward S. Harkness,
George D. Pratt, Felix M. Warburg, and
Harry Payne Whitney.
Associate Founders: Messrs. Childs Frick
and Adrian Iselin.
Patron: Mr. Herbert F. Schwarz.
Life Members: Mesdames Walter Graeme
Ladd, Frank Osman Warner; the Misses
Ruth B. Fisher, Elizabeth K. Lamont;
Messrs. George N. Armsby, Albert Blum,
William P. Harris, Jr., Samuel S. Keyser,
Shepard Krech, Walter G. Ladd, Elkan
Naumburg, Robert C. Ream, Charles L.
Riker, Maurice C. Sternbach, and Master
Francis Day Rogers.
Sustaining Members: Mrs. Clarence Dil-
lon; Dr. L. D. Ricketts; Messrs. C. Allen
Blyth and Arthur A. Zucker.
Annual Members: Mesdames James Baihd,
Alfred M. Barbe, Thatcher M. Brown,
Frank C. Cadden, A. B. Field, Edward W.
Foster, Stanley J. Hale, Montgomery
Hare, Hayden B. Harris, E. D. Lee Her-
reshoff, Samuel Hird, Anton G. Hoden-
pyl, Roger S. Howson, Thomas Hunt,
Francis C. Huntington, S. Pitney John-
son, Wm. Templeton Johnson, Paul T.
Jones, Frederic R. Kellogg, Philip D.
Kerrison, C. W. Kimball, Jr., William C.
Langley, Samuel A. Lewisohn, George
Core MacCracken, Lettie D. Mont-
gomery, F. A. C. Perrine, Carroll J. Post,
Jr., Sanford Procter, Lyman Rhoades,
Bertha Rosenheim, Eugene A. Sichel,
Grace V. Waters; the Misses Candace
Hewitt, Mary E. Hird, Evangeline B.
Johnson, Cornelia T. Kirby, Lucile
Thornton; Doctors Eugene H. Eisin<;,
William Sargent Ladd, Philip Van
Ingen, J. Lowe Young; the Reverend
F. A. Henry, the Reverend Wilson Mac-
donald; Messrs. Henry A. Albert, S. L.
Asche, Bradford Boardman, Newcomb
Cleveland, John E. DeRuyter, A. C.
Dickins, E. J. Dimock, Nelson Double-
day, Charles Dupee, Angus Macdonald
Frantz, Morris Gintzler. Alfred L.
Goldman, William Valentine Higgins,
Herman Hoch, Chas. W. Hodell, Fred-
erick C. HODGDON, R. M. HURD, JONATHAN
Ingersoll, William Fletcher Irwin,
Franklin H. Kalbfleisch, Frederick W.
Keasbey, Nicholas Kelley, George W.
KlTTREDGE, JULIUS KrUTTSCHNITT, O. H. P.
La Farge, Gilbert D. Lamb, Robert A.
Lovett, C. F. MacMurray, R. D. Murray,
Walter W. Naumberg, Benjamin Pair.
Wm. Halsey Peck, Cole Porter, Raphael
Pumpelly, Robert Ogden Purves, H. H.
Raymond, Isidor H. Russek, Schuyler R.
Schaff, Isaac B. Shamesman, Ekko Soll-
mann, Samuel H. Sternberg, Prentice
Strong, F. R. Welles, Walter White,
Westley Woods, Roland Young, and
Charles L. Zabriskie.
Associate Members: Mesdames Carrie J.
Doane, Louise M. Ford, Louis A. Mans-
field, William C. Spruance, Jennie G.
Stoddard; the Misses Bertha Deecke,
Maud Fisher, Helen E. Hebard, Matilda
Jacobs, Hope Lewis, Doreen Potter,
Esther E. Richards, Grace B. Rising; the
Duke of Alba; Doctors J. K. Breiten-
becher, A. P. Chesterfield, Juan Iturbe,
John C. Lyman, C. S. Rice, S. B. Scott,
Paul H. Stevenson, Frederick C. Thayer,
J. O. Van Winkle; Professors W. F.
Cummins, Ralph E. Danforth, Oren F.
Evans; Messrs. Alfred Dills Baker, Sam
Behrendt, De Lancey Bentley, Elverton
C. Berry, George Risser Biecher, J. T.
Brickley, Frederick Brooks, Arthur L.
Clark, P. H. Doherty, Paul Snavely Ens-
minger, Wilmot R. Evans, Jr., Lorenz
Frankfurth, Frank L. Gall, E. L. Gray,
Karl Hager, C. L. Hardwick, M. H. Har-
rington, Le Roy Harvey, Alexander
Henderson, John A. Kennedy, Wm. S.
Kline, C. W. Leister, R. W. Limbert,
Fisher H. Nesmith, Jr., Chas. Ohlmann,
William H. Reeves, John E. Reynolds, C.
H. Robbins, L. B. Robeson, Ralph E. Sha-
NER, WlLLARD C. SlSSON, E. GRAYWOOD
Smyth, Eric Spalding, John R. Sum an.
Warner Taylor, John C. Thysell, Wm.
Chattin Wetherill, Roger B. Williams,
Lester R. Williard, and the Curley
School.
NATURAL
[_J[ 1
A JI 1 .
D
THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM
DEVOTED TO NATURAL HISTORY.
EXPLORATION, AND THE DEVELOP-
MENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
THROUGH THE MUSEUM
MAY-JUNE, 1923
[Published Juno, 1923)
Volume XXIII, Number 3
Copyright, 1923, by The American Museum of Natural History, New York. N. Y.
ATURAL HISTORY
Volume XXIII CONTENTS FOR MAY-JUNE Number 3
Frontispiece, Restoration of the Tree-browsing Baluchitheres of Central
Asia : :. 208
From a crayon drawing made by Mrs. E. Rungius Fulda, under
the direction of Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn
The Extinct ( Jiant Rhinoceros Baluchitheriinn of Western and Central Asia
Henry Fairfield Osborn 20S
The largest rhinoceros of all time — probably the largest of terrestrial mammals — compared with other
rhinoceroses, living and extinct.
Illustrated by portraits, uniform in scale, of these animals by such artists as Charles R. Knight, Mrs. E.
Rungius Fulda, Mrs. L. M. Sterling, and Philip I. Sclater, as well as by photographs taken in the
field by Mr. Herbert Lang and Mr. Jennet's Richardson.
Some Bird Voices of the Northern Woods Charles Macnamara 229
Songs and calls of the feathered visitors to Arnprior, Ontario. Canada
With photographs of the region and of its birds
Nature and Human Nature in a Probationary Classroom
Lucy Clarke Simonson 239
The inspirational value of nature teaching in remolding young lives
Man as a Museum Subject ('lark Wissler 244
Landmarks in the development of the department of anthropology, American Museum
With pictures indicating the scope of its activities and its accomplishments
The Buried Past of Mexico Clarenxe L. Hay 2oS
Opportunities for archaeological work in the central and northern parts of the republic
Photographs of sites and excavated objects supplied by Dr. Manuel Gamio, Mrs. Zelia X ut tall. Dr. A. Y.
Kidder, the Museum of the American Indian Heye Foundation, etc.
Monkeys Trained as Harvesters E. W. Gudger 272
Instances of a practice extending from remote times to the present
With pictorial records from the tombs of Egypt and from present-day .lava
The Buffalo Drive and an Old-World Hunting Practice . . Robert H. Lowie 280
A cultural parallel between the Lapps and the North American Indians
Illustrated
The Natives of South Africa Robert Broom 283
The ancient and surviving races of this area
Photographs of characteristic types by A M. Cronin
Jumping "Seeds" . Frank A. Leach 29o
Plant growths that hop about like Heas
Illustrated
Notes 301
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Volume XXIII
MAY-JUNE
Number 3
The Extinct Giant Rhinoceros Baluchithenum
of Western and Central Asia
THE LARGEST RHINOCEROS OF ALL TIME— PROBABLY THE LARGEST OF
TERRESTRIAL MAMMALS—COMPARED WITH OTHER RHINOCEROSES,
LIVING AND EXTINCT
By HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN
President of the American Museum of Natural History
This remarkable animal was first found near Chur-lando, Baluchistan, by the Cambridge
University explorer and palaeontologist, C. Forster Cooper, and described by him December.
1911; it was given the generic name Baluchitherium, to commemorate the region where it was
discovered, and the specific name osbomi, in honor of the writer of the present article. The
second discovery was made near Turgai, a province of north Turkestan, by the Russian palae-
ontologist, A. Borissiak, and named Indricotherium asiaticum in 1916. Neither discovery
included the skull, although parts of the teeth were found, indicating an affinity to the rhinoc-
eroses. The third discovery, revealing for the first time the creature's skull, was made in central
Mongolia, by the Third Asiatic Expedition, which the American Museum is conducting in
cooperation with the American Asiatic Society and with Asia and of which Mr. Roy Chapman
Andrews is the leader. This find was named Baluchitherium grangeri, in honor of Walter Granger,
the chief palaeontologist of the expedition.
It is necessary to open this article
with a brief outline of what we have
previously known of the history of the
horned and hornless rhinoceroses of the
world, for without such an introduction
we cannot give Baluchitherium its true
setting among the great group of
quadrupeds which originally derived
its family name from the earliest rhi-
noceros known to the savants of west-
ern Europe, namely, the Rhinoceros
unicornis of India.
The Greek word rhinoceros is derived
from rhino (p\vb), nose, and keras
(nepas), horn, to which was added the
Latin specific name tin icornis, signify-
ing jointly the animal which hears a
single horn on the nasal region of the
skull. This unicorn-rhinoceros — fa-
mous in the history of zoology, in animal
mythology, where it appears as the
unicorn, as well as in the history of
medicine throughout the Middle Ages
because the horn was supposed to have
peculiar medicinal virtues1 — was long
'Seo the article entitled "The Uni >orn and His Horn,"
by Fiederic A. Lucas, Natural History, Vol. XX,
November-December, 1922, pp. 532 :5">.
believed to be the only rhinoceros in
the world. But when Africa was
opened up to explorers, the 'black'
rhinoceros was discovered with its two
horns, namely, a nasal and a median,
and naturally was described in 1758 as
Rhinoceros bicornis, signifying the two-
horned rhinoceros. This discovery was
followed in 1817 by the description of
the giant '-white' rhinoceros of Africa,
distinguished by its lighter grayish
color from the black rhinoceros. To
this 'gray-white' rhino the name
Rhinoceros simus was given, the Latin-
Greek specific name (Latin = simus,
Greek = a lijl 6s) signifying the flat-nosed
or snub-nosed rhinoceros, in reference
to the very broad snout adapted to
grazing, emit e different from the narrow
and pointed snout of the black rhinoc-
eros, which is adapted to browsing.
Long before this, however, fossil
rhinoceroses began to be found. First
came the discovery of the great Rhinoc-
eros antiquitatis, so named by Blumen-
bach in 1701); this is the 'woolly' rhi-
noceros of the northern tundras of the
210
XATURAL HISTORY
Ice Age, a companion to the 'woolly'
mammoth (Elephas primigenius) , also
named by Blumenbach. All of these
living and fossil rhinoceroses, discov-
ered in Asia, Africa, Siberia, and vari-
ous parts of western Europe, were
distinguished by the presence of either
one or two horns, varying in propor-
tions and culminating in the gigantic
single-horned Elasmotherhim sibiricum
and the gray-white rhinoceros. Gray
was the first (1867) to apply to the
white rhinoceros the distinct generic
name Ceratotherium.
Naturalists then began to be im-
pressed with the differences in the
cutting teeth of the rhinoceroses, which
were composed not of canine tusks as in
other quadrupeds, but of an enlarged
pair of upper and lower incisor teeth.
rflS^
in*
RHINOCEROS
I
■'/
\
After an etching of the "Rhinocerus" by Albrechl Diirer, dated
1515, presented to the American Museum by Dr. Bashford Dean.
Comparing this remarkable etching with Philip Lutley Sclater's draw-
ing of the Rhinoceros unicornis reproduced on page 219, we observe
that Diirer has interpreted the dermal armature of the Indian rhi-
noceros in terms of the ornamented steel armor of the age of chivalry
in which the horn was borne not on the
nasals but on the middle of the top of
the skull.
Thus a great variety of generic
names was successively applied, refer-
ring to horns of different kinds, as fol-
lows: Dicerorhinus Gloger (1841) and
C eratorhinus Gray (1867) to the primi-
tive two-horned rhinoceros discovered
in Sumatra; Diceros Gray (1821) to
the two-horned black rhinoceros of
Africa; and Opsiceros Gloger (1841) to
both the African black rhinoceros (type)
namely, the second incisor above and
the second incisor below, corresponding
with the tusks in the elephant family
which are also second incisors above
and below and not canines as would at
first appear. Consequently naturalists
began to distinguish the rhinoceros* •-
by the presence or absence of their
cutting teeth: for example, rhinoc-
eroses without cutting teeth were all
placed in the genus Atelodus, proposed
by Pomel in 1853; the thick-jawed
rhinoceros of Greece was named
THE EXTINCT GIAXT RHINOCEROS BALC( II ITHERI CM 211
Colodus, and the large-toothed rhinoc-
eros of Archer, Florida, was named
Eusyodon by Leidy.
All together between 1758, when Lin-
naeus made the Indian rhinoceros the
type of his genus Rhinoceros, and 1904,
the year of the publication of Palmer's
great Index Generum Mammalium
(Index to the Genera of Mammals),
not less than 42 generic names were
proposed for the various kinds of
rhinoceroses, many receiving several
generic names which became synonyms
of one another. Up to and including
the years 1897-1905, when Troues-
sart's great Catalogus Mammalium tarn
Viventium quam Fossilium was written,
upwards of 170 species of rhinoceroses,
living and fossil, had been described.
HORNLESS RHINOCEROSES DISCOVERED,
1832-1 911
Naturalists became so accustomed to
the idea of one or two horns as a uni-
versal characteristic of the rhinoceros
family, that in the year 1832 there came
as a complete surprise the discovery of
a skull near Eppelsheim in the vicinity
of Darmstadt, Germany, of what was
supposed to be a hornless rhinoceros. To
this specimen the palaeontologist Kaup
gave the generic name of Aceratherium,
signifying a rhinoceros without horns,
the absence of horns being compensated
for by a pair of strongly offensive upper
and lower incisive tusks, to which the
specific name incisivum refers: hence
Kaup's animal was considered a horn-
less rhinoceros with incisive tusks.
The writer's own observations, made
during the year L898 on this same
specimen, are detailed below.
The timeliness of recalling Kaup's
discovery at the present moment is
that the great Baluchitherium also
proves to be a hornless rhinoceros with
very powerful incisive tusks, and at
once the question arises as to its rela-
tionship to the Aceratherium incisivum
of Kaup. In considering this question,
we must first realize that Baluchi-
then' ion grangeri is of Oligocene or of
Miocene age and is thus geologically
more ancient than Kaup's Aceratherium
incisivum, which is of Lower Pliocene
age. Obviously Baluchitherium can-
not be a descendant of Aceratherium,
and with that possibility eliminated,
another alternative suggests itself:
whether it may not be a gigantic ances-
tor from which the Pliocene Acerather-
ium descended. We shall see that this
conjecture must be answered with a
decided negative, because Baluchither-
ium belongs to a distinct breed or line
of hornless rhinoceroses, a line of evo-
lution now made known for the first
time by a series of discoveries begin-
ning in 1911.
SEVEN DISTINCT LINES OF RHINOC-
EROSES, HORNED AND HORNLESS,
RECOGNIZED BEFORE BALUCHI-
THERIUM WAS DISCOVERED
All the herbivorous quadrupeds tend
to spread and migrate into different
habitats and climates and into new feed-
ing grounds of various kinds to which
they become fitted through a principle
of evolution which the writer has
called adapt ire radiation. The seven
lines of rhinoceroses separated from
each other at a very ancient period,
and although externally similar in
certain cases, they are really very far
apart in their history and anatomy:
even the two living African rhinoceroses
probably separated from each other a
million years ago. Thus the original
genus Rhinoceros now includes nume-
rous distinct branches of the great
rhinoceros family. i
During the years 1893-1905 the
presenl writer was actively engaged in
212
NATURAL HISTORY
the study of the living and extinct
rhinoceroses of various parts of the
world. At the time the multiplicity of
42 generic and upwards of 170 specific
names was terrifying; it indicated an
almost hopeless confusion in the minds
of naturalists regarding the real rela-
tionships and affinities of these remark-
able animals. There certainly could
not be 42 different genera of rhinoc-
eroses; the majority of these names
must be synonyms. Nor was it likely
that there could be 170 different spe-
cies of rhinoceroses, highly varied as
these animals were known to be in
various stages of evolution. What key
<f$\ Frontal.
i v .. .
After the author's sketch of the horn
rugosity at the union of the frontal and
nasal bones of Aceratherium incisivum.
Sketch made at Darmstadt Museum,
August, 1900
could be found to this labyrinthine
maze of names? The mode of search for
such a key was indicated in the preface
of the author's Memoir entitled The
Extinct Rhinoceroses, published by the
American Museum in 1898, namely, to
arrive at a sound basis of classification
for the anatomy and evolution of the
rhinoceroses, derived from a compari-
son of their most primitive forms,
according to the geologic period of
their origin, and from a study of the
characters in which various lines of
rhinoceroses parallel or imitate each
other, in contrast to those divergent
characters in which they actually
separate from each other in habits
and habitat; thus laying the foun-
dation of a true interpretation of their
ancestral history.
In order to carry out this purpose,
which the writer formulated during his
study of the very primitive rhinoc-
eroses of North America discovered in
the course of the American Museum
expeditions that were conducted be-
tween the years 1890-98, the writer
made a journey during the summers
of 1898 and 1900 through all the great
natural history museums of Europe, —
London, Paris, Lyons, Munich, Darm-
stadt, Stuttgart, Augsburg, Vienna,
St. Petersburg, and Moscow, where the
principal types of fossil and living
rhinoceroses described by the great
palaeontologists and zoologists of
Europe could be found, namely, the
types of Blumenbach, of Cuvier, of
Duvernoy, of Kaup, of Bronn, of
Gaudry, and of other authors too nu-
merous to mention.
In some instances these specimens
were thickly covered with dust. In the
ancient Museum of Darmstadt, for
example, lay Kaup's classic type of
Aceratherium incisivum on a shelf
accumulating the dust of decades. The
aged conservator was horror-stricken
when a young American palaeontologist
appeared requesting the privilege of
examining this venerable specimen
more closely and only through a rather
vigorous appeal to the distinguished
geologist, Professor Richard Lepsius,
did the writer succeed in having this
ancient specimen brought out and
placed on a table. By blowing upon it
a few times and applying a duster the
deposit of dust was removed, and,
presto, the writer made a most interest-
ing discovery which had completely
escaped the learned eye of Professor
Kaup in 1832, i.e., that this type skull
bears indubitable proof of the presence
THE EXTIXCT GIANT RHINOCEROS BALUCHITHERIUM 213
Rhinoceroses still survive only in the areas indicated in solid black on this map, namely, two
species in Africa and three species in Asia. The oblique-line shading indicates the probable
former range of these animals, including all the continents except Australia and South
America. In North America the rhinoceros did not invade Mexico (in this respect the map is
erroneous), but in Middle Miocene times it reached the eastern coast of Maryland, the
Carolinas, and Florida
of a little horn right in the middle of its
forehead, as shown in the accompany-
ing sketch made by the writer before1
the eyes of the astonished curator, and
that the name AceratheHum, or horn-
less, is therefore a misnomer. There-
upon, encouraged by this discovery,
the dust was removed everywhere;
rusty locks were opened ; ancient trays
filled with dust-covered specimens wore
taken down from the shelves. At
times there wore picturesque occur-
rences,— for instance in the Imperial
Museum of Moscow, where the head
curator appeared in an ornate uniform
to welcome the writer. As a rule, how-
ever, the work was hard and prosaic.
requiring rapidly executed pencil
sketches and volumes of notes, draw-
ings, and memoranda; but the sequel
was highly satisfactory. It was ex-
pressed in the writer's rhinoceros
article entitled "Phylogeny of the
Rhinoceroses of Europe," published as
a Bulletin of the American Museum,
December 11, 1900, in which the fol-
lowing conclusion was reached: that
the true rhinoceroses of the Age of
Mammals and of modern times belong
in at least six great and distinct lines
of descent and of evolution, which have
been separated from each other since
very early geologic times and from
which lesser branches have been given
off. The eight great lines now known
are as follows:
I. Primitive hornless A.CEB \theres of west-
em Europe and North America, entirely horn-
less or with rudiments of horns on the forehead.
II. Primitive two-horned DiCERATHERES,
in which two little horns are placed side
by side :it the front of the aasals instead of
tandemwise. These animals range from west-
ern Europe to North America.
III. Short-footed rhinoceroses, Bkachy-
podines, with a body shape like that of hip-
popotami, and a sharp, wedge-shaped horn at
the very tip of the nasals. These migrated
from western Europe to the southern United
States.
214
XATCRAL HISTORY
IV. Tandem-horned rhinoceroses, Ckka-
torhines, chiefly of southern Asia and south-
ern Europe, surviving in the Sumatran
rhinoceros, now living in the forests of
Sumatra; never finding their way to North
America.
V. Typical rhinoceroses of India, Rmxoc-
krotines, with a single anterior horn, Rhi-
noceros indicus, and its relative, R. sondaieus,
and fossil ancestors.
VI. Rhinoceroses without cutting teeth,
Atelodines, of Africa, including the hook-
lipped browsing Diceros bicornis, the broad-
lipped grazing Ceratotherium si muni, and
fossil ancestors.
VII. Ei.asmotheres, or gigantic rhinoc-
eroses of the tundras of northern Europe and
Asia, with a single huge horn in the middle of
the forehead.
VIII. Baltchitherks (Baluchitheriinse .
gigantic hornless rhinoceroses of the early
Tertiary or Oligocene age of Asia, resembling
the Aceratheres but with stilted limbs at-
taining colossal height ,
L THE PRIMITIVE HORNLESS RHINOC-
EROSES, OR ACERATHEHKS
The Aceratheres ate the simplest
rhinoceroses known, appearing early in
the Age of Mammals. They are found
in southern Europe, southern Asia, and
in our own western states, Colorado
and South Dakota. At first they were
no larger than tapirs, with perfectly
smooth skull top devoid of a rudiment
or sign of a horn either on the nasal
or the frontal bones — thus typical
Aceratheres. Undoubtedly the true
Eocene ancestors of these animals still
await discovery; we may come across
them in Asia. Although there are
animals very close to the ancestral
rhinoceros stage among the varieties of
the quadruped known as Hyrachyus,
found near Fort Bridget- in southwest-
ern Wyoming, we are inclined to be-
lieve that North America was not the
homeland of the rhinoceroses.
The first animal of this kind found
in our western states was brought to
Dr. Joseph Leidy of Philadelphia, the
founder of mammalian palaeontology in
America; he recognized at once its
general resemblance to the Acera-
therium of Kaup (1832) and described
it as Aceratherium occidentals or the
Acerathere of the West. Quite re-
cently there were found in Colorado
the fossil remains of a little herd of
Aceratheres characterized by even more
primitive structure and known as
Trigonias from an upper jaw that had
been described by Lucas in 1900. The
name had been given because of the
presence of triangular cutting teeth at
each angle of the jaw, for these little
animals possessed small upper canine
tusks or eyeteeth, also third upper
incisors, as well as second upper in-
cisors, which were beginning to be en-
larged to press against the tusklike
lower incisor teeth. Another distinc-
tion of these animals was the posses-
sion of four digits on the front foot,
unlike the living rhinoceros, which has
only three, hence their specific name
tetradactylum, signifying four-toed.
These Aceratheres were not only
very numerous but very hardy, well
protected from their enemies and
vigorous. In Lower Oligocene times
they ranged widely over the whole
Northern Hemisphere, both in North
America and Eurasia, including India.
They branched out into several
varieties of descendants, which culmi-
nated in Europe in the Aceratherium
incisivum of the Lower Pliocene of
Germany. In North America they
survived into Middle Pliocene times,
being represented by the Aphelops
megalodus, the hornless and big-toothed
Acerathere of western Colorado de-
scribed by Cope in 1873, and also by
the very long-limbed Aphelops mala-
corhinus of Cope, the hornless, soft-
nosed Acerathere, and finally by the
long-footed one, discovered by Leidy
THE EXTIXCT GIANT RHIXOCEROS BALCCHITHERU'M 215
in Florida and described in L890 under
the specific name longipes.
These Miocene and Lower Pliocene
Accra! heres were almost as large as
the existing Indian rhinoceroses. As
a rule they were everywhere distin-
guished by very powerful lower incisor
tusks, splendid fighting weapons: also
by long limbs whereby they were able
to run swiftly and thus escape their
enemies: the snout was either abso-
semble the Aceratheres in their long
limbs, their relatively slender bodies,
well raised off the ground, and their
strongly offensive and defensive lower
incisor tusks: they are of the size of
tapirs and capable of rapid motion.
They appear to differ, however, from
the outset in two important characters:
they have only three digits on the fore
foot instead of the four found in the
true Aceratheres; but still more im-
Typica] Diceratheres of South Dakota, named Dicerather-
ium bridactylum. The animals were drawn from a perfect
skeleton discovered in 1892 and nowinthe American Museum.
At this stage of evolution the horn rudiments were extremely
slight; they appeared as paired rugosities on the nasal
bones, and are observed only in old male specimens. These
rugose areas are somewhat like the corresponding area
shown in the sketch on page 212. Hence this animal was
first regarded as an Acerathere by Osborn, but later proved
to be an ancestor of the true pair-horned Diceratheres
lutely smooth or, yielding to the rhinoc-
erotine tendency, had nasal horn rudi-
ments. Yet the forehead or median
horn rudiment, as observed in the
Aceratherium incisivum of Kaup, is
aKo present in some of the American
Aceratheres.
II. THE PAIB-HORNED RHINOCEROSES,
OR DICERATHERES, OF EUROPE AND
OF WESTERN NORTH AMERICA
The Diceratheres, like the Acera-
theres, are very primitive and ancient,
namely, of the Oligocene of France and
of South Dakota. Thov closely im-
portant and characteristic is the posi-
tion of the horns, which appear side
by side on the top of the nasals instead
of in the tandem arrangement peculiar
to all other horned rhinoceroses.
The Diceratheres, therefore, are
readily remembered as the pair-horned
rhinoceroses. They too are great
travelers, being very abundant in
central France and in the Rocky Moun-
tain region of South Dakota; from the
latter locality superb specimens were
described by Osborn in 1893 under
the specific name tridactylum in contra-
distinction to tetradactylum. These
216
NATURAL HISTORY
animals were found by the American
Museum expedition in beds of Upper
Oligocene age, and the paired horns
were so rudimentary that it was not at
first recognized that they were true
Diceratheres, directly ancestral to the
species Diceratherium annectens, i.e.,
the annectent Dicerathere, which had
been described by Marsh from the John
Day valley of Oregon in 1873, or to
Diceratherium armatum, the well-armed
Dicerathere, so named by Marsh in
1875, from the same region of Oregon.
Professor Marsh was thus the first to
set apart the pair-horned Diceratheio
from all other rhinoceroses. The
French palaeontologists. Aymard, Fil-
hol, and Duvernoy, hesitated to sep-
arate these pair-horned rhinoceroses,
which they found very abundant in
Upper Oligocene strata in France and
in Germany, although Duvernoy
named one of his specimens Rhinoceros
pleuroceros, signifying that the horns
were borne side by side. These
animals do not appear to have been
quite so vigorous or successful in their
migrations and combats as the Acera-
theres, although they are traced into
the Lower Miocene near Orleans,
namely, the sables de VOrleanais of
central France; and are perhaps even
present in Baluchistan, where they
are reported from beds in the Bugti
Hills although this discovery awaits
confirmation.
So far as we know, the Diceratheres
died out in Lower Miocene times, where-
as the Aceratheres persisted into
Middle Pliocene times both in America
and Eurasia.
III. THE SHORT-FOOTED RHINOCEROSES,
BRACHYPODIXES
In wide contrast to the cursorial and
swift-traveling Aceratheres and Dicera-
theres, there appeared in Lower Mio-
cene times in France, contemporary
with one species of the Diceratheres,
in the same river deposit now known as
the sables de VOrleanais, an animal
first described by the French palaeon-
tologist Xouel as Rhinoceros aureli-
anensis, the rhinoceros of Orleans.
This medium-sized rhino is the earliest
known progenitor of one of the most
extraordinary groups of rhinoceroses
the world has known; extraordinary
because, despite their excessively short
limbs and feet to which the name
brachypodine refers, and their low
heavy bodies, probably adapted like
that of the hippo to living along
river borders, water courses, and
in swampy lowlands, they traveled
over the entire Northern Hemisphere
in great herds, absolutely protected
against their enemies by a very sharp
pair of lower cutting tusks, which re-
semble those of the Aceratheres and
of the Diceratheres, as well as by a very
sharp, narrow, wedge-shaped horn
placed on the very tip of the nasal bone.
With this double protection and prob-
ably a very thick skin, they defied the
( 'arnivora.
We find them in southern France
in great numbers, in the quarries of
the Island of Samos of the eastern
Mediterranean, in the quarries of
Maragha, Persia, in the Siwalik flood-
plain deposits of India, in the East
Indies, and in Japan, — always migrat-
ing eastward. Finally they enter
northern Asia, cross the Asiatic- Ameri-
can land bridge, reach North America,
and, in Lower Pleistocene times, they
not only spread over our western
states as far south as Kansas, but pene-
t rate even to Florida! Finally a great
herd of these animals was discovered in
1883 in a quarry near Long Island,
Phillips Count}', Kansas, by the veteran
collector Charles Sternberg. This
THE EXTIXCT GIAXT RHINOCEROS BAEUCHITH ERIUM 217
wonderful quarry yielded rich collec-
tions to the University of Kansas, to
the Museum of Comparative Zoology
in Cambridge, to the United State-
National Museum, and to the American
Museum.
These animals, as first discovered in
the Upper Miocene of France, received
the specific name of brachypus, signify-
ing the short -footed rhinoceroses: as
partly aquatic in its habits, with a very
large brain and no diploe or spongy
lining to the skull. The limbs were far
shorter than those of any living type of
rhinoceros. In the females the nasal-
bore a very small horn; in the males,
especially as found in the Lower
Pliocene of the Republican River,
Nebraska, the nasals became greatly
thickened at the extremities into a
The short -footed or bracbypodine rhinoceros, known as Teleoceras fossiger, as
it appeared in Lower Pliocene times in the locality now known as Long Island.
Kansas. After a painting by Charles R. Knight, made in L898 under the direc-
tion of the author. This animal was almost certainly aquatic in its habits, and
in a revised restoration it will he shown without the skin folds. It will then
have more of the smooth, rounded appearance of the hippopotamus
found in the Lower Pliocene of
Germany, they were given the specific
name of goldfussi, after one of the
German palaeontologists. Later the
American palaeontologist Hatcher ap-
plied to them the generic name T< [toe-
eras, signifying the end horn rhinoc-
eros. From the collection, already re-
ferred to, that was obtained at Long
Island, Kansas, Osborn in 1S9X de-
scribed Teleoceras as a broad-headed,
extremely short -limbed rhinoceros.
vertically compressed plate which bore
a tall, thin, wedge-shaped horn. The
both* proportions were 10 feet in length.
with a height at the withers of only a
little over 4 feel . and with a girth of the
abdomen at the ribs of 9 feet 2 inches.
It was on the ni( united skeleton from this
same Long Island quarry that Charles
R. Knight in 1898 based the beauti-
ful restoration of Teleoceras that he
drew under t hedireel ion of the writer, as
shown in the accompanying illustration.
218
XATLRAL HISTORY
IV. THE TANDEM-HORNED RHINOCER-
OSES. CERATORHIXES, NOW SURVIV-
ING IN SUMATRA, EASTERN
BENGAL AND ASSAM
Unlike the tandem-horned rhinoc-
eroses of Africa, which have no cutting
teeth, these animals retain small cut-
ting incisor tusks, supplemented by a
pair of relatively small but very effec-
tive horns.
In a little fossil-bearing hill near
Sansan (Gers), France, Lartet in 1848
discovered the diminutive animal
which ho called the rhinoceros of San-
known as Rhinoceros steinheimensis,
found in the Upper Miocene of Stein-
heim, Westphalia. Prussia, assume a
little larger size; they appear some-
what larger still in the race known as
Schleiermach's rhinoceros of the Lower
Pliocene of Eppelsheim. Their first
appearance in southern Asia is in the
'flat-nosed' rhinoceros. Rhinoceros
platyrhinus, of the Lower Pleistocene
deposits of India. Like all rhinoceroses
these animals were first described as
belonging to the genus Rhinoceros, but
This is the two-horned, hairy -eared rhinoceros of eastern
Bengal, known as Rhinoceros lasiotis. Its tandem horns clear-
ly distinguish it from the unicorn rhinoceros of Nepal and
relate it to the rhinoceros of Sumatra. It is now verv rare
san. the Rhinoceros sansaniensis of his
"Notice sur la Colline de Sansan."
Shortly afterwards, in the neighboring
and somewhat more recent deposit of
Simorre, he found the related rhinoc-
eros of Simorre, i.e., Rhinoceros simor-
rensis, a diminutive tandem-horned
rhinoceros of such slender proportions
that Jourdan gave it the specific name
of elegans. These tandem-horned ani-
mals were defended by a horn in the
center of the nasals and a smaller horn
in the center of the forehead. As first
found in the Middle Miocene of France,
they are small and of slender propor-
tions, hardly larger than tapirs; those
they really were profoundly differ-
ent from the Indian Rhinoceros, to
which alone the generic name Rhinoc-
eros properly applies. As observed in
Sumatra, they are persistently primi-
tive animals, and probably inhabited
during the geologic past, as they still
do at present, the deep recesses of
forests. Such protected environment is
never favorable to rapid evolution but
rather to persistence of type: for
example, the forest-living okapi of cen-
tral Africa today is far more primitive
than its remote relative, the plains-
living giraffe, which is exposed to ene-
mies on everv side.
THE EXTINCT GIAXT RHINOCEROS BALUCHITHER1CM 219
These forest-living Ceratorhines were
nevertheless widely distributed in past
time: they were quite abundant in
central India, the present region of the
Siwalik Hills, in late Pliocene or early
Pleistocene times, and we trace them
westward again along the north shores
of the Mediterranean in the slender-
nosed Ceratorhine (Ceratorhinus lep-
torhi rats I, which is represented by
numerous remains from near Mont-
pellier iHerault), France. There is
article, namely, to the typical Asiatic
rhinoceros, R. unicornis, a very power-
ful animal which is nearing extinction,
but still survives in the forests of
Nepal in northern India, where the
Faunthorpe Expedition has recently
secured a fine group for the American
Museum. A related form occurs in the
Islands of the East Indies in the species
R. sondaicus. Xo representatives of
these true Indian rhinoceroses have
ever been found in Europe, or in
This beautiful drawing of the Asiatic rhinoceros, Rhinoceros
unicornis, which appeared in Philip Lutley Sclater's Memoir of
1875 on the rhinoceroses, exhibits the broadly overlapping dermal
folds which completely protect this animal from its enemies, a
defensive adaptation interpreted by Albrecht Diirer in 1515 as
shown on page 210
also the long, slender-limbed Etruscan
Ceratorhine (('. etruscus) from the
Upper Pliocene, a geologic period
when these animals, favored by a genial
climate, occurred in the very broad
forest belt extending from the east
coast of England, where they are
abundant in the Upper Pliocene \Uh\
and Norwich ('rags, southward and
eastward across southern France and
northern Italy to distant India.
V. THE TYPICAL SINGLE-HORNED
RHINOCEROSES OF ASIA
The consideration of the fifth group
brings us back to the bemnnine of this
Africa, or in the remote parts of the
East Indies, or in fact anywhere except
in southern Asia; none of them ever
came over to North America: they
appear to be exclusively Asiatic in their
distribution.
The past geologic history of the true
Indian rhinoceroses is rather obscure,
for they an1 not found in any of the
more1 ancient fossil beds of the Siwaliks,
India, but appear with relative sudden-
ness near the summit of the Siwaliks in
the form of two species known as A'.
sivalensis, the rhinoceros of the Siwa-
liks. unit A', palaeindicus, the ancient
rhinoceros of India. ( >f the t wo surviv-
220
X AT (HAL HISTORY
X.4&
(Right) Side view of the pointed-
lipped 'black' rhinoceros, a browser of
the central African plateau. After
photograph by Jenness Richardson
(Left) Front view of the square-lipped 'white' grazing rhinoceros
of the La do district, Africa. After photograph by Herbert Lang
ing species the giant animal or typical
Rhinoceros unicornis, with its longer
crowned grinding teeth, is a grazer,
preferring the grassy savannas of
Nepal, whereas the smaller rhinoceros
of India, known as R. sond(%icps, is
White rhinoceros skull in the Amer-
ican Museum, brought to England by a
missionary, the Rev. John Campbell,
in the year IS 15; preserved in the
Museum of the London Missionary
Society until 1867; in 1902 purchased
from Cecil Graham by J. Pierpont Mor-
gan and presented to the American
Museum; described in a letter of 1S21
as follows: " The head in the missionary
museum supposed to be the head of the
unicorn, appears to belong to a species
of Rhinoceros previously unknown in
this country."
chiefly a browser, its grinding teeth
being shorter as in all browsers. Both
fossil and living species exhibit a skull
with a forwardly inclined occiput; the
top of the skull is absolutely concave
and hornless in the middle of the fore-
head, whereas the nasals are armed in
the middle portion with a bony rugosity
to support the great anterior horn,
but beyond this the nasals are smooth
and terminate in pointed extremities.
Thus we readily distinguish the nasal
horn region of the true rhinoceroses
from the same part of the skull in
either the Sumatran type or the next
type to be considered, the African.
VI. THE RHINOCEROSES WITHOUT CUT-
Tl.XG TEETH, OR ATELODINES, OF
AFRICA AND EUROPE
The two living African rhinoceroses,
'black' and 'white,' are the sole
survivors of a group of African-
European animals readily distinguished
from the other groups by the fact that
both the upper and lower cutting teeth
are vestigial or wanting, evidently
because these animals gave up the
use of these teeth very early in geologic
time and substituted very broad graz-
ing lips like those of the white rhinoc-
eros for the narrow pointed browsing
lips that are characteristic of the black
rhinoceros. They did not need the
cutting teeth as offensive or defensive
weapons because the top of the skull
was provided with two large, strongly
developed horns placed upon the
nasals and frontals, the frontal horn
THE EXTINCT r ,7.4 AT RHINOCEROS BALVCHITHERI CM 221
both in the white and the black rhinoc-
eros being the most powerful fighting
weapon of the kind developed in any
quadruped.
The ancestors of these animals,
known as Ceratotherium pachygnathum,
suddenly appear in the famous Lower
Pliocene quarries of Pikermi, Greece.
It seems probable that these 'thick-
jawed ' rhinoceroses came to Greece
from Africa accompanied by numerous
antelopes and giraffes, which also
This thick-jawed rhinoceros of the
Greek Pliocene resembles so closely the
great woolly rhinoceros of the Ice Age
of northern Eurasia, described by
Blumenbach in 1799 as R. antiquitatis,
the rhinoceros of antiquity, that Du-
vernoy believed that the Siberian and
Grecian specimens belonged to the
same species, and Albert Gauclry re-
marked in 1862 that this conclusion
was very natural because the limb
bones are so similar.
Mounted specimen of the superb example of the 'white' rhinoceros, Ceratother-
ium simum, collected by the American Museum Expedition of 1909-15 under Messrs.
Lang and Chapin in the Lado district, central Africa, northeast of the Congo forests.
Mounted by Mr. James L. Clark for the Roosevelt African Hall of the American
Museum
appear to be of African origin. A fine
skull and skeleton of the thick-jawed
rhinoceros of Pikermi was described
and figured in 1862 by the veteran
French palaeontologist. Albeit Gaudry;
even in the skull of the young of this
animal there are indications of a very
large frontal horn and the nasal bones
are very broad and thick at their
extremities, adapted to a large nasal
horn; the jaws beneath are reduced
and the front teeth, which are ex-
tremely small, soon disappear. This
animal, like the black rhinoceros of
Africa, was a browser or shrub eater.
The writer verified these observa-
tions by comparison of all the speci-
mens of the black, of the white, of the
thick-jawed, and of the woolly rhinoc-
eros, and came to the conclusion that
the woolly rhinoceros was intermediate
in structure between the black and the
white. The white rhinoceros of Africa
(C simum) is the largest living type.
It has a square upper lip with very
broad nasal bones, the horn rugosities
being carried out to the very extremity
of the nasals so that the horn pitches
forward and its cranial resemblance to
the thick-jawed rhinoceros is remark-
222
NATURAL HISTORY
able. The black rhinoceros (D. bicornis),
on the other hand, has a pointed pre-
hensile upper lip with the somewhat
more pointed nasals associated with
this narrow snout, yet the horns are
carried also to the very extremity.
The writer's conception of the woolly
rhinoceros, which is shown in Mr.
Charles R. Knight's restoration (page
223), indicates an intermediate struc-
ture.
These animals were mainly African
and European in their migrations but
appear to have wandered as far east
able of the rhinoceroses, namely, the
great single-horned Elasmotheres,
which exceeded all other rhinoceroses
in size with the exception of the re-
cently discovered Baluchitheres.
VII. THE ELASMOTHERES OF THE
TUNDRAS AND STEPPES OF
PLEISTOCENE EUROPE
A peculiarity of these Elasmotheres
which gives them their name is the
wavy enamel of the teeth, which folds
in and out in thin plates, the designa-
tion Elasmotherium (e.g., eXao-juos, thin
The 'black' rhinoceros, known as Diceros bicornis, of the
central African plateau; figured by Philip Lutlev Sclater in
1875. This animal is reproduced to the same scale as the rhi-
noceroses represented on pp. 215, 217, 218, 219, 221; it therefore
represents a rather small individual of this powerful animal,
which is none the less considerably inferior in size to the 'white'
rhinoceros ' page 221)
as Maragha, Persia. Their favorite
habitat during the Ice Age was the cold
steppes and tundras of the North to
which they became perfectly adapted
through the development of a thick
undercoating of woolly fleece of a
golden-brown color, a specimen of
which is preserved in the St. Peters-
burg Museum.
The woolly rhinoceros has been
found all over Europe, but to the east
its geographical range may have been
limited by the largest and most formid-
plate, and Q^plov, wild beast) being
applied bj^ the Russian naturalist,
Fischer, in 1808 to the first specimen dis-
covered, namely, E. sibiricum from the
Pleistocene in the vicinity of Miask,
Siberia. During the Ice Age these
animals were driven as far south and
east as central Europe.
They differ from all other horned
rhinoceroses in the entire absence of
any trace of a horn upon the nasals and
in the development in the middle of the
forehead of a gigantic bony prominence
THE EXTINCT GIANT RHINOCEROS BAELCHITHERIUM 223
which may have borne a huge median
horn, or may have supported merely
a thickening of the epidermis. It is
possible, as observed b}r the writer,
that this median horn may have
evolved out of the inconspicuous
median rugosity found by him on the
top of the Aceratherium incisivum skull
in the Museum of Darmstadt. The
ancestry of the Elasmotheres, however.
remains an open question upon which
some light will probably be thrown by
Cooper of Cambridge, England, for-
merly a student in the American Mu-
seum, made his expedition into the
Bugti Hills of eastern Baluchistan on
the borders of India. Here he dis-
covered two kinds of aberrant rhinoc-
eroses,— first, a small animal which he
named Paraceratherium, that is "akin
to Aceratherium" represented by fairly
complete1 skulls and lower jaws; sec-
ond, evidence of an animal of enor-
mous size the kinship of which he
The woolly rhinoceros, described by Blumenbach as Rhinoceros antiquitatis, now known
as Ceratotherium antiquitatis. This scene is in the steppe period or climate of Postglacial
time in northern France. During this period the woolly rhinoceros was portrayed by artists
of the Cro-Magnon race in several drawings or etchings, from which this restoration was
made. Drawn bv Charles R. Knight under the direction of the author
the fossil-hunting parties now working
in northern Asia. Suffice it to say
that the Elasmothere skull surpasses
in size that of the gray-white rhinoceros
of Africa but is still far inferior in size
to that of the Baluchitheres.
VIII. BALUCHITHERES, THE GIANT
HORNLESS RHINOCEROSES OF WEST-
ERN AND CENTRAL ASIA
Such was the general state of our
knowledge of the great family of
rhinoceroses and their migrations until
the year 1911, when Clive Forster
was unable to determine with certainty
although from the first he suspected
its relationship to the rhinoceroses;
this animal he named after the region
of its discovery Baluehitherium, the
wild beast of Baluchistan, and the
specific name osborni he assigned to
it in honor of the present writer.
In a series of papers ( Jooper described
the perfectly gigantic neck bones of
this animal and parts of the foot and
limb bones exceeding those of the ele-
phants in size. Finally, in February,
1923, he concluded that Baluehitherium
224
XATLNAL HISTORY
may be described as the only known
member at the end of a series of odd-
toed ungulates, extremely tall-footed,
probably long-headed, of primitive kin-
ship to the rhinoceroses, somewhat
masked by adaptation to weight, the
direct line of ancestry being as yet un-
known. This excellent conjecture of
1923 was partly based on the discovery
by the Russian palaeontologist Boris-
siak in Turgai, northern Turkestan, of
a gigantic animal to which he gave the
name Indricotherium asiaticum. Boris-
siak was fortunate enough to discover
not only parts of the skeleton but well-
preserved grinding teeth, which he
immediately observed were like those
of some of the large Oligocene Acera-
theres above described. It was found
that the Turkestan animal is very
closely similar in size to that from
Baluchistan so that Forster Cooper and
Borissiak together added to the rhinoc-
eroses of the world a new animal of
gigantic size without being able to
determine precisel}r its affinities to the
other rhinoceroses.
This was the condition of our knowl-
edge when the Third Asiatic Expedi-
tion left Kalgan on April 21, 1922.
The first giant bones were discovered
on the journey north toward Urga near
Iren Dabasu, consisting of an enormous
heel bone (os calcis) and other bones of
the foot and wrist which were recog-
nized at once as comparable in size to
those of Baluckitherium. The second
and most important find was made on
August 5, 1922, near Loh in the Tsagan
Nor Basin : this was a skull with por-
tions of the jaw, the lower end of the
shoulder bone, and the humerus. The
skull and jaw were about fifty feet
apart but probably belonged to the
same individual. About a quarter of a
mile distant were found the remains of
a third specimen.
Fortune favors the brave and the
well prepared : about half the skull was
found in large sections, the remainder
was weathered into hundreds of frag-
ments. From an examination of the
larger pieces and the 360 fragments of
bones and teeth which belonged to this
remarkable specimen it was recognized
at once that it might be possible to
reconstruct the skull. These larger
and smaller parts were excavated by
Mr. Walter Granger with the skill and
cunning which comes from twenty-five
years' experience in the western bad-
lands of the United States. The pack-
ing of this skull, its transportation
across the desert of Mongolia, its
preservation from bandits and from
the unpaid Chinese soldiery, its jour-
ney to Peking, thence to the near-
est port, and finally its safe carriage
to the American Museum, where it
arrived absoluteh' uninjured on De-
cember 19, 1922 — these are among the
great events of palaeontologic history.
It required three months of the most
skilful work in the Museum laboratories
to prepare and restore the skull and
jaws, as they are now shown in the
photograph on page 227. From the
first the animal seemed incredibly
large; it was hard to believe that it was
actually a reality; it immediately
justified the estimate of its original
discoverer, Forster Cooper, that it was
probably the largest land animal
known, taller than any of the existing
elephants, dwarfing the existing or
fossil rhinoceroses, equaling or exceed-
ing in height the most lofty of the
extinct elephants.
The two restorations which are
reproduced on page 226, to be known as
the first and second restorations, show
the successive attempts to portray
its size. The first restoration, which
was hurried forward soon after the
INDIAN RHINOCEROS
SUMATRAN RHINOCEROS
ELASMOTHERE
TELEOCERAS
RHINOCEROSES, LIVING FACING I.I.I I, EXTINCT FACING RIGHT
Baluchitherium grcmgeri VIII towers over all of its relatives I VII
226
X ATI' HAL HISTORY
■ ,
To the left is the first restoration of Baluchitherium grangeri, estimated as 12 feet in
height at the withers, a massive animal towering above the existing 'white' rhinoceros
placed beneath its head and neck.
To the right is the second restoration of Baluchitherium grangeri, estimated as 13 feet
in height at the withers, towering above the Indian rhinoceros placed beneath its head and
neck. In the second restoration the bones thus far discovered are represented in solid
lines, the conjectural bones in dotted lines. The body outline in both restorations is
highly conjectural
great skull arrived, represents a very
massive animal proportioned somewhat
like the rhinoceros, of a shoulder
height of 12 feet, making the gray-white
rhinoceros of Africa appear like an
infant. The second restoration, dated
March 24, 1923, prepared under the
direction of the writer, changed the
proportions considerably, giving the
animal the greater height of 13 feet at
the shoulders and a relatively longer
neck. The head reached a normal
height of 14 feet above the ground but
readily attained a height of 16 feet
when the creature stretched its neck.
In this second restoration the body is
relatively shortened, the limbs rela-
tively lengthened. With the able
assistance of Dr. "William K. Gregory,
the writer calculated with great care
the body proportions of Baluchitherium
as compared with those of the white
rhinoceros, of the black rhinoceros,
of the Oligocene Aceratheres, of the
short-footed Teleocerine rhinoceroses,
and finally of a gigantic horse bred in
Kansas that attained a height of I8/4
hands, or 6 feet, 1 inch. It was proved
that Baluchitherium surpassed both the
living African and Indian elephants in
height because while its limb bones are
equally long, its foot bones are rela-
tively longer and more stilted, a-
observed by Forster Cooper; con-
sequently it is a rhinoceros on stilted
limbs with extremely long neck, pro-
portioned as in the horse but of massive
size.
With this elevated body form and
massive neck, the head, gigantic as it
at first appeared, diminishes in rela-
tive size, although far exceeding that of
any existing mammal in absolute size
This very long narrow- head placed at
the end of an extremely long neck and
provided with short grinding teeth, like
those of the browsing rhinoceroses we
have described, namely, the Aceratheres,
the black rhinoceros, the Sumatran
rhinoceros, and the Sondaican rhinoc-
eros, compels us to believe that Balu-
chitherium was a gigantic browser,
feeding upon leaves and twigs, buds
and blossoms. It was certainly not a
ground browser, like the black rhinoc-
eros, whose head is carried very close to
the ground, but more probably a tree
browser, comparable to the giraffe
and okapi among the even-toed animals
and to certain other tree browsers
among the odd-toed ungulates or
hoofed animals.
THE EXTIXCT GIAXT RHINOCEROS BALUCHITHERIUM 227
In the third restoration (page 208),
executed under the writer's direction by
Mrs. E. Rungius Fulda, the Baluchi-
theri um is represented as a gigantic tree
browser stalking about among the
fertile savannas of ancient Mongolia,
in Upper Oligocene or Lower Miocene
times, well protected from its enemies
evolution that the anterior part of the
body of tree browsers is harmoniously
elevated with the elongation of the
neck. It is obvious that tree-brows-
ing animals of increasing height of
body and of shoulder, of a generally
increasing length of neck, and of in-
creasing stretch of prehensile lips
Skull of Baluchiiherium grangeri as finally restored and ready for casting on .May 1.
1923, in the laboratory of the department of vertebrate palaeontology of the American
Museum, by Otto Falkenbach of the department staff. This photograph gives an idea of
the gigantic size of this skull, which is nevertheless relatively small as compared with the
bones of the skeleton, as shown in the two restorations on page 226
by its very great height and by its
power of locomotion, surpassing in
speed that of the elephants and of the
swiftest rhinoceroses, living or extinct.
The writer anticipates that when the
complete fore limb and shoulder blade
of this giant animal become known, it
will be found that the shoulders were
well elevated above the hips because it
generally happens in the course of
adapted to feeding on the herbage of
the higher branches of trees would up
to a certain point become increasingly
tall through the process of natural
selection and survival of the fittest,
which in our opinion is the besl
explanation of the long neck of the
giraffe.
Finally, what is the relationship of
the Baluchitheres to the other rhinoc-
228
XATCRAL HISTORY
eroses? Are they simply giant Acera-
theres? This conjecture would at first
appear to be probable from the close
similarity in size and proportions of the
skull and the absolute hornlessness of
the skull, for both the frontal and
nasal bones are perfectly smooth
without any trace of a rugosity. But
the very powerful superior tusks pre-
sent a difficulty in the acceptance of
this theory; there is nothing resem-
bling the Baluchitherium tusks in any
other member of the rhinoceros family
in which the remaining upper incisors
are either short-crowned or vestigial
but never tusklike or pointed. In
Baluchitherium they are veritable tusks,
shaped like canines or eyeteeth, ter-
rible weapons of offense and defense,
and wielded by a skull of surpassing
size and weight and by a neck of
gigantic proportions.
Map of central and south-
western Asia showing the type
localities of (1) Baluchitherium
osborni type, eastern Baluchis-
tan: (2) Indricotherium asiati-
cum type, near Turgai, northern
Turkestan; (3) Baluchitherium
grangeri ref., near Iren Dabasu,
southeastern Mongolia; (4) Ba-
luchitherium grangeri type, near
J. oh. central Mongolia
NOTES FOR THE READER AND THE STUDENT
The reader who desires to follow up this
subject is referred to Dr. Philip Lutley
Sclater's Memoir of 1875 "On the Rhinoc-
eroses Now or Lately Living in the Society's
Menagerie," which appeared in the Trans-
actions of the Zoological Society of London;
also to the Memoir of Henry Fairfield Osborn
(1898) entitled The Extinct Rhinoceroses or
to his Bulletin (1900) on "The Phylogeny of
the Rhinoceroses of Europe." Many recent
papers of great interest have been published,
especially on the woolly rhinoceros of Starunia
by Dr. E. Xiezabitowski. On the Baluchi-
theres the chief papers are by C. Forster
Cooper and A. Borissiak, cited by the present
writer in the first description of the skull of
Baluchitherium grangeri in American Museum
Novitates No. 78. In all 26-1 titles of papers
and memoirs relating to extinct and living
rhinoceroses are contained in the Osborn
Library, a branch of the main Library of the
American Museum.
The reader whose interest may have been
aroused by this article will find in the Ameri-
can Museum the finest collection of fossil
rhinoceros remains that has ever been brought
together, including a superb collection of
fossil and recent skulls from all parts of the
world, three beautifully mounted specimens
of the gray-white rhinoceros collected in the
Congo region by the Lang-Chapin Expedi-
tion, and especially a series of mounted fossil
skeletons of Aceratheres, of Diceratheres,
and of the Teleoceras, to which will shortly lie
added a diminutive Trigonias from Colorado.
The Elasmotherium skull alone is represented
1 iy a cast ; all the other skull types are original-
including that of the recently finished skull of
Baluchitherium grangeri. The interested
visitor to the Museum should also see repre-
sentatives of other main branches of rhinoceros
affiliation known as the aquatic Amynodonts.
which like the Aceratheres roamed through
Europe and across Asia to North America ;
also the cursorial rhinoceroses or Hyraco-
donts which were confined to North America.
A haunt of the American bittern near Arnprior, Ontario. This beaver meadow is flooded
every spring with the high water from the Ottawa River, and here in the month of May,
the American bittern can be heard chanting his extraordinary mating song. ^Yith a little
maneuvering you may see him at such times engaged in the apparently very difficult task of
producing the strange sounds he passes off as a love ditty
Some Bird Voices of the Northern Woods
By CHARLES MACXAMARA
ALTHOUGH members of the
same bird family may differ
much in size and appearance,
t here is often a remarkable resemblance
in their voices. Alike in the "scream
of freedom" of the great bald eagle and
in the shrill piping of the little sparrow
hawk is heard the same high-pitched
note characteristic of the whole falcon
family. All the ducks quack, and
the same wild plaint ivencss prevails
throughout the voices of all the snipe
and plover clans. The artless lilt of
the song sparrow is typical of many of
the sparrow tribe, and can be traced
even in the elaborated song of his
cousin, the goldfinch. The wood
warblers, who belie their name, being-
very poor warblers, are notorious
generally for their thin wiry voices;
while the thrushes all have the same
rounded mellow notes — the wood wind
of the orchestra — a quality to be
detected even in the unassuming
monotonous phrasing of the robin, and
in the soft resigned notes of the blue-
bird, both of whom are, of course,
members of the thrush family.
The hermit thrush gets his name
from his shy retiring habit. He is
'The birds
dered in the article were visitors t.i Arnprior, Ontario, Canada.
230
X AT URAL HISTORY
truly a bird of the deep woods, and lives
distant from human habitations, but
the name is not quite appropriate.
We always think of a hermit as an
ascetic celibate, and the thrush take< a
wife and rears his young, and no doubt
enjoys life as much as any other bird.
His song, a simple theme of grave
flutelike notes in slow tempo, has all
the dignified solemnity of a hymn. He
is rightly accounted our finest singer,
but his stage presence is poor, and his
personal appearance is scarcely in
keeping with his elevated music. He
is a rather perky little bird, with an
exasperating habit of nervously jerking
his tail. He seems to know the limi-
tations of his looks, and never shows
himself much in public. Wisely, lie i>
content to be a voice and nothing more.
The hermit thrush is the brother
who went to Europe to study singing
and became a grand opera star. The
robin is the brother who stayed at
home on the farm and whose public
appearances as a singer are no more
pretentious than the concert in the
district school house. But the hermit's
exalted song is far removed from every-
day life, and is almost too pure for
"human nature's daily food." We
cannot long maintain so lofty a mood;
while the homely ringing notes of the
robin, sung perhaps from the peak of
the back shed against a chilly sunset
of early spring, give more pleasure to
more people than the song of any other
bird in North America. Consequently
the robin is our most familiar and best-
loved bird, and his spring coming is a
marked event. Men who do not know
an English sparrow from a junco, tell
one another cheerfully that they saw a
robin this morning, and his arrival is
gazetted in the newspapers.
Another early and familiar singer is
the song sparrow, whose naive little
performance probably resembles the
song of the canaries' primitive ancestor.
I think this must be the most cheerful
little bird in the world. Nothing seem-
to dishearten him. He pipes his simple
lay in all kinds of weather, and even in
the middle of the night; wherefore the
French Canadians call him the ros-
signol, or nightingale. Pouring rain
cannot dampen his spirits, and once1,
when I was driven to take refuge under
a pine tree from a driving sleet flurry
that blotted out everything beyond
twenty feet, in the midst of the storm
a song sparrow close by burst into song.
But his demonstration under such
circumstances seemed out of place.
Such absolute indifference to condi-
tions is more like mere insensibility
than real good humor.
The white-throated sparrow also
comes early in the spring, although not
so early as the song sparrow. He is
silent for the first few days after his
arrival but can sometimes be provoked
into premature song by a human imita-
tion of his whistle. There is a certain
setting proper for each bird song. For
the whitethroat 3rou should be walking
a mossy path in deep tangled woods,
with a quiet rain tapping lightly on last
year's leaves. Then from the thicket
comes a song that to me, given to
visualizing sounds, is a keen bright
silver thread weaving into the gray day.
A cool and tranquil song, expressive of
the very spirit of the still, northern
forest, it seems untouched by any hot
emotion. But in reality it is doubtless
a love lyric combined with a warning
to claim-jumpers to keep off the sing-
er's preempted area. It is answered in
the same measured tones by another
whitethroat a hundred yards away,
and the challenge and counter-chal-
lenge continue as long as you are in
bearing.
SOME BIRD VOICES OF THE XORTHERX WOODS
231
If the whitethroat's voice is silvern,
the Baltimore oriole's is golden.
Usually, just as the leaves are unfold-
ing, he commences his singing. His
prelude is like the notes of a clarinet
beginning an Hungarian dance, but
there is a plaintive sadness in his lovely
liquid warbling which sounds like a
regret that springtime is so brief. He
is seldom heard after the middle of
June. The thrushes, sparrows, finches,
and many other birds are formal singers
who perch ceremoniously on a bough to
deliver their music. But the oriole
sings at his work, and while he is
busily searching for insects, his full-
toned notes keep on without inter-
rupting his intent examination of the
branches.
Our goldfinch, like our robin, is
called after an Old-World bird of a
different species. Our robin is a thrush
while the European robin is a warbler,
but our goldfinch really is a finch, and
shows his family connection in his song,
which in a wild untaught way re-
sembles that of the domestic canary,
the master singer of the finch family.
There is no regret in the goldfinch's
song. He is another formal singer, and
his crystal trills and runs, poured out
from his perch on a branch, express
nothing but high spirits and exuberant
joy. His nuptial flight song is even
more intense. One very hot day in
.July I noticed a goldfinch flying in
circles above an old log fence and sing-
ing in ecstasy. He flew steadily and not
in the usual undulations of his kind,
and his rhapsody at no time ceased.
I don't know how he managed to draw
his breath. As I came nearer, 1 saw
the female to whom this passionate
homage was being paid. She sal on
the fence, apparently giving little
attention to the outpourings of her
suitor's soul. She did not intend to let
him win her too quickly, and presently
she flew away, followed by her lover,
who now dropped into the wavy flight
and gave forth the usual call note of
per-chic-o-pee.
As I have said, this was on a breath-
lessly hot day in July, and the occur-
rence interested me as it recalled
another nuptial song I had heard in the
contrasting weather of a very cold day
in January. It was perfectly calm that
day, the sun was bright in a cloud-
less sk}% but the temperature wras con-
siderably below zero. Snowshoeing
through a wooded swamp, I was re-
marking the silence of the winter
woods when a bird song burst forth
from the top of a tall red maple. High
up in the cold bright sunshine a white-
winged crossbill was flying out in
circles and returning to perch on the
topmost twigs, warbling all the while
as eagerly as if it were summer time.
I could see no female, and in view of the
earliness of the season and the severity
of the weather I might have doubted
that this was a nuptial song. But I
had lately obtained proof of a cross-
bill actually nesting in January in this
district, so I was sure that my bird,
despite the extreme weather, was
really out courting.
What some of our birds need is a
good press agent. For ages innumer-
able poets of all countries have been
"writing up" the nightingale, so that
now everybody thinks of it as the finest
singer in the world, although I have a
suspicion that some of our native song-
sters are quite its equal. On this con-
fcinent the mocking bird is celebrated
in a famous song, and the thrushes, the
bobolink, the oriole, the catbird, and
others have gained great reputation
with the general public from the ap-
plause of various writers, both in
prose and verse. But who. except the
232
XATURAL HISTORY
earnest bird student, knows even the
name of the winter wren, and how
many have heard his entrancing song?
The answer is: very few. Therefore,
I propose to advertise the winter wren
a little.
Everywhere a favorite family, the
wrens are the subject of numerous
legends, and the hundreds of vernacular
names that have been given them
attest the affection of the people for
them. But they have never been
counted among the great singers.
Our familiar house wren sings a defiant
little jingle, and he means every scold-
ing note of it, for he is one of the most
quarrelsome of birds. The singing of
the family in general, however, is
undistinguished, except that of our
friend, the winter wren, and he amply
makes up for any musical shortcomings
of his relatives.
I think my experience with this bird
may resemble that of a good many
other bird students. When walking in
the woods in spring, I sometimes used
to hear from low down in a brush heap
or thicket tangle an explosion of bird
music which for richness and finish
surpassed any other song I knew. It
was a rapid gushing melody, clear and
loud, without a trace of the amateurish
"home made" quality heard, for in-
stance, in the song of the robin. This
was the production of a highly cul-
tured performer — a bird Tetrazzini, —
and its motif seemed to be the joy of
springtime living. Though the sing-
ing was usually near at hand, it was
some time before I could find the bird.
When I came closer, the song would
cease, or would burst out again farther
off, resembling in this respect those
better days that are always a little
ahead of us.
At last one April day I caught sight
of the singer. It was a little bird of the
conventional wren-brown, with an
absurdly short tail sticking pertly up
over its back, a quaint and undignified
little bird, astonishingly small to pro-
duce1 so powerful a voice. It was slip-
ping expertly in and out of the forest
cumber, searching minutely for insects
and singing its wonderful song every
minute or so with scarcely a pause in
its work. As I watched it, it came quite
close, so that I could see its tiny throat
pulsing rapidly as it sang; and I
noticed it could sing with its bill full
of spiders. Only, as its mouth filled
up, the1 music grew softer, and the
gradual diminuendo produced a curi-
ous "Turkish Patrol" effect. At last
the little bird worked out of my view,
but for some time I continued to hear
its rich treble with the distant drum
roll of a ruffed grouse for a bass back-
ground.
The winter wren and most of our
other good singers are birds of dull
plumage. Apparently a fine voice
alone is often enough to win a mate
without any need for fine feathers. Of
course, there are exceptions. That
Chrysostom of birds, the Baltimore
oriole, in his rich orange and black
livery is one of our handsomest
migrants; and the goldfinch is very
gay in summer in his vivid yellow and
black. The lovely rose-breasted gros-
beak, too, sings a wild wandering aria
remindful of an uneducated oriole. But
the greater number of our bright-hued
birds, such as the blue jay, the red-
headed and pileated woodpeckers, the
flicker, the ruby-throat cm 1 humming
bird, the redstart, and other oemlike
warblers are all non-singers. The
purple finch — which is not purple at
all, but gloriously flushed with crim-
son— is, I admit, well spoken of as a
singer, but to my ear its song sounds
rather flat and rattling. And the
SOME BIRD VOICES OF THE NORTHERN WOODS
233
scarlet tanager, of a brilliance so un-
expected in these northern climes that
he is sometimes mistaken for a tropical
bird escaped from captivity, must also
he regretfully denied a place in the
choir. His call note of chip chur-r-r is
loud and harsh and his attempt at a
song is no better.
On hot days when I am out in the
woods, I like to eat my lunch on a little
rocky point that juts out into the
( )ttawa and catches any breeze that
i nay be blowing over the river. There
are a few stunted pines and cedars on
the point and the bearberry vine
manages to grow between the stones.
This is where I sometimes hear the
tanager singing from the trees of the
mainland. It is an unmelodious song,
not easjr to describe, but is such as one
might imagine a demented robin to
make if he tried to imitate the grating
notes of a crested flycatcher. But
here it is often accompanied by the
mighty bassoon of a bullfrog; and as I
cat my meal and look out over the blue
waters, I delight in a jazz duet such as
no fashionable restaurant in the world
can offer its diners.
Bird voices are sometimes repre-
sented by syllables or words as an aid
in recalling the sounds. Though most
of the inventions demand a lot of
imagination, a few of them are very
good. It is true that no bird can really
pronounce a consonant, but I imagine
that even if a perfect stranger were told
that the chickadee called its name with
a couple of extra syllables, chick-a-dee-
dee-dei . he would at once recognize the
bird by its voice. Whip-poor-will also
expresses fairly well the cry of that
nocturnal bird, which, not very com-
mon in the settled country, sometimes
makes the backwoods ring with its
whoops. Once upon a time awaking
at dawn in a river-drivers' camp, I
estimated that, near and far, I was
listening to one hundred of them calling
together, but perhaps resentment at
the untimely noise supplied a rather
large factor to the number. Another
bird that speaks its name* plainly is the
phoebe. It pronounces the syllables
in a crisp business-like manner, veiy
different from the way its melancholy
brother, the wood peewee, drawls out
its low-spirited p-e-e-e-a-w-e-e-e-. If
3rou see a small yellow bird wearing a
black domino mask, and calling witch i-
tee, witchitee, witch itee with the accent
on the first syllable, you will know that
you have the pleasure of meeting the
Maryland yellowthroat. One of the
many cries of the blue jay is aptly rend-
ered as thief! thief! This he screams as
he flies away, adopting the old trick of
the real thief joining in the hue and
cry in order to draw attention from
himself.
There are no absolutely dumb birds.
All possess some means of vocal expres-
sion, but some have such weak voices.
or use them so seldom, that if we wished
to be technical, we might erect a divi-
sion of birds called the "Aphonopteri-
dae." One that would belong here is our
only humming bird, the ruby-throated,
whose thin squeak is seldom hearth
Perhaps like the bat's cry, it is pitched
too high for most people's ears. An-
other silent bird is the exquisite
smooth-feathered waxwing. Its ordi-
nary note is a faint wheeze like the creak
of an unoiled hinge, and its "beady"
call on taking flight is not much louder.
The ruffed grouse practises only a few
chirps and clucks; it is blessedly free
from the boisterous crowing and cack-
ling of its close relative, the domestic
fowl. The Canada jay, or whisky
jack, when hopping around your camp
fire looking for scraps, seldom utters a
sound, although I have sometimes
234
NATURAL HISTORY
The Canada jay or whisky jack is a famil-
iar visitor at every camp in the northern
woods. The tent is scarcely pitched before
he arrives, looking for scraps. Usually a
silent bird, he is capable of a large variety of
notes, nearly all harsh
heard them give a low whistle But
when they like, they can raise as much
disturbance as thoir disreputable broth-
ers, the blue jays. One day last winter
when I was visiting: the beaver dam
that is the pride of the little game
sanctuary near where I live, a hawk
flew overhead just above the tree tops.
I began to imitate its whistle as well
as I could, trying to induce it to answer
me. I had whistled only three or four
times when a sudden unexpected whis-
ky jack came hurrying through the
trees toward me, vociferating a series
of quick raucous cries, the significance
of which I have never quite determined.
Was my hawk imitation so good that it
had deceived the bird and he was shriek-
ing in alarm? Or was it so bad that he
was jeering at me in derision? I do not
know; but anyway, after a while I got
the hawk to answer me.
Another unofficial category might be
formed of birds that think they can sing
and can't. The leader of this class is
undoubtedly the friendly little chip-
ping sparrow. He is a most persistent
singer, and a nightingale could not be
more earnest in its endeavor. The
result, alas! is only a tuneless trill,
though it seems to give the neat little
bird every satisfaction. Another seri-
ous and persevering singer of the same
type is the slate-colored junco, who
achieves little more than a vibrating
chatter. Perhaps the black-and-white
warbler is not really pretending to sing
with his insect-like zee-zee-zee, nor the
industrious red-eyed vireo prattling
interminably on his daily round not
merely of inspection but of scrutiny
through the trees. But the redstart
certainly thinks he can sing. Watching
him, one thinks he must have taken
Lessons in voice production, for he
throws back his head and opens his
tiny bill widely. But if he has, his
teacher should return the fee, for t In-
voice that issues is only a meager sizzle.
Traversing all accepted classifica-
tion, another division might be formed
of birds whose voices do not sound like
those of birds at all. The voices of
most of the perching birds are in the
upper registers, so that when we hear
the low-toned quank of the nuthatch,
or the soft deep notes of the cuckoo,
we can hardly believe that the sounds
come from a bird. The great horned
owl's horrifying shriek is another in-
conceivable bird voice, and is usually
attributed to a lynx or some other
bloodthirsty animal. The voice of the
saw-whet owl is generally described as
sounding like a file being dragged across
the teeth of a large saw. This little owl
is rare in my district, and it is many
years since I have heard it, but ray
recollection is that the cry was astonish-
WHERE THE VIREO IS HEARD
One of the most typical bird voices of summer time is that of the red-eyed vireo. And
it is by his voice alone that most people have knowledge of him, for this "gleaner among
the leaves'' is seldom seen. Essentially a bird of the woodlands, he frequents the tops of
the highest trees, scrutinizing every leaf and twig for insects, all the time uttering a slow
unending succession of notes; and as the phrases each end on a rising inflection with a slight
pause between, he seems to lie asking a series of earnest but never-answered questions. This
peculiar delivery has earned him the popular name of the "preacher." lie keeps up his
unceasing: prattle all day long, and is often the only bird to be heard in the noontide heat
-•:;.-
236
XATCRAL HISTORY
ior\&\n
soft p&d — -/■
tor\6ue
_pad of fibrous
tissue
windpipe
thickened
skirxof r\eck
or\6itudir\&J muscles
er»closir\6 oesopKa6us
longitudinal muscle
of Klrvd neck
neck
These drawings show the mechanism connected with the bittern's unusual
voice. The whole neck (left) is seen from below, the hind neck (lower right) from
above, and the open gape (upper right) from in front.
During the breeding season the skin of the male bittern's neck is distinctly
thickened. Beneath it lies a thin layer of muscle which supports this heavy skin.
Perhaps the soft pads along the inside of the lower jaw, as well as the lumps of fibrous
connective tissue at the sides of the throat, aid the bittern in retaining the air in
the (esophagus when it is blown up during the "stake driving." After James P.
Chapin, (Auk, Vol. XXXIX. pp. 196-202)
ingly like the clink of a hammer on an
anvil. Another "mechanical" bird
cry is the hunger call of young chimney
swifts, who make a noise far more like
the rattle of a badly constructed
machine than the voice of any living
creature. But perhaps the most ex-
traordinary of all bird voices is that of
the American bittern, and the popular
idea still is that the mud and water of
SOME BIRD VOICES FROM THE NORTHERN WOODS
231
the bogs in which the bird lives must
have something to do with his incred-
ible chunk-er-lunk. All ornithologists
know that the sound is produced solely
in the bird's throat, but the method
of production is nevertheless very
remarkable.
For two days I had been looking for a
miserable difference of 25 cents in a
trial balance. At last, when my de-
lighted eye caught sight of the elusive
"quarter," which had not been brought
down from the last month's balance, I
shut the books and went out for a walk
of thanksgiving. Such good fortune
would have satisfied me for one day,
but I was in for more. I headed for a
flooded beaver meadow, and there,
like the Lady of Shalott, I "found a
boat beneath a willow left afloat."
It was flat-bottomed with square ends,
it leaked a little, and its equipment was
a single rude paddle chopped out of a
slab; but it was enough. The meadow
was busy with insects, fish, frogs,
turtles, birds, and musk-rats all in-
dustriously making their living. As I
was paddling slowly across the water,
watching their vital interactions, I saw
an American bittern standing about
150 feet away in the shallow water
beside a partially submerged bush.
He was stock-still with his bill
pointing skyward in the traditional
bittern attitude. Presently, as a
bubble swelled out in his throat, he
developed a slight hiccup, which
rapidly became worse until it culmi-
nated in a frantic retching with racking
contortions of his neck. The accom-
paniment to this was the well-known
"stake-driving" sound. The attack
lasted ten to fifteen seconds, and when
it subsided he stood motionless, once
more pointing the way to the stars.
But he enjoyed the respite only a
minute or two. Then lie had another
of the alarming seizures, and the at-
tacks followed one another with short
intervals during the half hour I watched
him, at the end of which increasing rain
drove me home. Such is the bittern's
love song. Love seems to be a painful
and violent passion with bitterns.
The northern raven is an untamed
dweller in the wilds who never ven-
tures into civilization, but he is well
and unfavorably known to log makers.
The French Canadian shanty men say
that he calls poche, poche, referring to
the bag in which they carry their mid-
day meal. If the "poche" is not hid-
den under a stump or buried deep in
the snow while the log-makers are at
work, the raven is very likely to tear it
open with his powerful bill and eat the
men's lunch of bread and pork. I set
out one winter day from a lumber
depot to walk to a camp a few miles
distant. The road through the forest
forked several times, and after a while
it dawned on me that I had taken a
wrong turning, for there was no sign
of the camp, and I had already walked
more than its distance from the depot.
Just then I heard a small, hoarse dog-
barking a little way ahead. There, I
thought, is a gang of log-makers who
have a dog with them. I shall get in-
directions from them. But "the small
hoarse dog" was a stately raven who
made no more obeisance to me than his
famous ancestor did to Edgar Allan
Poe. With a few more gruff barks he
Hew away over the trees, and I had to
return to the depot without reaching
the camp that day.
There are many other birds whose
voices I like to call to mind, but only a
few can be noticed here, and they mint
be passed with a mere mention: the
bobolink gurgling and klinking on
fluttering wings over new »m widows;
the comedian catbird giving his clever
238
NATURAL HISTORY
but ill-natured burlesque of all his
acquaintances; the brown thrasher
singing his fine, if somewhat artificial,
song in a wayside bush ; the rich melli-
fluous warbling of the purple martins
from the veranda of their community
house; the trumpet clangor of the
wild goose squadron against a seamless
gray sky ; the shout of the loon answer-
ing you back across the water of a pine-
rimmed lake ; the quavering wail of the
little screech owl on moonlight nights,
sometimes heard even in towns where
he comes to search the cornices of
buildings for sleeping English sparrows;
the spring laugh resounding through
the open woods of that bird eccentric,
the flicker; and the "rusty gate"
creak of the irridescent blackbird just
arrived, as impudent as ever, from the
lost cities of Yucatan.
Of these voices and the others we
have considered, some are musical
and some could scarcely be harsher,
but the true lover of birds finds
none of them disagreeable. My affec-
tion for birds is without prejudice.
I like them all equally and cannot
tell which of their voices I like the
best.
THE SIGN MANUAL OF THE GREAT HORNED OWL
The common cry of this fierce bird marauder is a hoarse, long-drawn variety of the
"hoot" practiced by all the owl family. But on occasion he gives vent to a horrifying
scream, more like the voice of some ferocious wild beast than that of a bird. This photo-
graph shows where a great horned owl struck at a squirrel on a branch above, but missed,
and came down in the snow with outspread wings and tail
Nature and Human Nature in a Probationary
Classroom
By LUCY CLARKE SIM0NS0N
Teacher, Public School 120, Bronx Children's Court Annex, New York City
ONE up, Mrs. Forster!"
"All right," calls the cheery
voice of the matron from the
third floor, and Mrs. Forster steps
forward, unlocks the wire gate at the
head of the stairs and stands waiting
to receive the latest member of our
family.
He proves to be a boy brought in
from the street after hiding several days
in an empty freight car at the railroad
yards. As he ascends the stairs, his
mind is distracted between the dread
of being sent home and meeting an
angry father, and his apprehension
regarding the unknown dangers of his
new situation. Coming within sight of
the open gate at the top of the stairs, he
sees a motherly woman who notes his
neglected appearance, evidence of his
having shifted for himself, as well as his
expression of chagrin and resentment
at having finally been "locked up."
Putting her hand kindly on his
shoulder, she looks into his face with
the understanding which has come
from meeting thousands of boys and
girls in trouble, and says, "Well, son,
what's the matter?"
Such is the reception given to each
child who climbs the stairs of the
Shelter maintained in connection with
the Children's Court by the Bronx
County Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children.
The necessary preliminaries over, the
new boy takes his place in the school-
room among other boys who like him-
self are finding temporary shelter and
motherly care while their cases are
being disposed of. It is my privilege
to be the teacher assigned to this class
of children.
In this one small schoolroom, which
at night is used as a dormitory, there
are children who have come from homes
disrupted through sickness, death, or
crime; boys who have found crowded
home conditions unbearable and have
broken loose from parental restraint;
boys who have yielded to the tempta-
tion to satisfy their craving for pleasure
by thieving; truants either through
mental incapacity for the work of the
schoolroom or through natural restless-
ness which takes them to the street
bent on mischief; psychopathic cases
that have been brought in because of
uncontrolled acts; as well as subnormal
and feeble-minded children, the "mis-
fits" in home and school; boys who
have run away from their homes in
neighboring cities; all ages from six
to sixteen; all races; all conditions of
mind and spirit. They are all tran-
sients, their stay in the Shelter averag-
ing only six days.
With this diversity in age and condi-
tion and with the shortness of the
children's stay — although of course I
teach the regular school subjects — it is
impossible to follow a complete course
of study with any continuity. Every
day I must adjust myself to the class
as I find it, and the work of necessity is
fragmentary and unsatisfactory.
To prepare the schoolroom for the
boys, whom I meet first in the morning,
everything is made as cheery and home-
like as possible. Chairs are placed
around the teacher's desk in a semicircle
with a small table near by on which
239
240
N A T URA L HIS TOR }
arc the current magazines appropriate
for all ages. AVe usually start with talks
about what is going on in the outside
world, and the pictures which I bring
illustrating the news of the day are
much appreciated. These talks include
anecdotes of interest about living
heroes, discoveries in science, new in-
ventions, and live, interesting stories.
Most of our children come from narrow
and contracted homes, where parents
are too much absorbed in the struggle
for existence to talk over interesting
subjects with them. I try to lead their
minds away from their narrow street
life, into bigger places, where imagina-
tion is quickened and vision enlarged.
One never knows just what question
a boy may ask; so I was not surprised
one morning when a lad anxiously in-
quired, "Teacher, is the world coming
to an end? The papers say something's
going to smash into us, and the world's
coming to an end."
Not answering his question at once,
1 began to explain the marvelous move-
ments of the heavenly bodies, each one
in its appointed place at its appointed
time, our own earth spinning through
space at the rate of a thousand miles a
minute. At about this place in the
story, as I was leading the boys' minds
to the thought of a Higher Power, who
guides the universe without friction
and without accident, I saw that I had
made my point clear, when one boy,
expressing the idea in his own crude
way but with all reverence and wonder,
burst out with "Gee! Some Traffic
Cop!"
Sometimes a simple experiment by
the boy himself seems to be the most
effective way to convince him of a
natural force. I recall an overgrown
fellow expressing his contempt for any
statements regarding the movements
of the earth, even the cause of day and
night. With his air of superiority he
said, "How can you prove anything?"
Noting at that moment the early
morning sunshine streaming through
the window, I handed him a piece of
chalk, suggesting that he trace a mark
along the slanting line made by the sun
across the floor. Then I told him to
watch and see if there was any change.
As the morning advanced and his chalk
line was left in the shade, his astonish-
ment was profound, and I saw that no
comments of mine were needed to
impress the lesson.
Probably not one of the regular
callers at our building is looked for with
happier anticipations than Mr. Her-
man Sievers, the messenger from the
American Museum of Natural History,
who regularly and cheerfully brings the
natural history specimens and the
valuable lantern slides. His appear-
ance usually brings out the eager
question, "Movies, teacher?" the
younger children calling anything in
the line of pictures "movies."
Many of the truants come to us with
a distaste1 for school, from which
"playing the hook" seems to be their
onty escape. Their inability to read
without great effort causes them to
look upon books as a bore. As they
have never formed the habit of read-
ing for pleasure, their leisure has
been occupied in making mischief on
the street or going to motion-picture
shows. Nine out of ten boys who come
in for stealing tell me quite frankly that
they "crooked" to get money to go to
the "movies." The right or wrong of a
dishonest act seldom enters into their
minds. It is astonishing how little they
are guided by the old principles of
honor and integrity and how lightly
the disgrace of thieving touches them.
In discussing this many have said to me
in all seriousness, "Why should I be
XATURE AND HUM AX XATl'KK
241
honest? Why should I work to earn
money when I can get it so much easier
by crooking?"
To supplant the wrong ideal of the
"slick guy who steals and gets away
with it," I endeavor to create a differ-
ent hero for the hoy to imitate. Too
many have the notion that success in
life depends on luck or on some distinc-
tion of class or fortune. The invaluable
aid of the slides from the Museum can-
not be overstated in this connection.
Such sets as "Through the Brazilian
Wilderness with Colonel Roosevelt,"
"The Search for ('rocker Land," and
"Climbing Mont Blanc." thrill the boy
with real admiration for the right kind
of heroism — courage, fortitude, and
self-control — and help him to appreci-
ate the truth of the following lines,
which I often write on the blackboard:
You will find thai luck
Is only pluck
To try things over and over;
Patience and skill,
( Jourage and will.
Are the four leaves of luck's clover.
The sets of slides which show the life
of men and boys engaged in great in-
dustries, such as agriculture and lum-
bering, seem especially attractive to
some of our boys, who remark on the
unlimited spaces of the prairie and the
forest. I often make the point that too
many people crowd into the congested
city instead of choosing a vocation
which takes them into the country.
The faithfulness of the Eskimo dog
makes a strong appeal to spoiled
children, who are especially impressed
with the tact thai these dogs rarely
cry or whine for food, knowing if their
master has it . t hey will get it.
Our girls present problems of their
own, and it is in the afternoon talks,
when I meet them by themselves,
that we discover where the emphasis
needs to be placed. My first task is to
divert their burdened minds and bring
their emotions under control. One
afternoon a large girl, whom we shall
call Olga, came in weeping violently.
Her home and her mother had failed
her in her hour of need. What did she
care about school when she was learn-
ing the hardest lessons in the school of
life? Bitterness, revenge, despair had
taken possession of her soul, and she re-
fused to be calmed. Just then a wee
child whose home had been disrupted
by the violent death of her mother was
brought into the schoolroom in the
hope that there she would find some-
thing to comfort her lonely little heart.
As the big tears were rolling down the
little one's cheeks, I led her to Olga
saying, "Look at this heartbroken
baby! Couldn't you take her into your
nice big lap and cuddle her a bit?"
Without hesitation Olga folded the lit-
tle one in her arms, and smiling down
at her through her own tears, she
"mothered" the child until she had her
last asleep. Sunshine had dispelled the
dark, angry clouds thai fitful April
afternoon and the rain had ceased to
fall. Olga had learned to "look out.
not in." and " lend a hand."
One of the most difficult lessons for
our girls to learn is to live together
without quarrelling, differences in race
or in religion forming a never-ending
source of dissension. Many arc
brought up in an atmosphere of perpet-
ual conflict. To "agree to disagree"
and be pleasant about it, seems to h;> a
new doctrine to many. I have many
stories from real life to impress the
point , which 1 tell in detail. The fol-
lowing is the gist of one of these:
A tanner and his wife who had
separated received little sympathy
from their friends when it developed
that the whole trouble arose from a
242
NATURAL HISTORY
difference of opinion regarding which of
two holes in the kitchen floor a mouse
had run into. A reconciliation was
effected, the couple lived happily — not
ever after — but until months later
while laughing together over their
previous foolishness, one of them
started the whole quarrel over again by
remarking, "But, my dear, you must
admit that I was right." The separa-
tion was permanent this time, and the
deserted house became a laughingstock
to all passers-by.
"Agree to differ, resolve to love,"
has a new meaning when the girls see
the point of this story, and often when
a quarrel begins among themselves
some peacemaker is sure to remark with
a smile, "Forget it. Who cares which
hole the mouse went down?"
I find that the girls returning to their
homes carry this story with them and
report to me later that it has had its
part in smoothing out family quarrels.
The Museum slides prove valuable in
helping our girls to get out of their
warped, little lives and to obtain a
proper perspective on their problems.
The lure of the cheap show is very
great, and from the false, shallow
standards depicted there our girls
often form their ideals in life. The
following was composed by a girl of
fourteen in answer to my suggestion
that she write out her ambition in life:
"I should like most of all to be a
millionaire's daughter and belong to
society and have anything I wish for.
And then when I get big, I want to be a
toe-dancer and one of the Broadway
stars and have everybody love me. I
wish to marry a clown, a millionaire's
son, so he could dance with me."
The study of natural history is a
means of deepening character and of
giving our girls a truer value of life.
Contact with the marvelous handiwork
of nature refines and softens the coarse
influences of a brutal environment.
By means of the slides, in imagination
at least, we can "creep reverently"
through the November woods with
Helen Hunt Jackson "watching all
things lie down to sleep." We can
thrill with the wonderful scenery of
mountain and stream, clouds and sun-
sets, which thereafter forms a back-
ground for the appreciation of choice
gems of literature. As one sweet girl,
who has had her young life burdened
in an unusual way, recently remarked,
"We all love the slides because they
help us to forget our troubles and teach
us about so many things we never
knew before. I just love that quota-
tion now, 'The soul would have no
rainbow if the eyes had no tears.'"
Mrs. Margaret Forster, our wonder-
ful matron, is an ardent lover of nature,
reflecting in the strength of her char-
acter and the beauty of her daily
life the grandeur and charm of the
New Hampshire mountains, where she
spends her brief vacation period. As
often as possible during the showing of
the lantern slides, she slips into the
schoolroom and frequently adds inter-
esting stories of plant and animal life
out of her own experience on her New
England farm.
Sets of slides showing our insect
enemies have proved a revelation to
both boys and girls, strikingly teaching
them the necessity for cleanliness and
for waging eternal warfare against the
fly and other household pests. After
observing these slides with open-
mouthed wonder, one large colored boy
remarked with great emphasis : " They
— learn— you — sense."
This article has dealt more with the
intellectual influences, including nature
study, utilized for the general cheer and
uplift of the children. Handwork also
XATURE AXD HUMAX XATURE
243
has a considerable part in our program.
For lack of both space and equipment,
however, this is limited in variety, and
the making of reed baskets has proved
most satisfactory in its results with
the children.1 It must be remembered
that each pupil is usually detained in
our Shelter only a few days, but this is
long enough for him to learn something
about the art of basket-making— at least
enough to complete one well-made bas-
ket, which always causes him delight.
One of the most effective means I
have found for helping the children to
discover their individual defects of
character and to strengthen them, is a
svstem of so-called "'squeak-cards."
The idea grew out of a story I heard
when I was a young teacher in a country
school on the prairie. A farmer set a
"green hand" to grease a squeaking
wagon wheel. The fellow worked long
and hard, rubbing grease over every
visible part of the wheel. When the
wagon was next used, the wheel
squeaked worse than before, and it
was only after the farmer had removed
the wheel and shown him the axle that
the man discovered that a little grease
applied to the right spot made the
wheel run smoothly.
"Find the squeak and grease it,"
became a maxim in my school work,
and the "squeak box" naturally has
become a favorite device in this class.
After I have told the story of the
squeaks to the children, I give each of
them an opportunity to take a card
and write out his own weak points
as he sees them. I tell the children
that if they succeed in conquering any
of their faults and will report to me
later, I shall be pleased to hear from
them and shall draw a red line on the
card through the squeak. Of course,
■Specimens of the children's handicraft were recently
on exhibit at the American Museum. Tin- reader is
referred to Natural Histokv, January-February,
1923, p. 96
the confidence of the children is never
violated, but a few squeaks taken at
random from the "squeak box" will
illustrate in their own words what
things the children have to overcome.
From boys:
"-My squeaks are cursing at my mother and
fighting with my sister at home."
''Going with bad company. I can't say no."
"I pick up cigarettes and smoke them and
then throw them away."
"I would like to stop crooking. I take any-
thing I see."
"I got the habit of shooting craps and
hitching behind the freights."
"Always demanding money off my mother."
"Bum."
From girls:
"My squeaks are I think I know more than
my father and mother. That is why I am
here today. I hope I soon recover."
"I am crazy over every good-looking fellow
I see."
"I will not cuss, spit on, or kick my >istcr
any more."
"My squeaks are bad temper. I lack
patience. In anger I say nasty words."
"Often I can't control myself from lying."
"Tattle tail."
I continue the use of the "squeak
box" because I find that young people
whom I have taught often come back
to me or write testifying to its value in
their lives.
"One down!"
This time it is the matron who calls.
^Yearebiddinggood-by to the lad whose
arrival a few days before was described
at the beginning of this article. A warm
handshake, a few words of advice, an
invitation to come back to let us know
how he is getting on, and the boy, neat,
clean, and with his eye alight with hope
and the determination to "make good,"
descends to the street. His ease has
been considered by the judge, who has
brought to bear on the problem his
many years of invaluable experience
with juvenile delinquency, and the boy
has been released on probation. An ef-
ficient probation officer has been assign-
ed to see that he maintains a good record,
and a Big Brother has volunteered to be
his "guide, counselor, and friend."
A SECTION OF THE HALL OF MEXICAN AND CENTRAL AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY,
AMERICAN" MUSEUM
In the foreground is a reproduction of a sculptured column from the Temple of the Jaguars,
C'hichen Itza. Yucatan. The column represents a rattlesnake and is one of two that stood on either
side of the doorway of the temple. The general coloration of the serpent is light green, the scales
heing outlined in red. Of a deeper red is the forked tongue and the mouth, in which the white
teeth are conspicuous.
The original mohls for this column were made in the field under the direction of Mr. Edward
H. Thompson; the cast, including the restoration of the damaged parts, was made in the Museum
bv Mr. J. C. Hell
Man as a Museum Subject
By CLARK WISSLER
Curator-in-Chief, Division of Anthropology, American Museum
FROM the very beginning the
founders of the American Mu-
seum assumed that it was self-
evident that a great natural history
museum, to be complete, must include
in its scope the natural history of man.
Accordingly, even in the first years of
the Museum's existence collections
were acquired, by gift or otherwise,
containing relics of the Stone Age
and other primitive forms of culture.
The gradual accumulation of museum
materials in these ways ultimately led
to the establishment of a distinct de-
partment under the name of anthro-
pology. The curatorial responsibilities
for this new department were delegated
to Professor A. S. Bickmore, who was the
originator of the movement that re-
sulted in the erection of the Museum.
Professor Bickmore served as curator
for eighteen years, and it was during
this period that a number of the most
distinctive collections were acquired.
Among these were the Andrew Ellicott
Douglass archaeological collection,
which, with the Terry. Squire, and
Jones collections, presents a represen-
tative series for the United States, the
collections of Stuart, Robinson, and
Feuarclent, illustrative of palaeolithic
and neolithic Europe, the Sturgis and
Finch collections from the islands of
the Pacific, the Emmons and Bishop
collections made among the Indians of
Alaska, and the collection of Squier,
representing the ancient civilizations of
Central America. Thus, when Profes-
sor Bickmore resigned as curator in
1891 that he might give his whole time
to the educational work of the Mu-
seum, the foundation had been laid
for a comprehensive presentation of
man's natural history.
A few years later Professor Frederic
Ward Putnam, the new curator, or-
ganized the work of the department as
we see it today, in which according to
the problems presented and the method
pursued, the activities of the staff fall
under three heads, ethnology, archae-
ology, and racial anatomy. The re-
sponsibility for these subjects was
divided among the personnel of the
department, according to the special
interests of the men involved.
As in the case of other departments
of the Museum, the greatest progress
came with field work and exploration,
for it is by this means that new con-
crete facts are brought into the Mu-
seum's halls. Systematic work of this
kind was inaugurated by Professor
Putnam. Among the first of these
enterprises was the Jesup North Pacific
Expedition, which endeavored to de-
termine the connection between man
in the Old World and the Xew.
TUi: JESUP NORTH PACIFIC
EXPEDITION
The Jesup Expedition, or rather
series of expeditions, begun in L897
through the munificence of the late
Morris K. Jesup, constitutes one of the
greatest of anthropological projects.
The questions attacked wen1 of cardinal
significance, the scheme for their solu-
tion was carefully elaborated and was
executed on a vast scale with all the
resources of modern technique. Pro-
fessor I' Van/. Boas was in charge of the
expedition and himself took part in
the field work. Among his collaborators
246
NATURAL HISTORY
were Doctor Bogoras and Doctor
Jochelson, Doctor Laufer, and Doctor
Sternberg in Siberia, Professor Far-
rand, Doctor Swanton, and Mr. Harlan
I. Smith in America. The results thus
far published in a series of sumptuous
Museum Memoirs embody a wealth of
important material, descriptive and
interpretative.
The primary problem of the expedi-
tion was to determine whether there
was any connection between the peo-
ples of Asia and northwest America.
This question was answered affirma-
tively as to race, language, and culture;
that is to say, the so-called Palseo-
Siberians of northeasternmost Asia
proved to form a unit with the aborig-
ines of northwest America. Physically
the latter display a stronger develop-
ment of the Mongoloid eye and other
Asiatic traits than do other Xew World
natives, while they lack the pronounced
nose that is so marked a feature of the
American Indian physiognomy farther
east. The tongues spoken by the
ancient Siberians cannot indeed be
regarded as belonging definitely to any
one of the several linguistic stocks of
aboriginal America, but morphological-
ly they are distinctly nearer to the
languages of the New World than to
those of other Asiatics.
Culturally a variety of relations have
been established betwreen the peoples
of the East and the West. The coastal
Chukchi and Koryak closely resemble
the Eskimo in their economic life,
while their mythology betrays an old
contact with the Indians of British
Columbia that possibly antedates the
arrival of the Eskimo in Alaska. The
occurrence on both sides of the Pacific
of a semi-subterranean house likewise
constitutes a remarkable parallel.
While thus contributing materially
to our knowledge of the history of the
American race, the work of the expedi-
tion also shed light on the general
problem whether cultural likeness shall
be interpreted as the result of independ-
ent development due to the similarity
of human psychology throughout the
world, or whether resemblances may be
explained as the effects of contact and
borrowing. It was shown conclusively
that many of the parallels are intelli-
gible only as products of diffusion from
a common source. This general infer-
ence has certain significant theoretical
implications. For example, it was
commonly assumed by writers on
primitive society that all peoples neces-
sarily passed through a stage ante-
cedent to that of the family organiza-
tion, the place of the family being
taken by the clan. But the researches
of the Jesup Expedition showed that
in not a few cases this order is reversed,
inland tribes of British Columbia,
formerly organized into families, having
encountered the clan system of the
coastal peoples and adopted it second-
arily. Finally, the Jesup Expedition
not only paved the way for highly
important scientific conclusions but
contributed enormously to the Mu-
seum's collection of ethnographic ma-
terial, which as regards northeast
Siberia is doubtless superior to any
other in the country.
EXPLORATIONS IX PREHISTORIC
AMERICA
Likewise under the curatorship of
Professor Putnam and almost simul-
taneously with the organization of the
Jesup Expedition, there was projected
the B. T. B. Hyde Expedition to ex-
plore the cliff houses of Utah and
uncover the ruins of Pueblo Bonito in
Chaco Canon, New Mexico. In 1897
work was begun upon the Bonito ruin,
a magnificent communal house, a
248
X AT URAL II I STORY
portion of which was still standing.
Parts of this ruin proved a veritable
storehouse of turquoise ornaments.
Thousands of beads were found, some
so small that one can scarcely conceive
how they could have been fashioned
and drilled with the tools at the com-
mand of the ancient inhabitants.
There were other rooms containing vast
stores of pottery, some of unusual
form. These collections were brought
to the Museum, where the finest were
placed on exhibition. At about the
same time startling discoveries were
made in the canons of Utah, where
cliff houses were found belonging to a
period when no pottery was made.
These are evidently remains of a much
earlier age than the large pottery-
bearing ruins of the Bonito type.
The early work of the American
Museum in the rich archaeological field
of Mexico and Central America, where
the highest ancient civilizations of the
New World were developed, was made
possible through the generous support
of the Due de Loubat. In L896 a
concession was obtained from the
Mexican Government under which
excavations were carried on at Mitla,
Monte Alban, Xoco, Guiaroo, Xochi-
calco, and other sites, resulting in fine
archaeological collections. This general
work was continued until 1903 under
the direction of Dr. M. H. Saville.
Invaluable archaeological and eth-
nological collections were secured by
the successive expeditions of Dr. Carl
Lumholtz during 1892-1900. The
most intensive work of these expedi-
tions was among the Tarahumare,
Huichol, and Tarascan Indians of the
Sierra Madre Mountains.1 The textile
art of the Huichol is of the greatest
value to modern students of design.
JThe reader is referred to the article by Doctor Lum-
holtz entitled "My Life of Exploration," Nati'bal
History. May-June. 1921. pp. 224-43.
In the expedition of 1894 to Copan,
a great Mayan city in wrestern Hon-
duras, and in the field work in Guate-
mala under Dr. Eduard Seler of Berlin,
the American Museum cooperated with
the Peabody Museum of Harvard
University.
Since 1909 the anthropological work
in Mexico and Central America has
been limited to exploring expeditions
made by Dr. Herbert J. Spinden and
Mr. Clarence L. Hay. These expedi-
tions have resulted in the gathering of
much data on the ancient civilizations
as well as in important archaeological
and ethnological collections. In 1909
and 1910 many of the ancient sites in
central and southern Mexico were
visited and important stratigraphic
studies were made at Atzcapotzalco
where the remains of Archaic, Toltec,
and Aztec cultures were found in
superimposed layers. In 1912-13 and
in 1914 exploration was carried on
among the ruined cities of the Mayas in
Guatema'a and Honduras, including
Copan, Quirigua, Tikal, Ixkun, Seibal,
YaxchUan, and Piedras Negras.
During these years the horizon of the
Archaic culture was greatly extended
to the south, first to Salvador and
(Osta Rica and then across northern
South America and down the western
coast to Peru. It was correlated with
the establishment and spread of agri-
culture from a center on the highlands
of Mexico or Central America. Studies
made at the ancient ruined cities of the
Mayas, in cooperation with Mr. S. G.
Morley of the Carnegie Institution,
resulted in the discovery of new monu-
ments and in the dating of many old
ones. Both the sculpture1 and the
architecture of the Mayas were shown
to pass through historical develop-
ments. More recently, in 1917 and
1918, ethnological collections were
.17.4 .V AS A MISECM SCBJKf T
249
made in Guatemala, Salvador. Hon-
duras, Nicaragua, and Panama. Es-
pecially noteworthy was the material
obtained in Guatemala, consisting of
textiles and costumes, the designs and
construction of which are rich in valu-
able suggestions for students of indus-
trial art. The Sumu and Moskito
Indians of Nicaragua were visited as
well as the Valiente Indians of Panama.
As the combined results of these
several explorations in the deserts and
jungles of ancient America, the Mu-
seum possesses rich collections and
from them has installed an entire hall,
the Loubat Hall. Conspicuous in this
exhibit are the casts of great monu-
ments and sacrificial stones bearing
hieroglyphic inscriptions and dates.
The Museum has also been fortunate
in securing the deposit of the collection
of Mr. Minor C. Keith that represents
the pottery, stone work, and gold work
of Costa Pica.
TEXTILES AM) POTTKRV FROM PERT
Turning now to South America, we
note that the Museum's prehistoric
Peruvian collection was begun as far
back as 1874 when the Edwin H. Davis
collection was purchased. During the
next year (1875) the rare collection
formed by E. ( leorge Squier during his
several years of sojourn and travel in
Peru was acquired. This was a most
important addition, as many of the
specimens are figured and described
in his well-known work Incidents of
Travel ami Exploration in the Lund of
the Ineas. Following this no very
important additions were made until
1X92 when Adolph Francis Bandelier
went to Peru, in which country and in
Bolivia he continued collecting for the
next ten years. The expenses for the
first two years were defrayed by the late
Henry Yillard, who presented the large
collections made during this time to
the Museum. The services of Mr.
Bandelier were then taken over by the
Museum and his work continued under
its auspices for the next eight years.
Mr. Bandelier's ten years' work so
increased the Peruvian and Bolivian
collection of the Museum that it
is now one of the largest and most
representative in the world.
Among other important accessions
are the famous Garces collection from
the Island of Titicaea, the Gaffron
collection from Nazca, and the Mon-
tero collection from lea. Notable
objects in the collections are sixty
trephined skulls, including the "Squier
skull," from the Yucay valley, which
was the one that first revealed to the
scientific world the fact that this diffi-
cult surgical operation was successfully-
performed in Peru in prehistoric times.
The "Squier skull" has probably ap-
peared, as an illustration, in more
books and papers than any other object
in the Museum.
The beautiful shawl-like garments
from lea and the unique polychrome
pottery from Nazca attract general
attention and furnish an endless num-
ber of suggestive motives for the de-
signer and art student. The collection
of textiles is a very large one. Almosl
every technique known was employed
by the ancient Peruvians, and many of
the pieces are very beautiful even when
judged by modern standards of art:
while the textile expert is astonished
at the quality of the yarns and the
evidences of skill on the part of the
weaver. A number of such experts
who from time to time have examined
some of the finer pieces in this collec-
tion declare that from a technical point
of view they have never been equaled.
This collection constitutes the specific
source from which come the inspiration
A SIOUX INDIAN
The standards of
excellence and ac-
curacy in the mod-
eling of museum
figures to present
the distinctive races
of men have risen
to a high level. The
photograph shows a
Sioux man in the
costume of a war
leader. The figure
of the man was first
modeled in clay by
Mr. F. F. Horter
according to ana-
tomical measure-
ments for the tribe,
but to give it indi-
viduality, portrait
studies of a single
Indian were used
for the face and
the pose. When
complete, the mod-
eled figure was
cast in plaster. Mr.
Frederick H. Stoll
then gave it a dress-
ing of wax and
color to resemble
skin. He was able
to impart to it a
lifelike appearance
by using color
studies of this par-
ticular tribe and of
the individual rep-
resented. Lastly, a
costume and equip-
ment were selected
from the Museum's
Sioux collection and
the figure was
dressed
MAN AS A MUSEUM SUBJECT
251
and the suggestion that underlie the
recent tendency to develop a national
type of art. This movement is in a large
measure due to Mr. Charles W. Mead,
aided by his former student, Mr. M. D.
C. Crawford. Many professional de-
signers spend days in the Museum
studying the remarkable textiles in the
collection. The variety of form and
elegance of technique found in these
textiles make them an almost inex-
haustible source of inspiration.
In addition to the regions men-
tioned, other parts of the South Ameri-
can continent have been visited by
collectors on behalf of the Museum so
that there are housed within its walls
extensive collections from Guiana,
from the Amazon basin, from Chile,
and from Tierra del Fuego.
INDIAN TRIBES OF THE UNITED STATES
Work among the western Indians of
the United States did not begin until
about the year 1900. Previous to that
date there were no collections in this
Museum representing the culture of
even a single tribe of the buffalo-
hunting Indians, such as the Sioux,
Comanche, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, Crow,
etc. The first systematic collections
were made by Dr. A. L. Kroeber among
the Arapaho. Intensive collecting was
begun about 1905 and carried on
vigorously for six years. During this
time practically every Plains tribe was
visited, to the end that the Museum
might have a comprehensive collection,
presenting the most important phases
of Indian life. Particularly rich is the
series of beaded and otherwise deco-
rated objects, offering great variety of
design and of color combination.
Students of art and design have been
making new discoveries in the course of
their examination of this material.
In fact, no collection of equal size seems
to offer such boundless opportunities
for investigation and exploitation.
Great discoveries in the evolution of
art and in the prehistory of our con-
tinent still await the assiduous explorer
within the Museum itself.
With this wealth of material is a full
collection of notes. Many important
objects in the cases have their intimate
personal histories carefully recorded by
a museum man and placed on file. Here
will be found data as to how bead work
was done, how moccasins were made,
how feather bonnets were fashioned, and
similar accounts, together with much
valuable information as to the beliefs
and fancies of the Indian. To secure
all this intimate information the mem-
bers of the staff lived for brief intervals
with the Indians, making notes and
observations and often receiving inten-
sive instructions from old sages as to
the Indian's philosophy of life and the
homely ways of his fathers. Some-
times life friendships have sprung up
in this way. Many Indians have taken
a deep interest in the work and have
shown much enthusiasm over the
perpetuation of their past in a great
scientific institution. An old Indian
once said to the writer, "Now I pass in
peace. You have written down our
history; you have put away in a safe
place the things of the old people.
Our grandchildren can read and see
what their ancestors did. Otherwise
all would be lost. It is good that you
came before it was too late."
Collecting among the Indians of the
Plains is practically ended. In a few
years the subject will be a closed book,
to be read only in libraries or in the
collections of museums. This work on
the part of the Museum covered a
period of less than fifteen years, occu-
pied but a small part of the time of its
anthropological staff, and the cost was
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MAX AS A MUSEUM SUBJECT
253
insignificant. In addition to obtain-
ing collections the department of
anthropology prepared a comprehen-
sive series of publications regarding
these Indians, all of which will stand
as substantial contributions to the
subject.
THE ARCHER M. HUNTINGTON SURVEY
OF THE SOUTHWEST
In 1909 Mr. Archer M. Huntington
offered to finance a survey of the living
and of the prehistoric peoples of the
Southwest. Accordingly, the curator
of the department organized a series of
investigations that were in continuous
operation until 1922. Field studies
were made among the Rio Grande
Pueblo peoples, the Hopi, the Zuni,
the Apache, and the Navajo. At the
same time work was begun upon
the prehistoric ruins in three areas: (1)
the valley of the San Juan River in
northern New Mexico, and parts of
Colorado, Utah, and Arizona; (2)
the valley of the Rio Grande in New
Mexico; and (3) in the basin of the
Little Colorado in Arizona. The most
prolonged and intensive work was in
the area first named where efforts
were concentrated upon the very large
and hitherto unexplored ruin near the
town of Aztec, New Mexico. Under
the immediate direction of Mr. Earl
H. Morris this large ruin was uncovered
and partially restored. The return in
collections has been rich. During the
current year the Museum, with Mr.
Huntington's generous assistance, pur-
chased this ruin from the owner of the
land upon which it stood and tendered
it to the United States. The gift was
accepted and by proclamation of
President Harding the area was de-
clared a national monument.
Some idea of the magnitude of the
archaeological part of the Huntington
Survey may be gathered from the fact
that 1530 sites and ruins were studied,
covering an area of more than 50,000
square miles. This survey certainly
ranks as one of the great archaeological
undertakings of our time.
SEEKING THE TIME CLOCK OF PRE-
HISTORIC AMERICA
About ten years ago the department
of anthropology set out to find clues
to the time sequence of cultures in
ancient America. The question in its
simplest form is: what is old and what
is recent? Though at first thought this
question may seem easy to answer, it is,
as a matter of fact, one of the most
baffling known to science. So far as the
problem applies to the Southwest, it
was made one of the objectives of the
Archer M. Huntington Survey. Asso-
ciate Curator Nelson found super-
imposed deposits of refuse about the
ruins in New Mexico, from the pottery
in which a time scale could be devised
for that area. We can now say whether
a given type of pottery is older or more
recent than another. This method was
applied to other districts by Messrs.
Spier and Morris. Combining the
results thus obtained with those of
other investigators, we can now draw
up the genera] outline of history in the
Southwest from a remote simple cul-
ture without pottery or agriculture
down to the higher cultures of the Hopi
and Zuni Indians of the present.
A number of years ago, under the
curatorship of Prof. Frederic W.
Putnam, search was made for traces of
glacial man in the vicinity of Trenton.
At that time it was established that
there were at least two periods of occu-
pation on the famous Abbott Farm,
the earlier of which is frequently
spoken of as argillite culture, a simple
Stone Age civilization. The collections
254
NATURAL HISTORY
made under the direction of Professor
Putnam were brought to the American
Museum. Later, under the present
curator of the department, further
investigation of the site was under-
taken, with the result that it was
shown that the argillite culture was
contemporaneous with the sand deposit
in which it occurs. While it is still
impossible to assign an exact date to
this deposit, it seems to fall not later
than the period of receding glaciers.
Supplementary to these investiga-
tions, Mr. Nelson examined shell
heaps on the south Atlantic coast and
also deposits in the Mammoth Cave
region of Kentucky, finding in each
case evidences of successive occupa-
tion, pointing to an early period repre-
sented by non-agricultural tribes with-
out pottery. Doctor Spinden found
stratified deposits in Mexico which re-
vealed an old underlying culture, traces
of which are found in the adjacent parts
of both North and South America.
These accomplishments, taken in
connection with the important addi-
tions to knowledge made by investiga-
tors representing other institutions,
mark the opening of a new era in the
study of man in the New World. We
are now about to date the achievements
of the aborigines and so bring the
history of the New World in line with
that of the Old.
THE ROLL OF EXPLORERS
The exploration projects briefly re-
viewed in the preceding pages could
have been greatly expanded by the
inclusion of minor and special under-
takings, such as collecting trips in the
Arctic, in the heart of Africa, Poly-
nesia, and Asia. Although more de-
tailed reference to these is omitted for
considerations of space, no presentation
of the expeditions of the department
would be adequate without mention
of the many men who have shown
so unreservedly their zeal and
enthusiasm for exploration and re-
search. In addition to the present
staff of the department, there is a long
list, among which appear the names of
many distinguished anthropologists,
including:
A. F. Bandelier
Franz Boas
Waldemar Bogoras
George Comer
Roland B. Dixon
G. T. Emmons
Livingston Farrand
Gerard Fowke
Waldemar Jochelson
William Jones
M. R. Harrington
A. Hrdlicka
M. L. Kissell
A. L. Kroeber
Bert hold Laufer
Carl Lumholtz
Robert H. Lowie
Earl H. Morris
Frederic Ward Putnam
George H. Pepper
Edward Sapir
Marshall H. Saville
Alanson Skinner
Harlan I. Smith
Frank G. Speck
Leslie Spier
Herbert J. Spinden
V. Stefansson
J. R. Swanton
Ernest Yolk
J. R. Walker
Gilbert L. Wilson
To these could be added the names
of many others who have made special
collections for us in lands all over the
world.
THE EXHIBITS
The expeditions of the department
are undertaken with the object of ob-
taining materials and data to be used
in the preparation of exhibits. To
make these exhibits effective and
authentic it is essential that duly
qualified men visit the out-of-the-way
places of the earth and lay in a store of
scientific material. As the department
grew it became clear that its policy
should be to prepare special exhibits
from carefully selected material in its
reserve stock. In consequence, about
the year 1907, the collections were re-
organized under two heads, exhibition
material and the study series.
Of the twelve exhibition halls occu-
pied by the department eight are
FOSSIL .MAX EXHIBIT
In this exhibit replicas of the skulls and jaws of early types of man are so arranged as to be
readily compared with the corresponding parts of an anthropoid ape on the one hand and with
those of modern man on the other. In the top row from left to right, the skulls are those of an
anthropoid ape, of Pithecanthropus, of Neanderthal man, of Cro-Magnon man, and of the
modern long-headed and short-headed types. This order of arrangement applies also to the
next two rows, except that modern man, instead of being represented by two types of skull, is
indicated by only a single example. In the fourth row from the top material is offered for a
comparative study of the human jaw at different stages of evolution. The reduction in size of
the bony framework of the face becomes apparent as the eye traverses the bottom row from
left to right, viewing successively Pithecanthropus, Neanderthal man, Cro-Magnon man. the
Xegroid type of modern man, and the European type of modern man
256
X AT URAL HISTORY
Racial differences manifest themselves
even in the form and structure of the hair.
The straight hair characteristic of Indians
and Mongolians is straight in the hair-sac
(upper left) and circular in cross section
(upper right); the woolly hair of Negroid
peoples is sharply curved in the hair-sac
(lower left) and oval in cross section (lower
right). European hair, usually wavy, is of
intermediate type. These wax models of
hair, highly magnified, were prepared by Mr.
Shoichi Ichikawa.
devoted entirely, and two mainly, to
living peoples. Four of these eight
halls are concerned with North Amer-
ica, one with Africa, one with Asia,
one with Malaysia and the Philippines,
and one with the Pacific Islands. The
general arrangement of these halls
is geographical; that is, primarily by
large culture areas and secondarily by
tribes or islands. The objects from
any one tribe are grouped in the cases
according to subject; those illustrating
art, for instance, are separated from
those illustrating household utensils
and ceremonial objects. By means of
indexed labels, maps, and diagrams the
student visitor is quickly able to locate
any particular type of specimen from
any desired region or tribe. For the
benefit of visitors whose interest is
more general, each hall as a unit is
arranged to produce a lasting and de-
finite impression. The spacious canoe,
the totem poles, and the material in the
cases of the North Pacific hall, for
example, give unescapable evidence of
skillful work in wood and bark and of a
grotesque conventionalized art. Mural
decorations and groups representing
the industrial and ceremonial life of
the people are being provided to sup-
plement the displayed collections.
Two of the remaining halls, or ex-
hibition units, are devoted to the
ancient civilizations of Mexico and of
Peru. A third hall presents a synoptic
series of man's handiwork from the
earliest Stone Age in Europe to the
dawn of history. Supplementary to
this story of man's upward trend in
industry and art is a section showing his
racial characteristics and his biological
history.
The materia] in the second division
of the collections, the stud}- series,
greatly exceeding in bulk the total
number of objects displayed in the
halls, is preserved with great care in
storerooms. The specimens are so ar-
ranged and classified on metal shelv-
ing, or in trays, that any specimen
desired can be found quickly. This
wealth of permanently preserved mate-
rial is being constantly used by our own
staff, by graduate students from the
universities, and by visitors interested
especially in ethnology, design, art, etc.
During the past few years the chief
concern of the department has been to
emphasize the salient features of the
MAX AS A MUSEUM SUBJECT
257
exhibits and to improve the technique
for habitat groups, as evidenced in the
Apache, Hopi, and Navajo sections.
The groups mentioned are constructed
to natural scale, with painted back-
grounds, and are based on careful field
studies by Messrs. Young and McCor-
mick. In technique and boldness of ex-
ecution they set a new standard in mu-
seum groups embodying human figures.
Finally mention may be made of a
series of small booklets introducing the
visitor to the important problems pre-
sented by these groups and special
exhibits. It is the hope of the present
staff that ere long the halls of the Mu-
seum given over to anthropology may
present in their arrangement a com-
prehensive view of man's origin and of
the slow and laborious development of
his culture throughout the vista of
prehistoric time, that these halls may
also be rich in detail, presenting geo-
graphical and racial types of human life,
so that the visitor may, if so inclined,
realize by repeated visits to the Mu-
seum, the relation of man to the earth
and the intimate relation that exists
between him and the environment in
which he choses to live. It is thus
that the exhibits in anthropology re-
veal the natural history of man.
The ethnological laboratory. — Specimens illustrating the arts and mode of life among
the tribes investigated by the Museum staff or visited by explorers are stored in specially con-
structed vaults on the attic floor of the anthropological wing and adjoining these vaults is a
small laboratory into which collections can be taken for study. The photograph shows Dr.
Waldemar Jochelson, a distinguished Russian ethnologist, on the right and Mr. ('. M. Barbeau,
of the Anthropological Division, Canadian Geological Survey, specialist in Indian languages
and folklore, on I he lefl . both making detailed studies of collections in their special fields
THE MARKET PLACE AT CHALCHIHUITES
258
The Buried Past of Mexico
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ARCH.EOLOGICAL WORK IN THE CENTRAL AND
NORTHERN PARTS OF THE REPUBLIC
By CLARENCE L. HAY
Research Associate in Mexican and Central American Archaeology, American Museum
M!
EXICO is a very dangerous
country for the American trav-
eler. It leads him into the
perilous habit of prophecy. If he has
been in that land two weeks, he writes
an article; if his sojourn has been
prolonged to a month, he writes a
book. I confess upon the occasion of
one visit to have written a political
forecast, but it was never published,
for before I reached home the entire
situation had changed. Now, when-
ever I return, and am asked the invari-
able question: "What is going to
happen down there; how is the situa-
tion going to work out?" I fall back
upon an answer once given me by an
erudite observer, "You can dope the
situation out thirteen ways, and the
fourteenth will happen!"
There is, however, a field which is
unaffected by the kaleidoscopic changes
of conditions in that unhappy country.
The revolutions which sweep down
from the north lay waste the surface of
the land and flood the mines, but leave
unharmed the scarcely hidden wealth
which awaits the pick and shovel of t he
archaeologist. In the midst of all the
political unrest since the fall of Diaz,
the archaeological branch of the govern-
ment has blossomed and has borne fruit .
The stoics are so widespread that it
is difficult to decide which regions to
emphasize. I shall not consider the
wonderful Mayan or Zapotecan coun-
try of the south, but will confine this
article to the highlands of Mexico and
to the less explored fields in the east.
west, and north.
The Valley of Mexico alone, with
the great age of its deposits, and
the evident cross-currents of cultures,
offers many problems which may not
be solved in the present generation.
Possibly the most fascinating remains,
though the least spectacular of all, are
those of a primitive culture which, for
want of a better name, has been called
the "Archaic," and of which the richest
finds have been made in the outskirts
of Mexico City. For several years
past, the Mexican government has
been conducting a most interesting
exploration of an Archaic site at San
Angel, a southern suburb of the city.
Excavations have been made at a
quarry, on the edge of an ancient lava
flow, which occurred, geologists vari-
ously estimate, from two thousand to
ten thousand years ago. The volcanic
stone is from fifteen to thirty feet in
thickness, and on top are found ar-
ticles belonging to the Aztec civiliza-
tion. Beneath the great cap of lava
tunnels were made, and objects of the
Archaic type were found therein.
These consist of stone utensils, pottery
vessels, figurines of baked clay, quanti-
ties of potsherds, and several skeletons,
the latter apparently from burials.
This discovery is a most valuable
contribution to science, as it establishes
beyond question the relative age of the
Archaic type, which is found here un-
mixed and undisturbed. The deposit
of lava is very extensive, and the
Mexican government would welcome
scientific excavations made at other
points on the edges of the flow.
A lava-quarry site at San Angel, near Mexico City. The earth stratum in which
Archaic remains are found is clearly seen at the bottom of this picture. V/t.c remains are
found on top of the lava. Courtesy of Dr. Manuel Gamio
A skeleton belonging to th
been covered by a lava flow at
uel Gamio
260
Archaic period, obtained from a stratum of earth that had
mie time subsequent to the burial. Courtesy of Dr. Man-
THE BURIED PAST OF MEXICO
261
There is another volcanic deposit on
the other side of Ajusco Mountain,
running toward Cuernavaca, in the
state of Morelos, and it would be in-
teresting to discover if the culture to-
be found beneath this flow is identical
with that found at San Angel. It is
noteworthy that pottery resembling the
Mexican Valley Archaic has been found
in many parts of Morelos, as well as in
the adjoining state of Puebla.
The land about Atzcapotzalco, a
little to the northwest of Mexico City,
is especially abundant in archaeological
remains. There the excavator is re-
warded by finding three distinct cul-
tures, superimposed and varying in
relative depth according to the site
chosen. At one place the writer found
near the surface of the ground objects
of the Aztec type, and at a depth of
from three to eight feet, specimens of
the Teotihuacan or Toltec type, while
it was necessary to continue to the
depth of from ten to twelve feet to find
Archaic specimens, which were similar
in every particular to the objects found
under the quarries at San Angel.
On many of the hills surrounding the
Valley of Mexico, this same Archaic
type is found at , or near, the surface of
the ground. It has not yet been estab-
lished whether these surface finds
represent a survival of the Archaic
culture, or whether they were deposited
at the same time as those in the valley,
and escaped being deeply covered, as
the valley objects were, by erosion
from the hills.
A classification of the Archaic is
difficult, owing to the wide variety of
typo of the anthropomorphic figurines.
No two arc exactly alike. They are the
work of the savage, groping for self-
expression in art, and though many of
the images are grotesquely crude, some
of them — particularly in respect to the
heads — are surprisingly well executed,
and indicate a long process of develop-
ment. It would not be surprising,
therefore, to discover in some lower
strata a " pre-Archaic" of still cruder
form, antedating anything hitherto
found. In short, this fundamental
culture presents the most important,
and the most puzzling, of all the
archaeological problems of Mexico;
and it is with the object of eventually
working out a solution that intensive
studies should be made in all parts of
the republic.
These figurines of Archaic type were ob-
tained from water-bearing gravels .-it Atzca-
potzalco, near Mexico City. The one on the
ici'i is a specimen of unusual character that
finds place in the collection of the American
Museum. That on the righl is reproduced
from the collection of the author
262
NATURAL HISTORY
the southern United States to northern
South America, thousands of years ago.
and laid the foundation for the higher
civilizations which came after them?
This can only be determined by the
most painstaking comparisons, and
much stratigraphic work in many parts
of Mexico and in other countries.
But a solution would be worth all the
effort involved.
In museums throughout the world
there are various pottery figures in
human form that are of a distinct type.
Collected from the states of Jalisco.
Michoacan. Colima, Nayarit, and even
from Zacatecas, they show consider-
able skill in modeling, and many of
t hem seem to be portrait studies. They
have been given arbitrarily the desig-
nation "Tarascan," though manv of
These Archaic types from the Valley of Mexico indicate an interesting range in portrai-
ture; facial proportions, features, and headdress differing from individual to individual.
They are part of the collection in the Museum of the American Indian — Heye Foundation
There is much primitive pottery in
Central America, and some even in the
United States, which suggests a com-
mon origin with the ancient type of the
Valley of Mexico. Was it a primitive
people that overran this continent from
them come from points outside of the
historic Tarascan area. This is another
alluring field for the archaeologist ,' not
only on account of the artistic value of
the objects found, but also because its
investigation will help to clear up the
THE BIR1ED PAST OF MEXICO
263
Statuettes from the "Tarascan" area, now in the American Museum. They differ so
much in facial type and expression that they appear to be individual portraits
riddle of the Archaic. No scientific
stratigraphic work has been done in
this entire region, and as the figures are
apparently a later development of the
primitive Valley of Mexico type,
excavations may reveal the true Valley
culture underlying the "Tarascan."
A similar, though even more com-
plex, situation exists on the east coast .
in the Panuco region of the oil fields.
From this part of the country comes a
diverse assortment of clay figures of
three general types: figurines in semi-
relief, apparently made from a mold,
and resembling certain small idols
found in the Maya area in the south;
well-made idols of pastillage tech-
nique; and a few distinctly resembling
the Archaic of the Mexican highlands.
A- this region was populated by the
Iluastecas, an outlying Maya tribe,
the Maya-like types arc to be expected,
but it is hard to determine the chrono-
logical position of the free-hand figures
of the second type, which appear to
This figure, of late Archaic type, fnun the
Peabody Museum in Cambridge, was col-
lected by Mrs. Zelia Nut tall in the Panuco
region. Figures are frequently found on the
surface of the ground after a heavy rain
264
NATURAL HISTORY
The plaza of San Juan tie Teotihuacan is surmounted by small truncated pyramids with
stairways giving access to them. The Pyramid of the Moon is seen as a dark mound against
the hill in the background on the left of the center of the panorama; the Pyramid of the
Sun is on the right of the center
be of a later date, and the Valley of
Mexico Archaic, which may or may
not be the earliest. Farther down the
coast, the Totonacan area in the central
part of Vera Cruz shows characteris-
tics of both the Maya and the Archaic,
and a careful study will be necessary
to determine the relation of the two
cultures.
To those who believe that Mexico is
a land now inhabited chiefly by
"grafting" generals on the one hand
and bandits on the other, nothing is
more instructive than a glance at the
work recently accomplished by the
government under the able direction of
Dr. Manuel Gamio, of the Departa-
mento de Agricultura y Fomento, at
San Juan de Teotihuacan. This
ancient Toltec city, which can be
reached within an hour by train or
automobile from the capital, has for
long been one of the well-known
attractions of Mexico. The Pyramid
of the Sun, about 180 feet in height, is
the largest of its monuments,1 and was
restored under Porfirio Diaz. The
Pyramid of the Moon, which is some-
what smaller, has not as yet been re-
stored. These pyramids were built of
adobe bricks, faced with stone and
cement, and apparently were enlarged
from time to time. Unlike those of
Egypt, they contain no burial cham-
bers. Originally there probably existed
an altar on the flat summit of each,
dedicated to its respective deity.
In addition to a quantity of smaller
mounds and buildings, there is another
structure, third in point of size, but
now first in point of interest, which has
been known popularly as the "Citadel."
To this group Mexican archaeologists
have been devoting their time for the
past three years, with the most aston-
ishing results.
The temple enclosure consists of a
'There is a still larger pyramid at Cholula. in the
state of Puebla. It is built of adobe, and was origi-
nally about two hundred feet in height. It is much
greater in volume, though not as high as the pyramid
of Cheops in Egypt.
THE BURIED PAST OF MEXICO
265
The double structure on the right half of the panorama represents two periods in the
history of San Juan de Teotihuacan, — the addition on the right, only partly freed of its cov-
ering of soil, being of later date than the exposed pyramid. This group is known as the
"Citadel"' and was probably erected to the god, Quetzalcoatl. Courtesy of Dr. A. V. Kidder
quadrangular plaza 160,000 square
meters in area, its two principal axes
oriented in the direction of the four
cardinal points. It adjoins the "Path-
way of the Dead, which leads to the
two great pyramids. Each side sur-
rounding the plaza is composed of a
platform 400 meters long, 7 meters
high, and 80 meters broad, surmounted
by small truncated pyramids, which are
connected with the platform and the
plaza by stairways. There are four
small pyramids on each side, except on
the east, where there1 are but three. A
stairway on the west side leads from
the Pathway of the Dead to the top
of the platform, and another takes one
down into the plaza.
In the center of the quadrangle
stands a double temple, which repre-
sents two epochs in the history of the
city. It appears to have been erected
to Quetzalcoatl, god of the winds.
Excavations were begun on the west-
ern elevation, which proved to be a
later addition, representing the "period
of decadence." It is higher than, but
similar in construction to, the smaller
structures on the platforms, and like
them bears no decorative art. It had
been attached to the older temple on
top of the existing facade.1 In this
manner the builders of the second
epoch buried, and unwittingly pre-
served for discovery a thousand years
or more later, some of the finest sculp-
tures ever unearthed on the American
Continent. On the other sides of the
older temple, which had been exposed
to the elements and to the depreda-
tions of Christian builders of the
Colonial Period, hardly a trace of the
original facing remains.
On the older temple serpent heads
in stone adorn either side of the stair-
way, and the entire side of the terraced
pyramid is covered by rows of plumed
'There is abundant evidence in other parts of the
city of two epo-hs; floors, walls, and stairways of
ho lses are frequently found beneath the ruins of other
buildings.
266
NATURAL HISTORY
In the upper picture is shown that portion of the "Citadel" that fronts the later and
only partly excavated pyramid. Richness of ornamentation characterizes this well preserved
side of the original temple. The character of the sculpture appears in full detail in the
restoration (lower picture) where the head of the plumed serpent is seen alternating with
that of another god, probably Tlaloc. Both of these pictures are reproduced by courtesy of
Dr. Manuel Gamio
serpent heads, with representations of
the head of another god (probably
Tlaloc) alternating, while associated
with them are the bodies of serpents in
bas-relief, sculptured sea shells, and
other figures. Not only have most of
the stone carvings on the facade been
preserved, but many of the delicate
shells, carved in stucco, remain intact.
There are also many vestiges of the
THE BURIED PAST OF MEXICO
267
The steps in the upper picture illustrate two periods of culture, evidences of which are
found in various parts of the city of Teotihuacan. Inferiority in art and workmanship is
apparent in the structures of the later period.
■ The frescoes on the masonry shown in the lower picture have been preserved to a remark-
able degree. Some of the paints on excavation were still bright and the individual colors
stand out with considerable sharpness. Courtesy of Dr. Manuel Gamio
polychromatic covering, and in several
examples incrusted obsidian eyes are
to be seen in the serpent heads.
Restoration was necessary in this
group in order to preserve the exposed
monuments from complete disintegra-
tion, and a certain amount of recon-
struction was resorted to. This seems
to have been conducted faithfully
and scientifically, with the minimum
amount of guesswork.
That part of the temple of Quetzal-
268
X AT URAL HISTORY
One of the largest Aztec mounds in the vicinity of Mexico City is shown in the upper
picture; it awaits exploration by the archaeologist.
The lower picture is that of an Aztec pyramid located at Cuernavaca. Mexico abounds
in monuments of this kind, which before their excavation seem to the casual observer to be
merelv small hills. Courtesv of Dr. Manuel Gamio
coatl which is standing today may have
been the substructure of a temple, or
may simply have been crowned by an
altar. The same is true of the smaller
buildings of this group. In any case,
nothing remains to show what was on
the top, and no attempt has been made
to erect a hypothetical superstructure.
In every instance where reconstruction
was practiced, there was a sufficient
amount of the original facade remaining
to indicate clearly the lines to follow.
THE BURIED PAST OF MEXICO
269
From the top of the ancient fortress known as El Chapin in the vicinity of Chalchihuites
one looks upon the scene depicted in the photograph. This fortress was built on a promi-
nent hill, isolated and admirably adapted for defense. Some of the walls are still standing
The columns of one of the buildings probably a temple structure — at Chalchihuites.
Originally these columns evidently supported a roof, but this roof has long since disappeared.
The Chalchihuites region offers exceptional opportunities to the archaeologist. Doctor
Oamio has been excavating one of the sites but much still remains to be done in the area
There appears to be a wing attached
to the Pyramid of the Moon, and
recently test tunnels were being dug,
to discover whether a facade similar
to that on the Temple of the Winds
exists on the Moon Pyramid.
The Government at one time em-
ployed as many as four hundred work-
men on the Quetzalcoatl group, but in
spite of what has already been accom-
plished, there arc a vast number of
mounds in other parts of the city which
270
NATURAL HISTORY
have not been touched, and the depart-
ment of anthropology in Mexico would
gladly offer facilities to the foreign
archaeologist to excavate at Teotihua-
can. There was obviously at one time
a great population at that place, but
as yet no burying ground has been
discovered. Fortunate will be the
man who finds this cemetery and the
precious objects that lie buried with
the countless dead!
Though the discoveries at Teotihua-
can have overshadowed all other recent
archaeological accomplishments, the
Mexican government has not confined
itself to this site alone. Some work has
been done at various sites in the south
of Mexico; work is being completed on
a most interesting Aztec ruin at Cuer-
navaca in Morelos; Aztec temples
have been brought to light in the ( 'it y
of Mexico itself, and in the environs,
at San Bartolo Naucalpan and Mix-
coac. Mexico has undertaken an im-
portant work in the restoration of the
great ruins of Monte Alban in Oaxaca,
and an Archaic pyramid, situated
near Tlalpam in the Federal District,
is being brought to light by Professor
Byron Cummings of the University
of Arizona, under the auspices of Doc-
tor Gamio. Lava had flowed around
the pyramid, partly covering the base
of it. The pyramid is impressive in
size, is of good, though crude, work-
manship, and gives the Archaic people
who undoubtedly built it, a position
of great importance in Mexican archae-
ology. Plans are also being made for
the restoration of Taj in, a temple of the
Totonacan culture in the state of Vera
Cruz, and of a group of ruins known
as "La Quemada" in Zacatecas.
It would seem that I had exhausted
the potential archaeological regions in
Mexico, but this is by no means the
case. There is much work to be done in
the central part of the republic, and to
the north, in Durango and Chihuahua.
La Quemada, in Zacatecas, which the
government proposes to restore, is an
important group of ruins of an un-
determined culture, resembling the
Toltec in architecture. Pottery has
been found here which connects it
also with the "Tarascan" civilization.
Associated with La Quemada, are
the ruins of the Chalchihuites region in
Zacatecas. This is a most important
area and except for a site which was
excavated by Doctor Gamio in 1908,
the work being resumed by him in
February of 1922, nothing has been
done in all this territory. There is a
ruin of the Chalchihuites type not far
from Canutillo, Zacatecas, which must
have been an impregnable fortress,
standing as it does on an isolated rock,
commanding an extensive stretch of
country. It appears to be of greater
consequence than the Chalchihuites
ruin already excavated, and the work
of clearing it would be far easier. Loose
earth and other debris could simply be
dumped over the edge of the rock to the
plain below.
This is but one of legion. So far we
know almost nothing of the nature of
the many ruins farther north in
Durango. In the neighborhood of
Zape, for instance, there are remains
which, when investigated, may prove
to be the link between the cultures
of Mexico and our own Southwest.
In northwestern Chihuahua is a
great group of adobe ruins, now almost
leveled to the ground by erosion. This
group, known as "Casas Grandes,"
has lent its name to a type of pottery
widely distributed in Chihuahua, which
is affiliated with the Pueblo ware of the
southwestern United States. These
ceramics are justly celebrated for the
beautiful and varied forms of the
THE BURIED PAST OF MEXICO
271
vessels, and for the wealth of designs
upon them, the colors of which have
remained bright through the ages
in which they have lain under
ground.
The many mounds, which are known
locally as "Montezumas," were formed
by the fallen roofs and walls of the
structures. The objects, which were
buried with the dead, are found be-
neath the original floors.
No knowledge of archaeology is
required to discover the pottery, a
fact which was confirmed by the
amateur excavators of the Pershing
expeditionary forces. As far as I am
aware, however, there is available to
science no record of a single complete
exploration of a Montezuma. And
there is no more delightful country to
work in than northern Mexico.
I had occasion recently to make a
trip in Mexico with Dr. A. V. Kidder,
of Andover. We were everywhere
treated with the utmost courtesy, at
the hands of officials and people alike.
We were particularly grateful to Dr.
Manuel Gamio, director of anthro-
pology, for the efforts which he made on
our behalf. He personally took us to
many of the most important monu-
ments in the republic and was largely
instrumental in making our journey a
success. I must also mention the un-
failing hospitality extended to us by
our fellow Americans resident south of
the Rio Grande.
The "secretarfa" of anthropology
has available a quantity of data to
assist the archaeologist in his pursuits.
These include charts of the various
regions, with the geographic situation
of the remains; itineraries and means
of access; and a list of the accomoda-
tions which may be obtained at, or
near, the respective sites.
The foregoing outline may serve as a
meager indication of the crying need
for new men in this field. It is neces-
sary to go to Mexico to gain any true
understanding of the endless opportuni-
ties for research.
"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges —
Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"
• Archaic vase of the gourd type found by
the author in the valley of Mexico
Photograph by Dr. P. J. S. Cramer
MONKEY GATHERING COCONUTS IN JAVA
These agile animals are trained to climb the coconut trees and detach the fruit. From
below the owner of the monkey guides its actions by means of a long cord (not visible in
the picture) that is attached to the creature before it is sent on its errand
272
Monkeys Trained as Harvesters
INSTANCES OF A PRACTICE EXTENDING FROM REMOTE TIMES
TO THE PRESENT
By E. W. GUDGER
Associate in Ichthyology, American Museum
IN the issue of Science for February
7, 1919, I published a note entitled
"On Monkeys Trained to Pick
( Joconuts," the opening paragraph of
which read as follows : " Readers of the
Sunday editions of sonic of our metro-
politan papers may recall that in the
fall, the season of cotton-picking in the
South, waggish space writers some-
times make the suggestion that mon-
keys be trained to do this work and
that thereby the shortage of labor be
relieved." This statement was fol-
lowed by quotations from the books of
Miss Isabella Bird and of Mr. R. W.
( '. Shelf ord to show that in the East
Indies monkeys are employed to pick
coconuts for their masters.
Some quiet fun was made of me for
having been "taken in" by these ac-
counts, but the laugh passed to my side
when Mr. Carl D. La Rue, writing from
Kisaran, Asahan, Sumatra, published
in the issue of Science for August 22.
1919, a note entitled "Monkeys as
Coconut Pickers." In this he said:
"E. W. Gudger has recently called
attention in Science to the use of
monkeys as coconut pickers. The
Malays and Bataks of Sumatra very
commonly use monkeys in this way.
The current English name for the
monkey, Macacus nemestrinus, is
'coconut-monkey.' The work of pick-
ing the nuts is performed in a way
essentially the same as that described
by Shelford and quoted by Gudger.
"These monkeys not only work, but
have a considerable commercial value
as laborers. The price of a trained
coconut monkey ranges from about
$8.00 to $20.00; a price far above that
put upon other common sorts of mon-
keys which are kept only as pets.
"Coconut monkej'S grow to a con-
siderable size, and are very strong."
My friend, the late Dr. A. G. Mayor,
became interested in my note in Science
and told me that on one of his trips to
the Pacific, he had met Dr. P. J. S.
Cramer, director of the experiment
station at Buitzenzorg, Java, who had
shown him photographs of the monkeys
at work. A letter to Doctor Cramer
brought the following courteous reply:
"I have the pleasure to enclose three
photographs of a monkey picking-
coconuts. On the first you see him
climbing up the stem, on the second
sitting on a leaf, on the third stretching
his hand out over a coconut. What you
cannot see on the photographs is that
the animal is attached to a thin cord.
by means of which the owner governs
his movements."
Since I wrote my note in Scienci .
there has come to my attention, as
the result of considerable reading, a
number of similar accounts reaching
back into remotest antiquity, and it
has seemed worth while to bring all of
these together, arranged in reverse
chronological order, so that readers of
Natural History may have available
the record of this ancient but little-
known example of cooperation between
man and his fellow Primates.
First comes Shelford's account,1
dated 1916 and worded as follows:
" Macacus nemestrinus, the pig-tailed
Macaque, or Brok of the Malays, is a
'Shelford, Robert U I
London, 1916, p. 8.
.1 Xaturalist
274
NATURAL HISTORY
highly intelligent animal, and Malays
train them to pick coconuts. The
modus operandi is as follows: — A cord
is fastened round the monkey's waist,
and it is led to a coconut palm which
it rapidly climbs, it then lays hold of a
nut, and if the owner judges the nut
to be ripe for plucking he shouts to
the monkey, which then twists the nut
round and round till the stalk is broken
and lets it fall to the ground; if the
monkey catches hold of an unripe nut,
the owner tugs the cord and the mon-
key tries another. I have seen a Brok
act as a very efficient fruit-picker,
although the use of the cord was dis-
pensed with altogether, the monkey
being guided by the tones and inflec-
tions of his master's voice."
One of the most important of scien-
tific voyages of recent times is that of
the "Siboga," sent out by the Dutch
government to explore the waters of
the East Indies in the years 1899-1900.
Its leader was the distinguished
naturalist, Dr. Max Weber. His wife
accompanied him, and in her book1
descriptive of the voyage we find this
paragraph relative to our subject.
"In 1888, we lived there [at Manind-
jau in Sumatra] for a month in a
Kampong house. Opposite us was a
Malayan family which owned two
Lampong, or Lapond, apes (Macacus
nemestrinus), big, impudent beasts,
which had been taught to pick coco-
nuts. For this purpose, a band, to
which a long rope was attached, was
tied around the bodj' of the ape, and
then the animal was chased up into
the tree. Arrived there, the ape seated
himself on a branch and began to
twist with his hands and feet one of
the coconuts that hung under the
branch, until the stem broke and the
fruit fell down. If he dallied too long
'Weter-Van Bosse, Mrs. A. Ein Jahr an Bord I. M.
S. Sit.oga, 1899-1900. Leipzig, 2nd edition, 1905, p. 229.
over his work, the strap around his
body was jerked unsjanpathetically.
How the ape knew which nuts he was
to pick remained a puzzle to me, but a
fruit never dropped that was not fully
ripened."
In 1904, Odoardo Beccari, the Italian
explorer of Borneo, published the
story of his journeyings in that great
island during the years 1865-68.2 Of
Macacus nemestrinus he writes that it is
trained by the natives and taught to
gather coconuts.
Miss Isabella Bird, the well-known
woman traveler, writes as follow:3
"A follower had brought a 'baboon,'
an ape or monkey trained to gather
coconuts, a hideous beast on very
long legs when on all fours, but capable
of walking erect. They called him a
'dog-faced baboon,' but I think they
were wrong. He has a short, curved
tail, sable-colored fur darkening down
his back, and a most repulsive, treach-
erous, and ferocious countenance. He
is fierce, but likes or at all events obeys
his owner, who held him with a rope
fifty feet long. At present he is only
half tame, and would go back to the
jungle if he were liberated. He was
sent up a coconut tree which was
heavily loaded with nuts in various
stages of ripeness and unripeness
going up in surly fashion, looking
round at intervals and shaking his
chain angrily. When he got to the top
he shook the fronds and stalks, but no
nuts fell, and he chose a ripe one, and
twisted it round and round till its
tenacious fibers gave way, and then
threw it down and began to descend,
thinking he had clone enough, but on
being spoken to he went to work again
with great vigor, picked out all the
sBeecari, Odoardo. Wanderings in the Great Forest
of Borneo: Travels and Researches of a Naturalist <"
Sarawak [1S65-68]. London, 1904, p. 30.
3Bird, Isabella. The Golden Chersonese and the Way
Thither, New York, 1883, p. 425.
MONKEYS TRAINED AS HARVESTERS
275
ripe nuts on the tree, twisted them all
off, and then came down in a thoroughly
had. sulky temper. He was walking
erect, and it seemed discourteous not to
go and thank him for all his hard toil."
About eighty years ago Robert
Fortune began his career as a botanical
collector in China. From 1843-48 he
collected for the Horticultural Society
of London, while from 1848-56 he was
a collector in the service of the Honor-
able East India Company. During
the latter engagement, his collections of
tea plants and tea-making tools played
a large part in establishing the tea
industry in northern India. The
testimony of such a man regarding the
general subject under consideration
cannot be disregarded. In books pub-
lished in 1852 and in 1853 he writes
thus:1
"I have even heard it asserted (I
forget whether by the Chinese or by
others) that monkeys are employed for
the same purpose [i.e. gathering tea
Leaves] and in the following manner: —
These animals, it seems, do not like
to work, and would not gather the
leaves willingly; but when they are
seen up amongst the rocks where the
tea bushes are growing, the Chinese
throw stones at them; the monkeys
get very angry, and commence break-
ing off the branches of the tea-shrubs,
which they throw down at their assail-
ants! ... I should not like to assert
that no tea is gathered in these hills
[of Woo-e-shan in the neighborhood of
Tsong-gan-hien] by the agency of
monkej^s, . . . but I think it may be
safely affirmed that the quantity
procured in such ways is exceedingly
small."
For our next reference we must go
back nearly one hundred years, in fact
'Fortune, Robert. .1 Journey to thi Tea Disti
etc. London, 1852, p. ~.\7 , and Two Visits to the
Tea Countries of China, et ■. 2 vols. London, L853, Vol.
II, pp. 199-200.
to 1757, when Pehr Osbeck's Voyagi
to China2 was published.
Among the curious and interesting
things that he notes was the keeping of
monkeys as pets by the Javanese, and
in this connection he introduces the
following statement apparently as an
afterthought : "It is said that the
monkies in China gather rhubarb and
pound rice."
Edward Tyson closes his Philo-
sophical Essay concerning the Pygmies
of the Ancients,2 published in 1694.
with a reference to the activities of
certain trained monkeys as recounted
by three authors antedating him. In-
stead of giving this citation, the authors
concerned will be quoted directly. It
is perhaps needless to caution the
reader that they wrote at a time when
nature-faking was not condemned as
it is today.
In 1670, Olfert Dapper4 published his
book on Africa, and in his description
of " Sierra-Liona " is found the state-
ment appended below. There is no
evidence that Dapper ever visited
Sierra Leone, nor is there any to show
from whom he got his information
though he may have known of the
citation immediately following this one.
His words are:
"Three kinds of monkeys are found
here; and there is one, of a certain
species they call Baris, which they
catch when little; raise, and train so
well, that these monkeys can give
almost as much service as slaves.
Ordinarily they walk quite erect like
men. They can grind millet in the
mortar, and go to draw water in a
pitcher. When they fall down, they
:Osbeck, Pehr. Ostindisk Resa til Suratte, China,
etc [1750-52|. Stockholm, 1757. English translation
by John Reinhold Forster, .1 Voyage to China ami th<
Ea l In lies. London. 1771. Vol. I. p. 152.
3Tyson. Edward. Philosophical I'. 1 thi
Pyamies of thi I n vents London, 1694, pp. L01-02
4Dapper, Olfert. Utn -nil eigentlicht />'- -
schreibung von L/rt'co, etc. Amsterdam, 1670. A. Fren h
version is entitled Description </< I'Afrique, etc. \>m
sterdam, 1686, p. 249.
276
NATURAL HISTORY
In Egypt monkeys apparently at times shared with men the tasks of harvesting. In
the picture — the original of which appears as a painting on the tomb of Hui — one man and
four monkeys are engaged in the common labor of picking the fruit of the dom palm. From
Vol. IV, p. 341, of A History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria, by G. Maspero
show their pain by cries. They know
how to turn the spit, and to do a
thousand clever little tricks which
greatly amuse their masters."
Going back still farther, in Petri
Gassendi 's life of the French scholar,
Peiresc, published in 1641, is found the
following interesting statement which
agrees with the foregoing, in so far as
the author's very unclassical Latin
can be made out.
Peiresc was informed bj^ a certain
physician named Natalis, that in
Guinea a particular kind of monkey
called Baris was of so gentle a disposi-
tion that it could be readily trained,
taught to wear clothes, play on a pipe,
husk grain in a mortar, assist in keeping
the house swept and in order and in
performing various other menial serv-
ices.1
Nearly seventy years earlier than
Gassendi, Jose de Acosta, a Jesuit
monk, one of the early explorers of the
natural history realm of the new world,
published in the natural history section
■Gassendi, Petri. Viri illustri Nicolai Claudii Fabri-
cii de Peiresc Vita. Parisii, 1641.
MONKEYS TRAINED AS HARVESTERS
277
of his work1 the following account. It
will be noted that he claims to have
been an eyewitness of the incident
mentioned. Perhaps, however, it is
just as well that he did not print the
account in that part of the work deal-
ing with morals, for there greater
sobriety of statement would seem to
be required. He writes thus:
"I sawe one [nionke}'] in Carthagene
[( "artagena] in the Governour's house,
so taught, as the things he did seemed
incredible: they sent him to the
Taverne for wine, putting the pot in
one hand, and the money in the other;
and they could not possibly gette the
money out of his hand, before he had
his pot full of wine. If any children
mette him in the streete, and threw
any stones at him, he would set his pot
downe on the one side and cast stones
against the children till he had assured
his way, then would he returne to
cany home his pot. And which is
more, although hee were a good bibber
of wine (as I have oftentimes scene
him drinke, when his maister has given
it him) yet would he never touch it
vntill leave was given him."
For our next citation wre must delve
into the past about 1400 years to
Philostratus called "the Athenian"
to distinguish him from others of the
name. Philostratus, who was born
drca 170 a.d. and died in 245, was a
disciple of the Greek Pythagorean
philosopher, Apollonius of Tyana, who
was born a few years before the
Christian era. Apollonius traveled
extensively andamongthe countries he
visited was India. He died at the age
of about one hundred years at Ephesus
where he had established a school.
The narratives of the travels of
'Acosta, .I'>sr He. Historic natural >/ moral ,1, Ins
India*, etc-. Sevilla, 1590. English version l>y Edward
Grimston, Natural ami tumuli historii <>f tin East ami
West Indies. London, 1604, p. 315. | Reprinted L880
by the Hakluyl Society, aa its Volume I. XI.
Apollonius were collected and written
out in full by Philostratus. In the
English version2 of these we read that
near the river Hyphasis, which trav-
erses India, the parts of the mountains
which stretch down to the Red Sea are
overgrown with aromatic shrubs, as
well as many other species of plants,
including pepper trees, which he states
"are cultivated by the apes."
"It [the pepper tree] grows in steep
ravines where it cannot be got at by
men, and where a community of apes
is said to live in the recesses of the
mountain, and in any of its glens; and
these apes are held in great esteem by
the Indians, because they harvest the
pepper for them. . . For this is the
way the>' [the apes] go to work in
collecting the pepper; the Indians go
up to the lower trees and pluck off
the fruit, and thej^ make little round
shallow pits around the trees, into which
they collect the pepper, carelessly toss-
ing it in, as if it had no value and was
of no serious use to mankind. The
monkeys mark their actions from above
out of their fastnesses, and when the
night comes on they imitate the actions
of the Indians, and twisting off the
twigs of the trees, they bring and throw
them into the pits in question; then
the Indians at daybreak carry away
the heaps of spice which they have thus
got without any trouble, and indeed
during the repose of slumber."
Our next excursions in ancient his-
tory take us to the valley of the Nile
and here we find in paintings on the
tombs three illustrations of monkeys
serving man. To one of these I am
unable to assign any date whatever,
but for the other two fairly definite
times can be set.
-Philostratus ["the Athenian"]. The L>U of Apol-
lonius oj Tyana English translation by F C Cony-
beare. 2 vols. London and \i\v York. (Reprinted,
1<U7.) Vol. I. l>. S.V.K
FRUIT GATHER-
ING IN EGYPT
The upper pic-
t arc, reproduced
from a tomb at Beni
Hassan belonging
to the Twelfth
Dynasty of the Old
Kingdom, bears
witness to the fact
that monkeys were
used by the Egyp-
tians as fig-gather-
ers. Judging from
the propinquity of
fruit and mouth
in the case of two
of the apes, it is
permissible to infer
that in addition to
assisting their mas-
ters, these animals
occasionally helped
t hemselves.
The lower pic-
ture is similar in char
from a tomb at Bei
icier to the upper one but differs somewhal in details. It, too, is taken
ii Hassen and dates from the same dynasty. Both of these records are,
therefore, several
thousands of years
old, — by the lowest
est i in a t e about
forty-four centu-
ries; yet the prac-
tice therein de-
picted persists in
certain parts of the
world even today.
The upper pic-
ture is a reproduc-
tion from the cut on
p. 199 of Life in A u-
iii nt Egypt, de-
scribed by Adolph
Erman, and trans-
lated by H. M.
Tirard; the lower
picture is from
Vol. I., page 382, of
The Maimers anil
Customs of the An-
cient Egyptians by
Sir Gardner Wil-
kinson, revised
and corrected by
Samuel Birch
278
MUX KEYS TRAINED AS HARVESTERS
279
In Maspero's History of Egypt,1
there is a reproduction of a picture
from the tomb of Hui which this dis-
tinguished Egyptologist says "repre-
sents men and monkeys gathering the
fruit of a group of dom palms."
Another representation of this use of
the monkey is found in the accom-
panying figure from Adolf Erman's
A egypten .2 With reference to this figure
Erman notes that fig trees have gnarled
trunks, that they rarely attain more
than sixteen feet in height, and that
they have limbs too weak to sustain
the weight of the gardeners. Hence
people "send tame monkeys into the
branches to gather the fruit for them."
This figure is credited to Lepsius'
great work,3 from which we learn that
it is reproduced from a tomb at Beni
Hassan belonging to the Twelfth
Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Accord-
ing to accepted Egyptian chronology
the Twelfth Dynasty dates from 2800-
2500 K.c. or according to Petrie
(1906) its time was 3450 years before
the Christian era. And in this remote
antiquity monkeys had been trained
to perform menial services for man.
Yet another figure and reference
remain. Sir Gardner Wilkinson in his
great work on the ancient Egyptians,4
has this to say on the subject. "Mon-
keys appear to have been trained to
assist in gathering the fruit, and the
Egyptians represent them in the
sculptures handing down figs from
the sycamore-trees to the gardeners
below; but, as might be expected,
these animals amply repaid themselves
'Maspero, G. -1 History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria,
Babylonia ami Assyria. Baited by A. II. Sayce.
Translated by M. L. McClure. London, a. d. Grolier
Society edition, Vol. IV, p. 341.
Erman, Adolf. A egypten undaegyplisch.es Leben ,,n
iltertum. Tubingen, 1885, p. 279 English version by II.
M.Tirard, Lift in Ancient Egypt. London, L894, p. 199.
'Lepsius, R. Denkmiiler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien,
Vol. IV, Section 2, p. 127.
'Wilkinson, Sir Gardner. Manners and Customs
.' <>•> indent Egyptians, -\ vols. New edition, revised
and corrected by Samuel Birch. New York, 1879, Vol.
I. pp. MM-s:.'.
for the trouble imposed upon them,
and the artist has not failed to show how
much more they consulted their own
wishes than those of their employers.
"Many animals were tamed in
Egypt for various purposes . . and
in the Jimma country, which lies to the
south of Abyssinia, monkeys are still
taught several useful accomplishments.
Among them is that of officiating as
torch-bearers at a supper party; and
seated in a row, on a raised bench, they
hold the lights until the departure of
the guests, and patiently await their
own repast as a reward for their ser-
vices. Sometimes a refractory subject
fails in his accustomed duty, and the
harmony of the party is for a moment
disturbed, particularly if an unruly
monkey throws his lighted torch into
the midst of tin1 unsuspecting guests;
but the stick and privation of food is
the punishment of the offender; and it
is by these persuasive arguments alone
that they are prevailed upon to perform
their duty in so delicate an office."
From Wilkinson is reproduced the
accompanying picture showing mon-
keys gathering fruit. This figure, also
from the tombs of Beni Hassan, is very
similar to that reproduced from Erman
but is different in details. It likewise
dates from the Twelfth Dynasty.
Here then we have accounts and
illustrations showing monkeys gather-
ing coconuts in Java in the present year
of grace, and at the other end of the
t ime scale we have Egypt ian rock paint-
ings and carvings showing how mon-
keys assisted in gathering figs and dom
palm fruits not later than 2500 b.< .
and possibly as early as 3450 years
before the birth of Christ at the lowest
figure a range of more than 1100 years,
at the largest a range of 5370 years.
Verily there is nothing new under
the sun.
The Buffalo Drive and an Old-World Hunting
Practice
A CULTURAL PARALLEL BETWEEN THE LAPPS AND THE NORTH AMERICAN
INDIANS
By ROBERT H. LOWIE
Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California
ONE of the perennial questions
debated by anthropologists re-
lates to the independence of
aboriginal American culture. The
point at issue is really qo1 so much the
existence as the extent of alien features
in the customs, beliefs, and arts of the
natives. Probably everyone admits
that the sinew-hacked how of the Far
■\Yest must be conceived as an Asiatic
intrusion; hut American ethnologists
have not been convinced that the
essential features and higher devel-
opments of the New World cultures
imply importation from the Eastern
Hemisphere.
In the following paragraphs I wish
to call attention to an old Lapp custom
that strikingly resembles a North
American practice. The similarity
has been noted by Hatt, but without
direct reference to its historical sig-
nificance: according to this waiter the
usage also extends to the Samoyed of
western Siberia.1 My subject is the
impounding of game in a communal
hunt. The source of information for
the Lapps is an old narrative by
Tornseus, whose report, dating back to
1672, is partly reproduced by the noted
Finnish linguist and ethnographer,
Castren.2 The English rendering is
my own.
'"Notes on Reindeer Nomadism" by Gudmund Hatt
I Mi moirs, American Anthropological Association, Vol.
VI, p. 94).
zReiseerinnerungen au& den Jahren 1S3S-1S44 by M.
Alexander Castren. Published by A. Schiefner, St
Petersburg, 1853. Page 44 f.
The wuomen is made as follows. For
:i distance of one or two miles length-
wise, the width being one or more
miles, the hunter sets up high posts on
level or bald, woodless rocks, quasi duo
cornua (like two horns). First he sets
the posts at some distance from one
another, but as he proceeds (for
the length of the distance is one
or two miles) he sets them closer
together and puts on each pole some
black and horrible object, from which
the reindeer recoil. When he gets to
the angustiora (narrower parts), he
const ru c t s fi eld hedges after the fashion
of those customary in Sweden, and high
fences over which the reindeer cannot
jump. As soon as he arrives in angus-
tissimo (in the narrowest section), he
makes a five-stepped slope, at the foot
of which there is a lofty and strong
enclosure, well protected like a stock-
ade or blind alley, so that no creature
could escape from it. Then the Lapp
travels about in all the mountains;
wherever he finds reindeer herds, he
drives them carefully and gradually in
the direction of his wuomen. When the
reindeer get between the posts, they
dare not pass through either side be-
cause they arc afraid of the black
objects on the posts. The Lapp and
his followers are in the rear and take
care lest the reindeer turn back, letting
them step slowly forward and occa-
sionally eat white moss (their diet),
lie down and rest as though no danger
at all were impending. But when they
get ad angustiora and angustissima (to
the narrower and narrowest parts),
where there is a strong fence on both
sides, he proceeds after them with
might and main, driving the reindeer
in prcecipitium (headlong) down the
: ! (
Flatly of a, Buffalo Pouiul
This illustration, derived from a quainl volume published in 17i»0 and entitled Tfo
PresentStatt of Hudson's Bay, is of particular interest because in il are shown not only the
two converging rows of crouching Indians but, towering above them, poles that in some
respects recall those used by the Lapps in impounding reindeer. Edward I mfreville,
the author of the volume, states that —after the erection of the walls of the pound, which in
some cases is circular, in others square, and the construction in front of it of the hill oi
earth and the converging lines of boughs, shown in the picture— "a number of poles,
nearly fifteen feet long each, are placed at about twelve feet distance from each other.
with a piece of Buffalo dung on the top, and in a straight line from the boughs above men-
tioned. At the foot of each pole a man lies concealed in a Buffalo skin, to keep the
animals in a straight direction to the pound. These poles are placed alike on each side.
always increasing in breadth from one side to the other, and decreasing in the same
proportion as the animals approach the pound."
The sedate movements of the bison in this illustration are in striking contrast to the
frenzied confusion of the animals in the picture of the communal hunt of the Cree
282
XATL'RAL HISTORY
five steps he has made. From there
they are not able to jump up again
but are compelled to remain in suo
carcere (in their prison). Then the
Lapp comes whenever he so chooses
and kills them all, large and small,
thus destroying the breeding of rein-
deer in the country, for which reason
such men are hated by the other Lapps.
To every reader of North American
ethnographic literature this account
must at once recall the method em-
ployed by some Plains Indian peoples
in impounding buffalo and by tribes
farther north in impounding caribou.
Mind's picture of a Tree buffalo
stampede has been rendered accessible
by Dr. Clark Wissler.1 There we see
the lines converging, the circular en-
closure toward which they lead, the
hunters driving the game through the
passage created by them. Only two
significant differences appear: the
absence of a slope before the pound
1 The American Indian by Clark Wissler. Opp<
p. 11.
and the substitution of men for posts
in the formation of the two lines.
Other North American reports, how-
ever, make it clear that elsewhere, in
part at least, some of the converging
walls were made of sticks and that an
inclined plane was used in one of the
most characteristic forms of this
method of hunting.
Altogether, I cannot escape the
impression that we are here face to lace
with a cultural parallel which implies a
-ingle center of origin, that the im-
pounding of game in the manner
described evolved possibly in some
Siberian tribe and thence spread to the
east and the west. It is indeed a far
cry from the Samoved to the nearest
North American aborigines, hut the re-
semblance is too great and the feature
too complex to permit the assumption
of independent invention. Perhaps
further inquiry will serve to discover
traces of the custom in western Siberia
This picture, reproduced from Hind's Narrative of the Canadian Red\ River [Exploring
Expedition of 1857, shows a communal hunt of the Cree. Two converging lines of Indians,
some gesticulating, others aiming arrows, tend to prevent the escape of the affrighted
animals either to the right or to the left, while other Indians armed with weapons are driving
them to their doom in the circular pound seen in the distance
Bushmen hunting with hows and arrows
The Natives of South Africa
By ROBERT BROOM
Corresponding Member of the American Museum
POPULARLY and even semi-
scientifically it is the belief that
the natives of South Africa- pre-
sent to us a very simple and easily
solvable problem. The races are
generally held to be (1) the famous
Bushmen — light-skinned, stunted, un-
tameable savages, almost verging on
the semi-human, who are believed to be
the aborigines; (2) the Bantu or Kafir
tribes — a dark-skinned, powerfully-
built race, somewhat resembling the
Negro and who within comparatively
recent times have come down from the
north; and (3) the Hottentots — a
second light-skinned race who resemble
the Bushmen in some characters and,
it is thought, are a cross between the
Bushmen and the Bant us.
Recent discoveries of skulls of very
great antiquity, belonging to races
which are not Bushmen, and the pub-
lished statement by the director of the
South African Museum that he is
unable to tell a recent Bushman from a
recent Hottentot have thrown much of
our supposed knowledge into confusion.
About ten years ago there was dis-
covered at Boskop in the Transvaal a
completely fossilized human skull.
Unfortunately the skull is imperfect,
practically all the face and much of the
jaw being lost; and we are quite un-
able to give even its approximate age.
Still we can quite confidently state
that it must be very ancient . The skull
is of enormous size in tact, one of the
largest human skulls on record. Most
Europeans have a brain capacity of
from 1400 to 1600 cc, and only in very
exceptional cases do we find a brain
capacity of 1800 cc. Bismarck, Sir
Walter Scott, and a few such geniuses
had enormous brains, but the Boskop
iii;iii had a brain possibly larger than
that of any of them. I estimate that
'The photographs accompanying this article were taken by Mr. A. M. Cronin and are here reproduced by cour-
tesy <>f .Mis- M. Wilman. curator of the McGregor Museum, Kimberly, into
tin possession of which they have passed
283
284
NATURAL HISTORY
his brain capacity was at least 1950 c.c.
The skull is also extremely thick — in
parts nearly three times as thick as that
of the average European. Concerning
the affinities of this Boskop man we
know but little. Notwithstanding the
enormous size of the skull, its breadth
and height indices and general shape
agree so closely with those of the unde-
generate Bushmen as to suggest that
the stunted Bushmen of today are
probably the direct descendants of
differs considerably, and the shape of
the face differs very greatly. When this
Broken Hill man lived we cannot at
present say but like the Boskop man
his antiquity must be very great.
This primitive human type has been
named Homo Rhodesiensis by Smith
Woodward, and Elliot Smith from the
examination of the brain cast considers
him more primitive than any other
known type of extinct man except the
ape-man of Java and the Piltdown
Outline drawing of the Broken Hill skull,
after a photograph by Smith Woodward
reversed), with outline of the soft parts
restored
Restoration of the Boskop skull, with out-
line of the soft parts, — the representative of
the great-brained prehistoric race of South
Africa
the large-brained race represented 1)}'
the Boskop man.
About two years ago a far more
remarkable ancient human skull was
found at Broken Hill in Rhodesia.
Fortunately this skull is nearly perfect,
only the lower jaw being missing. The
top of the head is comparatively flat
as in the ape-man, Pithecanthropus
erectus, of Java, and over the eyes there
are enormous gorilla-like bony ridges.
In appearance the skull bears some re-
semblance to the Neanderthal skulls of
Europe, but the shape of the brain case
man of Sussex. Though there is no
race at present surviving, the members
of which might be regarded as the
little-modified descendants of Homo
Rhodesiensis, we nevertheless find clear
evidences of an Australoid strain in
some still-surviving races, and it is
not improbable that this is due to an
admixture in other races of the blood
of the descendants of the race repre-
sented by the Broken Hill man. Occa-
sionally we meet with a Korana with
supra-orbital ridges not much inferior
in size to those of Homo Rhodesiensis,
THE X AT IVES OF SOUTH AFRICA
285
and I have seen a Korana with a slop-
ing brow almost as flat.
( )f surviving races the Bushmen are
among the most interesting. The
Bushmen, as seen today in the Kala-
hari and Southwest Africa, are a some-
what dwarfish race with small faces,
hands, and feet and usually with short
curly hair on the head and compara-
tively little hair on other parts of the '
body. Occasionally, however, there
is fairly long hair on the scalp,
and this suggests that the very short
hair often seen is a secondary character.
Though the Bushmen are usually
regarded as dwarfs, it is well known
that many of the early Cape Colony
Bushmen, who could obtain good sup-
plies of game, were men and women of
quite ordinary size, and even today if
the very young children of dwarfish
parents are taken to farms and well fed,
they grow to a fair stature.
In Cape Colony pure Bushmen are
now rather ran', though they must still
number many hundreds. In early
days they were looked upon by the
white farmers who had invaded their
hunting grounds as untameable, semi-
human savages, and were shot at sight.
As the Bushman might be lurking
anywhere, with the cunning of an
American Indian, ready to discharge
his poisoned arrows, and as he gave
and asked no quarter, and furthermore
refused to make any distinction be-
tween the sheep and cattle of the
farmer and the wild buck of the veld,
it is not to be wondered at that hunts
were organized and the Bushmen
nearly exterminated. There was no
League of Nations in those days to
whom the weak could appeal and so,
like the Tasmanians, the Australians
of Victoria and New South Wales, and
many American Indian tribes, the
Bushmen were killed off or driven away.
Fortunately there are still a fairly
large number left in the Kalahari and
Southwest Africa, where their lan-
guage, folklore, and habits can be
studied.
The Hottentots were a more civilized
race, who kept cattle and sheep, worked
in metals, and were ready to trade with
the whites. In appearance they re-
semble a little the Bushmen, having
somewhat similar flat noses, but they
are usually hairier. The shape of the
head differs entirely, being long and
narrow, and by this alone a pure
Hottentot can always be distinguished
from a pure Bushman. In fact, the
Hottentot is one of the narrowest-
headed human races known. The ratio
of the breadth of the skull to the length
in the Hottentot is almost invariably
under 70 to 100 and is frequently as
low as 04. In the pure Bushman the
cephalic index is usually between 70
and 80.
There is one tribe which is usually
grouped with the Hottentots, but
which differs appreciably. I refer to
the Koranas. This is the race1 which
the early travelers found inhabiting
the Orange and Vaal river valleys
near the middle of South Africa. The
members of this race differ from the
Hottentots of the west in being of a
darker complexion, in having broader
noses and frequently in having well-
developed supra-orbital ridges. They
are a stupid, indolent race and the
examples given by Campbell of their
mentality are very characteristic. "No
nation in Africa," he says, "has been
found by the Missionaries more in-
different to all kinds of information
than the ( 'orannas. If a Missionary
visits a Kraal they will attend to his
address; if he chooses he may remain;
if he goes away they manifest no wish
to detain him. They are equally in-
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XATVRAL HISTORY
different to his coming, remaining, or
departing; they feel indisposed to any
effort of mind or body. Mr. Sass, who
knew the Corannas well, from a resi-
dence amongst them, gave me a striking
illustration of the contracted state of
their mental powers. 'Suppose,' said
he, 'that you ask a Coranna man how
This young Korana resides al Douglas,
South Africa. The Korana arc frequently
grouped with the Hottentots but they differ
from them in certain of their features as well
as in their darker complexion
many children he has. lie muses for a
while, looking toward the ground;
then raising his head he appears to be
engaged in calculating with his fingers.
Yet after all this he requests others to
assist him in solving the difficulty.
After further calculation again upon
his fingers, he will look you in the face
and tell you he has three!' "
Physically the Korana seems to be a
Hottentot with a quite appreciable
Bantu or Negro strain, and also some
blood of the Australoid race, but
whether these admixtures were acquired
in the north or in South Africa is at
present unknown.
The Bantus or Kafir tribes are by
far the most numerous peoples of
South Africa. Under the term Bantu
are included a large number of differ-
ent tribes of Negro-like natives who
are scattered over the greater part of
Africa south of the equator. Physically
the Bantus include some of the most
handsomely built specimens of man-
kind, and some of the women are as
graceful as the Venus of Melos, and
while intellectually the average is
below that of the European, the race
has produced some leaders of the very
greatest ability.
The Bantu tribes differ often very
greatly from each other in appearance.
This is due evidently to the admix-
ture with different races. Some of the
southern tribes give clear evidences of a
Bushman strain; others of a Hottentot
infusion. Many of the northern tribes
seem to have Semitic blood in their
veins.
In north Damaraland there is a
Bantu tribe which has lost its own
language and now speaks the Hotten-
tot language. These are the Berg
Damaras, of one of whom I am able to
show a photograph. It has been held
that the Hottentots were always a
feeble folk, never numbering more than
a few thousands. But this seems very
unlikely when we consider that the
Hottentot language is spoken by this
Bantu tribe in the north of Southeast
Africa, that Hottentots speak or spoke
it along the west and south coasts of
Cape Colony, and that the Koranas
of the Orange and Vaal river valleys
also spoke a dialect of it. The very
wide extent of this remarkably distinct
language would also make us hesitate
in accepting the view of certain scien-
tists that the Hottentot is onlv a Bush
THE X AT IVES OF SOT Til AFRICA
289
and Bantu cross. Certainly the lan-
guage is not a Bush and Bantu cross,
nor does the skull appear to be, being
narrower than even the Bantu.
The future of the various races of
South African natives can be foretold
with much probability. The Bushmen
and Koranas are rapidly passing away
as distinct races, the remaining individ-
uals being steadily absorbed by the
other races, mainly by the mixed
Hottentots, and in one hundred years
it will be difficult to find a pure Bush-
man or Korana. The Hottentots will
survive longer as a distinct race. In
Xamaqualand, where there will never
be airy very extensive white settle-
ment, they may survive in a state of
relative purity for some hundreds of
years, and so also in Southwest Africa,
but in other parts of South Africa they
arc bound to become absorbed into the
mixed Cape Race or the Bantus.
But the future of the Bantus is very
different and provides those of us who
dwell in South Africa with our most
alarming political problem. Almost all
colored races of man go down before
the onslaught of the white man's
diseases and alcoholic drinks. The
South Sea Islander, the Australian, the
Bushman are all passing away; but
the Bantus thrive, and today are
multiplying twice as fast as the
whites. Every Kafir wishes to have a
family and generally marries young.
Polygamy has been recognized from
time immemorial and even Christian
missions have to compound with it.
Since devastating native wars have
ceased under the Pax Hritannica, the
sexes have become more equalized, and
polygamy is now the exception, but it is
still hugely practised in the native
territories. Every woman becomes the
mother of children and many have large
families. At present the Kafirs or
Bantus outnumber the whites by about
five to one, and every year the propor-
tion of black to white is becoming
larger. Before very many years it
must be ten to one, and before the
present century draws to a close it-
seems very certain that the Kafir
will rule the whole of South Africa, and
white civilization be replaced by black.
The Berg Damara, (if which this individ-
ual is a representative, is one of the Bantu
tribes that speaks the Hottentot language
There will be no need for the Kafirs
to rise in rebellion in order to gain com-
manding power; they have only to
breed and to study. The Kafir chiefs
are often men of great intellect, and
they an1 certainly better statesmen
than many of the whites. They look
far into the future. In the first half of
the nineteenth century there was a
continuous succession of Kafir wars,
and the blacks showed that they must
be classed as formidable warriors.
But since the Zulu war of 1X79 there
has been no serious native war. There
has, however, been far more serious
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294
NATURAL HISTORY
native peace. When there was a little
rising in Zululand about a dozen years
ago and hundreds of Zulus were shot
down by machine guns, the Zulu
mothers quietly said, "We can breed
sons quicker than 3^011 can shoot them
down."
In olden times the Hottentots were
the more or less docile slaves of the
Dutch and French immigrants. They
were intellectually and physically too
inferior to the whites ever to be any
source of direct danger. But unfor-
tunately the very inferiority of the
Hottentots has given rise to the idea in
the minds of many of the white colon-
ists that all colored races are inferior,
and that there is really no danger from
the Kafirs, and as a result the Kafirs
have been encouraged to come into
( ape Colony, most of which was really
originally the country of the Hotten-
tots and the Bushmen.
Already the Kafir has displaced the
Hottentot as the laborer in most of the
towns, on the railways, and on most of
the farms of the middle of Cape ( olony.
He is also displacing the poorer class of
whites and the less intellectual. In
most countries the unskilled labor is
performed by this class ot whites, but
here in South Africa the Kafirs can do
it more cheaply than the whites, and
can do it just as satisfactorily. Hence
there is nothing for the poor white man
to do. Already we have in South Africa
tens of thousands of a class that has
no counterpart in any other country
in the world— the "poor whites" — not
well enough equipped through intellect
and education for the performance of
skilled labor and with no unskilled
labor for them to do. Every year sees
the problem getting worse. The
government tries to help by creating
labor colonies, land settlements, and
through other schemes, but for every
thousand relieved, two thousand more
seem to arise.
This class of "poor whites" with no
steady work to do, and too often on the
border of starvation, is a constant
source of danger, being a ready tool in
the hands of unscrupulous politicians.
In 1914 there was quite a serious rebel-
lion and this year again there was an
attempted revolution in the Transvaal.
Both these uprisings have been put
down by the government, but the
disease continues. Until recently the
Kafir competed only in unskilled labor ;
now he is entering the fields of skilled
labor, and very steadily but surely dis-
placing more and more whites.
Many years ago Balfour said that
South Africa had a terrible problem in
the native question, and he added, "I
do not envy the man who has to tackle
it." Whether for good or for ill to the
world the Bantu and Negro tribes are
going to play a big part in the future.
It is well we should study them.
All the photographs illustrating this
paper have been taken by Mr. A. M.
Cronin, and are selected from what is
probably the finest collection of studies
of South African natives that has ever
been made. The collection belongs to
the McGregor Museum, Kimberley,
and those here presented are published
by the kind consent of the curator of
that museum, Miss M. Wilman.
A group of white oak trees, Quercus lobata, at Diablo, Contra Costa County,
California. On the ground under one of these the jumping "seed'' was found
Jumping "Seeds"
PLANT GROWTHS THAT HOP ABOUT LIKE FLEAS
By FRANK A. LEACH
IX THE fall of 1920, my attention
was called to some diminutive
globular objects that were lying on
the ground under a large white oak tree
(Quercus lobata) and that appeared to
be possessed with life. They were
about the size of and looked like mus-
tard seed. Upon gathering a few in the
palm of my hand and examining them,
I was led to the conclusion that they
were indeed some kind of seed, not-
withstanding the fact that the locality
possessed no plants that produced
seeds similar to them, either in size or
character. Still more mystifying was
the circumstance that upon the slight-
est disturbance they jumped or hopped
about in a surprising manner. They
had, of course, no legs or other append-
ages, yet fchey could jump to the height
of half an inch and twice as far hori-
zontally in a way very suggestive of
the actions of that disagreeable little
pest, the flea.
•'What are they?"
This was the inquiry of all who saw
them, but there was no answer, for
no one present knew, or had ever seen
them before. Their vegetal appear-
ance and jumping proclivities, it was
generally admitted, suggested that
they must be somewhat akin to the
Mexican jumping "beans," so for
some time afterward they were gen-
erally referred to as "jumping seeds."
Though conceding that appearances
afforded some justification for it, I was
not entirely satisfied with the conclu-
sion. If these curious little things were
seeds, where was the mother plant?
If they were not seeds, what could t hey
In'? The problem must be solved, but
to whom should we go for help, the
botanist or the entomologist?
We addressed individuals, far and
near, but no one had ever heard of the
seedlike objects. At the end of about
a week or ten <lays, my specimens be-
295
290
XATCKAL HISTORY
came inactive. Therefore, very soon
after I began ray campaign of investi-
gation, I could only describe their
capacity for jumping, being unable to
produce ocular evidence of the fact.
From the incredulous stares I received,
I was not sure whether people thought
I was just mistaken in my observa-
tions, or was mussing up Mark Twain's
well-known story of the "Jumping
Frog of Calaveras."
Days and weeks passed and no
headway was made in solving the
mystery. Months before, when I
first obtained the strange objects, I
had opened several but the contents
then appeared nothing more than
shapeless plant tissue. I resolved,
however, again to examine the interior
of one. On opening a "seed" I was
surprised to find within it a small
winged insect. It proved to be one of
the Cynipidse, belonging to the Hymen-
opt era, an order that includes the
bees, ants, wasps and saw flies.
With the statement that the Cynipi-
dae are among the "makers" of the
oak tree galls, the significance of this
identification will be more clearly
understood. These insects to the un-
initiated look more like little flies than
wasps, hence they are sometimes re-
ferred to as "gall flies" but, correctly
speaking, they are "gall wasps."
My son Ed, who had also been
interested in the effort to identify
the little stranger, said, "If the struc-
ture that housed the insect is an oak
gall, the material composing it should
contain tannic acid." Acting on the
suggestion, the pieces were submitted
to a chemical test, and a strong re-
action was obtained, .showing the
presence of the well-known acid. As a
result it seemed almost beyond ques-
tion that the queer little globular
things were minute oak galls, although,
of course, the chemical test was not
conclusive.
It was now in the spring of the year
when the oaks were just beginning
to put forth their new leaves and
therefore too early to find any galls.
The winter storms and winds had
destroyed or swept away all the leaves
of the preceding year, so there was
nothing to do but wait until the new
leaves were developed and the gall
wasps of the season had pierced the
tissue of the foliage in the egg-laying
act. It is this operation that causes
the growth of the gall.
While considering these circum-
stances another question arose: how
did the galls found on the ground in the
previous fall become detached from
the leaves of which they were appar-
ently a part? A little thought afforded
an answer. The fallen leaves were
raked up daily and carted away; the
galls were found in greatest number
where piles of leaves had been. Appar-
ently the operation of raking detached
many of the galls from the leaves. In
this connection it should be noted,
however, that this gall is probably not
dependent on artificial means for a
separation from its leaf. Mr. Charles
Y. Riley states of either this or a
closely related gall:1 "It falls from a
cavity on the under side of the leaves,
very much as an acorn falls from it-
cup, and is sometimes so abundant
that the ground beneath an infested
tree is literally covered."
It occurred to me that there was
another test to which I ought to sub-
ject the little jumpers before finally
abandoning the theory that they were
"seeds." Therefore a number were
placed in moist earth and another lot
between moistened blotters, and such
^Proceedings of United States Xatiunal Museum, Vol.
V. p. 634.
JUMPING "SEEDS"
297
careful attention was given them that
had they been seeds, some of them at
least would have exhibited evidence of
the fact by sprouting. Not a sign of
germination appeared. On the con-
trary, in about two weeks the lit t It *
spheres were wholly enclosed in a
covering of fuzzy mildew.
About the time I subjected sonic of
the supposed "seeds" to a germinating
test, I gave others to my son, to breed
out the insects they presumably con-
tained. In the last part of June, upon
making an examination of the condi-
tion of these "seeds," we were pleased
to find that one of them was ruptured
and had given egress to a diminutive
four- winged insect, in all respects
exactly like the one I had found some
weeks previously. Upon opening an-
other "seed" and finding that it
contained a pupa, we returned the
remainder of the "seeds" to their
cage, but no more insects made their
appearance.
The jumping phenomenon1 is not
the only feature of interest in relation
to the gall and its occupant. Some of
the later things discovered regarding
it were nearly as surprising. I found
that the little was]), when it had
reached the stage of maturity and was
ready to be released from the confines
of the gall, completely filled the in-
terior, much as a young chicken when
about to hatch fills the egg. The walls
of the gall are thinner than the shells of
eggs, a condition that enables the
wasp to escape by bursting them apart .
This circumstance is remarkable, in
view of the fact that so many of the
inmates of the larger galls bore holes
through their vegetal prisons and thus
gain egress to the outer world. In a
'In The American Naturalist, Vol. X. p 218, Mr. C.
V. Riley is quoted as saying th.it "The insert within
can make it |the gall] bound twenty times it> own
length." — Editor
number of such instances, the galls are
many times the size of their respective
insect occupants, whereas the wasp of
the jumping gall looks larger than the
gall whence it came.
In addition to the detached galls,
specimens still fastened to the leaf
were necessary to the investigation.
Soon after the oak trees commenced
to send forth their leaves, I began to
examine them for the coming of the
little curiosities, but it was well along
in the month of May before I found any
promise of success for my efforts; then
I began to find here and there, as I
had expected, on the underside of the
new leaves, little spherical excrescences,
that in the course of a few weeks
assumed the exact shape and exterior
peculiarities of the "jumpers."
Gratifying as this was, I had yet to
find galls in the active or jumping
stage to show that the diminutive
growths on the leaves and the jumping
"seeds" of the previous season were
one and the same thing. When this
should be accomplished, my dis-
covery, if discovery it was, would be
ready for announcement. However,
encouraged though I was to believe
that something new in nature's work
was about to be given publicity, I
could not altogether avoid the thought
how strange it was that such an un-
usual occurrence in nature should
have heretofore escaped all notice.
As it must be the lite within the gall
that supplies the force for its peculiar
activities, I reasoned that the larva
upon emerging from the egg would
have to grow and gain the necessary
strength before it could make its
habitation hop about in response to its
sudden movements. Of course I did
not know at what time that stage
would be reached. I could only
watch and wait for it. It was in the
298
X AT URAL HISTORY
early part of October of the previous
3^ear when the galls were discovered
jumping about on the ground, but
how long prior to that time they had
possessed the power of such activity
was not known to me.
Beginning with May, the oaks were
visited periodically, and on each occa-
sion, a number of the galls were de-
tached from the leaves and given every
opportunity and encouragement to
exhibit their active powers. These
visits continued into November, with-
out my finding a single jumping speci-
men. The leaves were falling freely
from the trees and it was no trouble to
collect a quantity of the galls, but it
was impossible to find one that I could
take into the court of science as a
witness to the truth of my claims.
I was beginning to doubt the
accuracy of my observations of their
jumping capacity made in the previous
fall when it occurred to me that the
workman who raked up the leaves
from under the oak trees on the golf
course would have seen the galls in
their active stage, if such a thing were
observable. Therefore I asked him.
"Do you mean them little seed
things that hop like fleas'.''* was the
comforting response.
When told that was what I was
looking for, he said he had not seen
any this year but he had seen "lots of
'em before."
That settled it. I had not been
dreaming, and I was still on the high-
way to fame, though it will be seen
soon that I was to be unceremoniously
ditched by a large immovable obstruc-
tion labeled : " Known for Fifty Years."
From the date of the conversation
above related to the coming of the
winter storms that destroyed or car-
ried away the foliage of the trees, I
gave much time to trying to solve the
mystery, why the little galls that were
so active the year before were immobile
this season.
The life cycle of the Cynipidse, like
that of other Hymenoptera, embraces
four periods, — those of the egg, larva,
pupa, and imago or adult. As the egg
and possibly the pupal periods repre-
sent inactive stages, it seemed to me
probable that it is during its existence
as a larva that our little cynipid
imparts the jumping feature to the gall
that encloses it;1 the presumption
that the insect abandons the home of
its youth as soon as it reaches maturity
would exclude the adult stage from
consideration.
After I had arrived at this conclu-
sion, the only question remaining was,
why do not the insects cause the galls
to hop this year as in the past? With
the hope of discovering an answer, I
collected and opened dozens of the
little galls from day to day until the
close of the year, when no more were
to be found. The result of this inves-
tigation, I think, solved the mystery,
for of all of the galls examined, only
in one specimen did I find a larva
that was alive. In this exceptional
case, the larva was emaciated and
feeble. If the insect in the gall is
dead or moribund, obviously the
movements that make the gall such
an interesting object cannot take
place. But what was the cause of
such a remarkable fatality0 That I
could only conjecture. Possibly some
'In the American Naturalist, Vol. X, p. 2ls. Mr. C.
V. Riley states: "The motion [of the gall) is imparted
by the insect in the pupa and not in the larva state "
Later, however, he abandoned this view, for in the
Proceedings of the United States National Museum, Vol.
V., p. 634, he writes: "The bounding motion is doubt-
less caused by the larva, which lies curved within the
gall, and very much on the same principle that the
common cheese-skipper (Piophila casei) is known to
spring or skip. Dr. W. H. Mussey, of Cincinnati, in a
communication to the Natural History Society of that
city, December, 187.5, states, in fact, that such is the
case: though members of the California Academy who
have written on the subject assert that the motion is
made by the pupa, which I think very improbable."
Reprinted also in Annah and Magazine of Natural His-
tory, Vol. XII, Fifth Series, p. 142. —Editor.
JUMPING "SEEDS"
299
parasitic enemj^ prevailing in over-
whelming numbers, or the occur-
rence of weather conditions fatal to
their existence, or a combination of
both may have been responsible for
the seemingly unusual circumstance.
It is not uncommon in the insect world
for certain species to appear at times
in unusual numbers, then to become
so scarce as to be difficult or impossible
to find.
\Yhen the winter storms closed the
opportunity for further investigation,
as well as ending the possibility for
that year of procuring any jumping
galls to show persons whom I had
interested in the matter, I was some-
what disappointed and a trifle cha-
grined, feeling that the accuracy of
my statement as to the remarkable
actions of the galls would not be ac-
cepted until the animated galls could
be produced to prove it. However, I
was soon relieved of further anxiety
regarding the matter in an unexpected
manner.
Through my friend, Mr. G. S.
Radford of New York, who enlisted the
kind services of Dr. Frank E. Lutz of
the American Museum, I was brought
into touch with Prof. A. C. Kinsey of
the University of Indiana, who w7as
at the time engaged in making a
detailed study of the gall wasps of the
Pacific Coast, working on collections
that he had made two years previously.
Consequently he was not only familiar
with the jumping gall, but was in a
position to refer to the literature
bearing on the subject of this particular
u.i II. His kind and prompt communi-
cation informed me thai the gall had
been brought to the attention of
scientists nearly half a century ago.
An account of it appeared in the
Rural Press of San Francisco in 1874
with the description by Henry Edwards
attached, and it was written up in
certain scientific publications two years
later by Prof. C. V. Riley. Its nana1,
Professor Kinsey stated, is Neuroterus
saltatorius.
In his letter he added: "Your gall
has been recorded in literature from
only Stockton and Marys ville, Cali-
fornia, though I have species from a
number of other localities. It is
confined to the Pacific Coast." He
also said that related species occur
elsewhere in the United States, particu-
larly in Florida, where similar behavior
is found in the cynipid gall, Andricus
saltitans.
In closing his letter he said: "Your
observation of this insect has indicated
an unusual degree of interest and
perseverance in the rather difficult
task. I hope that you will not let the
fact that the species is ahead}' known
to science deter you from making
further observations."
After some search in the public
libraries, the account of the discovery
of the jumping galls, referred to as
having been published in the San
Francisco Rural Press, was found. As
it is not only the original but the
most comprehensive description of the
gall and the insect that has appeared in
print, so far as I can ascertain, it is
reproduced in full herewith:
"flea seed," CYNICS SALTATORIUS
We present this week the engraving of an
insect and shell from which it emerged, for
the purpose of showing our readers an objeel
which has attracted considerable attention
for the past year Or two in the state.
They were first broughl to notice by the
curious jumping qualities possessed by what
was supposed by some persons to be mustard
sect], and many theories were advanced as to
how the thing was done, some of wliieli were
quite amusing.
The "seed" from which the insect was
obtained was gathered with a number of
Others, under an oak tree on the ranch of
300
NATURAL HISTORY
Mrs. H. Wilder about eight miles from Marys-
ville, by Mr. F. W. H. Aaron of that city
and by him sent to Mr. Hanks, President of
the San Francisco Microscopic Society. The
matter was referred to Mr. Kinne for exami-
nation, who has followed their development
" FLEA SEED."
A reproduction of a woodcut originally
published in the San Francisco Rural Press,
showing the jumping gall and the insect that
emerged from it
through to the perfect insect, and from his
report we collect the following:
The gall or cocoon is found lightly attached
to the leaf of the oak and in time falls to the
ground, where the noise occasioned by the
thousands thai arc1 leaping about without
any apparent cause or organ of motion.
sounds much like the falling of tine rain on
the leaves. An examination shows that the
extraordinary activity displayed is caused by
the spasmodic contraction and concussion of
the abdominal parts of the occupant against
the side of the shell (enclosing it), which
movement does not cease even after the
covering is nearly split in halves, if the tender
structure of the crysalis be not injured. That
it is the crysalis and not the larva has been
shown by the microscope, and its change to
the perfect insect has been noted at weekly
stages.
The average length of the insect is five
hundredths of an inch, and in each have been
found from sixty to eighty pear-shaped ova.
The engraving gives its general appearance
with wings raised somewhat unnaturally, for
the purpose of showing their size and shape.
It was drawn by Mr. Kinne and enlarged
twenty diameters. Its ovipositor is a tiny,
though perfect, piece of nature's mechanism
and lies encased in a sheath at the lower part
of the abdomen. At a recent meeting of the
"Microscopic Society," Mr. Henry Edwards
furnished a report giving the following
technical description of the curiosity:
Genus Cynips — L Cynips Saltatorius
(nov. sp.)
Black, shining. Head broad between the
eyes, which are very prominent. Antennae
14 jointed, the 1st and 2nd joints being much
swollen, and the 3rd joint longer than the
other two, the remaining joints are long,
simple and nearly equal. Thorax densely
bul finely punctured, very globose in front,
projecting so far as to almost hide the head.
Abdomen globose, shining, Ovipositor cases
short, spatulate received into marginal
groove in the body. Ovipositor itself flesh
color, curved inwardly toward its middle.
The abdomen is six-jointed. Terminal joint
of palpi, hatchet shaped. Tarsi very hairy
t hroughout, the anterior pair with six and the
remainder with seven joints. Coxae very
globose. Tibia' long, with large and powerful
spines at the base. San Francisco Rural Press,
February 2. 1S74.
The writer has been asked a number
of times if the jumping galls are not
analogous to the Mexican jumping;
"beans." There is not only a great
difference in size, but there is an alto-
gether different origin and character
of growth. The former is an excrescent
of the epidermis of an oak leaf, and the
latter is a seed, but the peculiar activi-
ties of both arise from a similar cause,
both being inhabited by insect larvae,
(»ne the larva of a member of the
wasp family, the other the larva of a
moth. The activity of the gall is
apparently confined to a short period,
thought not to be longer than a fort-
night, but the movements of the
"beans,'' it is said, last for several
months.
NOTES
AFRICA
Martin Johnson's Pictures op African
Game. — Although many remarkable pictures
of the animal life of Africa have been brought
back by those who have visited that continent,
those recently obtained by Mr. Martin John-
son are entitled to special praise. The excel-
lence of his results is due in part to technical
skill and the power of the long-focus lens in
producing close-up views of remarkable clear-
ness, but at least in equal measure the quality
of these pictures is attributable to the pur-
poses and spirit of the leaders of the expedi-
tion,— we say leaders because Mrs. John-
son's pluck, marksmanship, and dependable
aid in the moment of danger made it possible
for her husband time and again to venture
into positions that otherwise would have
exposed him to great danger.
Mr. Johnson went to Africa not with the
sportsman's purpose of bringing back heads
to hang on the wall or furs to stretch on the
floor. He went there to get the best possible
records of animal behavior. It was with the
camera rather than the gun that he bagged his
game. His pictures give every evidence that
he killed animals only when they were needed
for food or when he was imperiled by their
furious charge and there was no other way of
stopping them. With the interest focused on
the animals themselves, there is in his pic-
tures a commendable absence of the extrane-
ous and the preposterous. Mr. Johnson
spared no pains to obtain pictures that should
be natural and enlightening. As an example
of his care anil patience, he built within a
radius of forty miles no less than fifty blinds
of thorn and stone to hide his cameras for
close-up work, and then waited many weeks
for the animals to get used to them. He was
finally well rewarded, as those who have
seen the results of his photography will
testify.
The descriptions thai accompany the pic-
tures are informing. Through them we learn
that no two zebras are marked exactly alike,
that the oryx is capable of impaling a lion on
its rapier-like horns, that the giraffe can
deliver a death-dealing stroke with its power-
ful forefeet, that the ostrich never hale- its
head in the sand, that the rhino cannot see
clearly for more than thirty-five yards. So
much misinformation -till exists regarding
animal behavior that it is a pleasure to witness
a series of films that far from perpetuating
error, or more damaging still, swelling the
total of untruths, succeeds in presenting un-
challengeable facts about animals.
Both the captions and the pictures have
been censored by Mr. Carl E. Akeley, who has
placed at the disposal of Mr. Johnson his
extensive knowledge of African wild life, and
by Mr. George H. Sherwood, curator of public
education in the American Museum. The
films are endorsed by the American Museum
as a scientific record of the free wild animals
in Africa in their native haunts. When the
pictures were shown at the American Museum
on March 9 the total attendance was 4098, —
representing more than twice the seating
capacity of the auditorium. Mr. Johnson
kindly consented to show the him a second
time and a number of those who could not
gain admission at first waited till ten o'clock
for the privilege of seeing the films.
Mr. and Mrs. Johnson spent two years in
securing the pictures. Their route extended
from the Thika River, near Nairobi, where
they organized their safari i African for expedi-
tion,— across the equator, past snow-capped
Mount Kenia, through waterless stretches of
the Gusoot Desert, on to the goal of their
exploration1, a lake near the Abyssinian
border, which, because of its soul-satisfying
beauty, they rechristened Lake Paradise.
Mr. Johnson has traveled in the outlying
parts of the world for more than t wenty years.
Originally a member of the expedition of the
"Snark" in company with Jack London, he
has since voyaged in the South Pacific, believ-
ing it the region of the greatest appeal. To-
day Africa has supplanted the South Pacific
in his affections and he is contemplating a
return to that continent for a sojourn of five
years, to be devoted to the working-out in
pictorial records of the life histories of many
of its native animals.
Animal Life ok the Highlands of thi
Great Craters. Although the so-called
"craters" of the moon reach a size that makes
even the largest craters of our earth seem in-
significant in comparison, a crater that ha.- a
diameter of twelve miles and the circumfer-
ence of which, measured along the unbroken
301
302
NATURAL HISTORY
ring of cliffs that rampart it, is believed to be
about thirty-five miles, may well fill one with
awe. Ngorongoro in Tanganyika Territory
(formerly German East Africa) is spoken of as
such a crater and, though it is the largest
formation of its kind in the area and rivals if
it does not surpass in size the crater of Asosan
in Japan, it is but one of several similar
mountain-girt enclosures that have earned
for the region the name, Highlands of the
Great Craters.
In the days when, it is thought, the lava
boiled in Ngorongoro and an incandescent
glow rose at night from the fiery molten
matter, the spectacle must have been magnifi-
cent. Today, however, there stretches over
the surface of Ngorongoro a rich grassy carpet,
and on its floor is revealed a scene very differ-
ent in kind, it is true, but not less impressive
than that which would be presented by vol-
canic activity. Ngorongoro is today the
pasture ground of vast numbers of the great
browsing animals, as well as a stalking place
for many of the clawed beasts of prey that in
this remote area, safeguarded by the forbid-
ding character of the surrounding country,
still enjoy a degree of immunity from attack
by man.
Mr. T. Alexander Barns, who was appar-
ently the first to present an account of the
region in English1 and who has been lecturing
regarding it before American audiences,
speaks of the extraordinary abundance of
animal life in Ngorongoro and in other parts
of the general area. His descriptions conjure
up a picture as replete with moving herds as
our own western plains before the railroads
laid an iron grip upon the romping grounds of
the bison and the antelope. Mr. Barns saw
" thousands of blue wildebeeste and thousands
of zebra"; in fact, so great were the herds
that notwithstanding the ample expanse of
Ngorongoro, there was in many places what he
describes as a "crush of game." Although
"not filling the landscape to the extent that the
gnu and zebra did," there were many other
animals. Kongoni hartebeeste and Thomp-
son's gazelle were present in abundance,
as well as the rhino, Grant's gazelle, Chand-
ler's reedbuck, oribi, lion, cheetah, hyena,
jackal, baboons in bands of a hundred or more,
ostrich and many smaller birds.
It is to be hoped that, with the example
furnished by other parts of Africa of rapid
"'The Highlands of the Great Craters" by T. Alex-
ander Barns, The Geograpliical Journal, Vol. LVIII,
No. 6.
and ruthless extinction of game, this area,
apparently one of rarely surpassed richness
in respect to its fauna, may be properly
conserved.
ASIA
The Faunthorpe Indian Expedition. —
The reports by letter and by cable that are
reaching the American Museum from Mr.
A. S. Vernay, joint leader of the Faunthorpe
Indian Expedition, indicate that the purposes
of the expedition are being progressively
realized, complete material for several of
the groups planned, such as the nilgai,
swamp deer, and chital, having already been
collected.1
Early in February the expedition reached
Bhopal State, where Mr. Vernay had the
good fortune to secure specimens of the ex-
quisite little chinkara gazelle (Gazella ben-
netti). This graceful animal is only about two
feet high measured to the shoulder and weighs
in the case of the male about fifty pounds.
Notwithstanding its small size it carries a
fine pair of ringed horns; those of one of
the specimens shot by Mr. Vernay measured
eleven inches. All that is now needed to
complete the chinkara group is a fawn, and
this has been graciously promised by the
Crown Prince.
A group of sambur (Cervus unicolor) is also
assured. Just after dawn one morning Mr.
Vernay obtained a male specimen of this the
largest of Indian deer, which with its erectile
mane and fine antlers presents a striking-
appearance. Blanford in his Fan mi of British
India says that any sambur antlers "over 35
inches in lengt h are of good size . " The antlers
of the specimen shot by Mr. Vernay measure
42 inches. A doe and a fawn of the sambur
will be readily obtainable, thanks to the help-
ful interest of the Crown Prince, and will
round out the group.
In Bhopal State Mr. Vernay collected
also a fine langur. He had occasion subse-
quently to watch a band of these long-tailed
monkeys munching their meal while one of
their number, a sentry, searched the jungle
to detect the possible presence of their
enemies, the tiger and the leopard. Impressed
by the inoffensive behavior of this contented
band, Mr. Vernay refrained from shooting.
Among the birds obtained by the expedition
are "two very good floricans, spoonbills,
gray hornbills, a rare ibis, and others."
'See Natural History, March-April, 1922, pp.
193-94.
NOTES
303
On March 19, Mr. Vernay cabled from
Lucknow that by the gracious permission of
the Maharajah of Nepal he had secured three
exceptionally fine rhinoceroses, — two bulls
and a cow. The Maharajah rendered invalu-
able service to the expedition, providing
elephants and coolies for transport as well
as the supplies required. In addition to the
three rhinoceroses, which are particularly
valued because of the fact that this animal is
rapidly disappearing, a tiger, a tigress, and a
bear were also secured.
AMPHIBIANS
At the Thirty-ninth Session of the American
Association of Anatomists, held at the Univer-
sity of Chicago, March 28-30, Dr. G. Kingsley
Noble read a paper on "The Carpus of Eryops
and the Structure of the Primitive Chirop-
tervgium." The paper was a summary of the
embryological, myological, and palseontologi-
cal investigations being carried on by Dr.
W. K. Gregory, Mr. R. W. Miner, and the
speaker. Although it is usually stated that
the hand and foot were primitively five-rayed
— that is, had five digits, — this synthesis of
embryological and palaeontologies! work
showed conclusively that the earliest land
vertebrates must have had a seven-rayed
hand and a seven-rayed foot. The first, or
inner ray, was a short, supporting prop, while
the last, or outer digit, was also reduced in
even the most primitive tetrapods. On the
basis of these investigations, a comparison
was made between the hand of the amphibian
and the pectoral fin of certain fish — the prob-
able ancestors of the land vertebrates. The
gap between fish and land animals is not so
great as usually believed.
Doctor Noble also spoke before the
Biological Seminary of Princeton University,
April 27, on "Some Observations on the
Habits and Development of Local and Exotic
Batrachians," presenting a summary of the
field work and studies on amphibian embry-
ology he made in Guadeloupe in 1914, in
Peru in 1916, and in Santo Domingo as well as
in the state of New Jersey during 1922.
EARLY MAN
The New Fossil Man op Jersey. — The re-
ported discoveries of prehistoric human skulls
in the Island of Jersey, England, and in
Patagonia, have aroused widespread interest
in the public press. Naturally until more
definite information is received, nothing very
Satisfactory can l>e said about these finds.
Previous discoveries of prehistoric remains
in the Island of Jersey include a number of
molar teeth described by Mr. R. Marett and
by Prof. Arthur Keith in 1911. These show
in an extreme condition the lengthening of the
tooth and the deepening of the pulp cavity
that have also been seen in some of the
Krapina (Croatia) Neanderthals. The teeth
discovered in Jersey were associated with flint
implements of Mousterian type. The new
find is compared in the preliminary dispatches
with Pithecanthropus; it is more probable
that it represents a Neanderthal man. Sir
Arthur Keith's report on this specimen will
be eagerly awaited.
Alleged Tertiary Max of Patagonia. —
With regard to the Patagonian discovery, the
outstanding feature is the statement that the
skull was found in a sandstone of Tertiary age.
The first matter of importance to palseontolo-
gists, however, is to ascertain the meaning of
the term "Tertiary"' as used in this connec-
tion. Many South American geologists and
palaeontologists, accepting the determinations
of the late Prof. Florentino Ameghino, have
referred to the Tertiary Age certain formations
which, all northern palaeontologists are agreed,
were deposited in the Quaternary or even later
times. Professor Ameghino reported the
occurrence of several fossil human skulls in
formations of relatively great antiquity in
South America, but these specimens have
been examined by Doctor Hrdlicka, of the
United States National Museum and other
authorities, and they regard them as belonging
to Indians. Northern geologists, also, who
have examined the geological formations ad-
judge them to be much later than Tertiary.
If, however, the Tertiary age of this
Patagonian skull should eventually be estab-
lished, this discovery will not be so entirely
revolutionary as might appear. The evidence
for the Tertiary age of man in Europe is now
being accepted by leading archaeologists of
Europe, and in this country Professor Osborn
was one of the firs! 1 « > come to the support of
Mr. W. Reid Moir, who has long held that
the flints in the \{vd Crag and related forma-
tions of Pliocene age in southeastern England
were of human make and not merely the
accidental results of stream action and other
natural forces upon broken fragments of Hint .
It was thought by some authorities, too, that
the Vero man of Florida dated back to the
Pliocene, although the weigh! of the testimonj
seems to indicate a later age.
304
NATURAL HISTORY
COMPARATIVE ANATOM Y
Two Important Contributions. — "The
Evolution of the Human FooC is the title of
an important paper by Dr. Dudley J. Morton
in a recent number of the American Journal
of Physical Anthropology.1 Doc-tor Morton,
whose studies have been conducted in the
department of comparative anatomy, Ameri-
can Museum, presents strong evidence for the
view that the structure of the human foot
still bears the traces of its remote derivation
from an apelike foot, with the ability to
grasp the branches of trees. He shows that
the feet of infant gorillas are more adapted for
grasping and climbing, while the feet of the
heavy-bodied adult gorillas, which spend
most of their time on the ground, show signifi-
cant advance towards a subhuman type.
Another article of interest to students of
evolution is that on "The Piltdown .law,"
by Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, in the same journal.
The author has recently studied this famous
specimen in the British Museum in great
detail. He concludes "that it is no longer
possible to regard the jaw as that of a chim-
panzee or of any other ape, but that it is the
jaw of a human precursor or of very early
man. Dr. Smith Woodward's designation
of this form as being from the dawn of the
human period seems very appropriate."
ERWIN 8. CHRISTMAN
The late Erwin S. ( 'hrist man's bronze group
of two running horses, called "The Rivals."
a copy of which is on exhibition in the new
hall of horses, American Museum, continues
to receive deserved recognition in the art
world. Several prominent sculptors have
recently given high praise to this spirited
group, and the two leading bronze dealers of
the city have put it in a position of honor in
their collections.
MAMMALS
Field Work in Ecuador. — Mr. (i. H. H.
Tate, who for two years has been collecting
mammals in Ecuador for the American Mu-
seum, is on his way to thai country, after a
brief sojourn in New York, to resume his
field work. His plan, subject to modification
as circumstances may dictate, calls for an
extended period of hunting and trapping as
well as the gathering of scientific data in
selected areas of Ecuador. As much of this
lAmerican Jovrnal of Physical Anthropology, Vol. V,
No. I, October-December, 1922.
program as possible will lie undertaken during
the coming twelve months. He expects to
work on the coast, traversing first the arid
Manta region, where are located Monte
Cristi and Jipijapa, famous as the producing
centers of the best Panama hats, and then
the moist coastal region that lies beyond and
that becomes increasingly humid as one moves
north. Possibly he may work as far north as
Pata de Pajero, a mountain of undetermined
altitude near Pedernales and the probable
high point in the coastal range that backs the
shore line of Ecuador. This whole area has
been explored zoologically to only a trifling
extent and though it may be predicted with
reasonable certainty that animals like the
ocelot, raccoon, coatimundi, agouti, and paca
will be found there, the real character of the
fauna in its completeness is a thing still to lie
revealed.
Another region to which Mr. Tate will
devote attention is that of the mountainous
country about Quito, with special reference to
some of the principal type localities like Santo
Domingo, Rio Pita, and Cayambe, the pur-
pose being to complete the collections from
this area and to round out and verify the
classical data of earlier workers.
Papallacta, representing the high paramo
zone, will abo be visited. It is here that is
found the Ecuadorian Pudu, a little deer of
great rarity. Mr. Tate will likewise work over
the region that lies between Quito and Es-
meraldas, which is almost unknown zoologic-
ally and is probably difficurl to traverse, being
for the most part a very humid area covered
with heavy vegetation. Finally, the plan
provides for a visit to the densely forested
Amazonian country in the neighborhood of the
isolated mountain, Sumaco, which rises to a
height of 13,000 feet. Here it is hoped that
material new in character may be secured.
BIRDS
A Boatload of Pealk's Petrel. — The
capture of the fourth known specimen of
Peale's petrel (Pealea li inula I by the leader of
the Whitney South Sea Expedition fills the
last generic gap in the American Museum's
collection of Tubinares, the fascinating order
of sea birds which includes the albatrosses,
shearwaters, and Mother Carey's chickens.
Nearly a year ago a member of the com-
mittee in charge of the Whitney Expedition
closed a letter to Mr. Rollo H. Beck with the
facetious comment, "Be sure to send us a
XOTES
305
A boatload of Peale's petrel
boatload of Peale's petrel."' On Christmas
day, 1922, after the Museum's schooner, the
" France, " had returned to Tahiti from a long
cruise among the Marquesas Islands, Mr. Beck
replied, "Due to your kindness in not men-
tioning the size of the boat, I am able to
comply with your request.''
The meaning of this somewhat cryptic
message was not clear until the consignment
of Polynesian material was opened in the
Museum in March. Then, in the middle of a
large case of bird skins, a single Peale's petrel
was found resting in a miniature outrigger
canoe. Its appearance was hailed by the
ornithological staff with such enthusiasm as
ardent Egyptologists might show over the
unwrapping of a new Pharaoh.
The first specimen of this rare petrel was
obtained by Titian R. Peale at Upolu, of the
Samoan group, during the celebrated United
States Exploring Expedition of 1838-42,
and was described and figured by Peale in his
excessively rare volume on the birds and mam-
mals collected by that expedition, which was
published in L848. The type skin is si ill in the
National Museum at Washington. Since the
original discovery of the species, three addi-
tional examples have been taken. Two of
these are from New Zealand waters, and are
preserved in the Paris Museum and the
British Museum respectively. The fourth
specimen, which has been removed from its
canoe to one of the dust-proof steel cabinets
of the American Museum, is a female which
Mr. Beck collected off Huapu or Adams
Island of the Marquesas group, in Sep-
tember 1922. Like Peale's example from
Upolu, it seems to have been a nesting bird.
— R. C. M.
Collecting for Museums Versus De-
struction* for Sport or Gaix. — An inven-
tory of the bird collections of all the museums
in the world is now being made by Dr. T.
S. Palmer of the United States Biological
Survey in the National Museum. While the
figures are still far from complete, Doctor
Palmer says that in all the museums of the
world there are preserved about three million
birds, of which a million, perhaps, are found
in the museums of the United States. These
figures are only approximate, but they enable
us to contrast the use of birds for scientific
purposes during the entire past century with
the destruction of birds in a single year for
purposes of I he sportsman and market hunter,
for example, in the state of Minnesota alone,
from a million tot wo million ducks and gee.se
are killed in a single year. Probably many times
this number are killed in the United States and
in the world at large each year for the market.
a total vastly exceeding that of the speci-
mens collected for scientific study in a whole
306
NATURAL HISTORY
century. This is certainly sufficient answer
to those who criticize collecting for museum
purposes.
FISHES
Flying Fishes and Aeronautics. — A
three-page note on "flying fishes and soaring
flight " by Dr. E. H. Hankin in the Proceedings
of the Cambridge Philosophical Society (Febru-
ary 8, 1923) mentions facts which, the author
concludes, "indicate that the flying fish is
likely to be a useful guide in attempts to
achieve artificial soaring flight." He also ex-
presses the opinion that "the flying fish is by
far the most efficient of existing soaring ani-
mals in respect of power of carrying weight in
a horizonal direction."
It may lie appropriately mentioned that this
heavy loading per unit area of wing surface
possessed by flying fishes is also stressed in a
paper of similar tenor and somewhat wider
scope by R. E. Dowd, entitled "The Aero-
nautics of the Flying Fish," which was based
on an examination of material in the American
Museum, read before the Aero Club of
Ithaca. New York, December 16, 1920, and
published in the Atrial Age Weekly, January
10, 1921. Both authors note the under surf ace
projection of the ribbing of the flying fish
pectoral as a detail of soaring efficiency.
It cannot but be gratifying to ichthyologists
to see the study of fishes playing a pari in the
coming of man's mastery of the air, and to see
the flying fish accorded due honors. — J. T. N.
"The Elasmobranch Fishes, "by J. F.
Daniel. — The University of California is to
be congratulated on a recently published book
entitled The Elasmobranch Fishes, by J.
Frank Daniel, professor of zoology in the
university. Elasmobranch fishes comprise
sharks, skates, and rays. Skates and rays are
essentially sharks with a specialized flattened
body form.
Professor Daniel's book is a monographic
review of the anatomy of sharks, which are
the most primitive true fishes, those which
have inhabited the earth since the earliest
times and which are unquestionably ancestral
to all more highly specialized forms, that is 1 o
say, the entire vertebrate phylum from mud-
fish to man. To know of them is, therefore,
of the greatest interest, and this authoritative.
comprehensive work on their structure is
correspondingly important. Along with an
essentially primitive character, certain mem-
bers of the group show structures which are of
interest because of their high degree of special-
ization, for instance, in the reproductive sys-
tem. In an advanced embryo of the butterfly
ray, a viviparous species, villi from the uterine
wall of the mother enter the spiracle and
supply nutriment direct to the digestive tract,
as can be demonstrated by opening up the
digestive tract of the embryo. In certain rays
there is present an electric organ by means of
which electric shocks can be generated. This
is one of the most highly specialized organs
found in the animal kingdom.
The seven-gilled shark of the Pacific Coast,
one of the most primitive living species, is
used as a standard for comparison, in each of
the eleven chapters of the book treating of the
structures and anatomical systems of sharks.
At the close of each chapter there is a care-
fully prepared bibliography, making of the
whole a useful key to unlock the considerable
and important literature bearing upon the
group. The work is thus simply and well
arranged for reference. It is profusely and
most attractively illustrated. In its appear-
ance as well as in its substance the book
is one in which all concerned may well take
pride.
LOWER INVERTEBRATES
Lower Invertebrates from British
Guiana. — Through the kindness of Mr.
Herbert Lang and Mr. William J. La Varre
the department of lower invertebrates, Ameri-
can Museum, has come into possession of a
total of 1078 specimens collected during Mr.
Lang's recent trip to British Guiana. Most
of these specimens were taken from 150 to
180 miles inland, at such localities as Kania-
kusa, Kurupung, and Meamu in or near the
area of the Diamond Workings, but some were
obtained at Georgetown and Bartica. In-
cluded in the collection are 458 mollusks (of
which the greater number are land snails . '-'tis
crustaceans (among which the isopods are of
especial interest), 292 myriapods, and 41
annulate worms. Particularly valued, be-
cause of their rarity, are 16 specimens of
Peripatus, a group of invertebrates occupy-
ing, it is believed, an intermediate position
between the segmented worms and the true
arthropods. This collection supplements in an
effective way that recently donated by Mr.
William Beebe from the region of Kartabo, in
which a number of estuarine forms find place.
The isopods of both collections are being
studied by Dr. Willard G. Van Name, who is
NOTES
307
preparing a Bulletin regarding the isopods of
the West Indies and of South America as
represented in the collections of the American
Museum.
Invertebrates Collected by the Cana-
dian Arctic Expedition. — A notable addi-
tion to our knowledge of the invertebrate
animals of the arctic regions has been made in
the Report of the Canadian Arctic Expedi-
tion of 1913-18, led by Vilhjalmur Stefans-
son and Rudolph M. Anderson, that is now
being published by the Canadian Government .
Volumes VII. \lll, and IX of the Report (in
which most of the invert el >rates— exclusive of
the Insects, covered in Volume III — collected
by the expedition are dealt with) have been
appearing in parts, but the completion of
the volumes may be expected soon.
The fauna of the arctic regions had already
been too extensively studied to allow of the
discovery of new species in large numbers,
but much was learned regarding the distribu-
tion of forms already known, especially in the
region lying north of western Canada and
Alaska, the fauna of which had been little
investigated. The articles dealing with the
various groups have been prepared by more
than thirty zoologists, mostly of the United
States and Canada, a number of whom
have gone much beyond a mere description
and discussion of the material collected by the
expedition and have prepared reports that are
of much wider interest. Among these may lie
mentioned that of A. E. Verrill on the Alcyo-
naria and Actinaria, which is profusely illus-
trated and deals with many species that
range south along the New England coasts;
t hose on the marine and parasitic copepods by
Arthur Willey and Charles B. Wilson respec-
tively, the former for its numerous descrip-
tions and illustrations, and the latter for its
lists of all the known parasitic copepods of the
Polar regions; that on the Gephyrea by
Ralph V. Chamberlin for its complete bibliog-
raphy of the group; and that on the Euphyl-
lopoda by Frits Johansen for its descriptions
and for its information on the habits and
ecology of the species considered.
ANTHROPOLOGY
Francisco Gonzales Gamarra and His
Art. - For some time there was on exhibition
in t he Southwest Indian hall of t lie American
Museum a collection of water colors, pen and
ink drawings, and etchings by the Peruvian
artist, Francisco Gonzales Gamarra. Seiior
Gamarra is a master of color effects, using his
pigments daringly but without overstepping
the bounds of good taste or producing a color
combination that is other than harmonious.
Doubtless his art has been influenced by his
study of the decorative work of the Incas, a
subject which was the thesis of his doctorate,
for in the ancient textiles and pottery of Peru
there is a similar employment of brilliant
yellows and reds. Indeed, several of his
pictures are copies of designs derived from
fabrics, pottery plates and water jars, wooden
vases, and other ornamented objects in the
museums or private collections of Peru.
It is in the portraying of Quichua Indian
types that his art is perhaps at its best. In
these Indians of nonchalant and graceful
carriage, with their bright shawls and hats of
unusual shape — the manner of dress and the
ornaments worn being suggestive in this
respect and in that of the Inca days — Seiior
Gamarra has found subjects that lend them-
selves to vivid portraiture.
Other pictures in the collection are the
Cathedral of Cuzco, the best example of
architecture left by the Spaniards; the Church
of Santo Domingo, built on the walls of the
Temple of the Sun; an unfinished sketch
entitled "The Coronation of the Inca"; and a
fine picture of a cowled monk deeply absorbed
in reading a book, the somber simplicity
of his brown garb in contrast to the rich inlay
of blue mosaic that studs the walls of the
room and the soft red of the brick flooring.
Since the last issue of Natural History the
following persons have been elected members
of the American Museum:
Patron: Mrs. Walter Wehle Naumburg.
Felloir: Mr. S. Bayard Colgate
Li/i Members: Mksda.mes Dwight J. Balm,
Wm. Wade Hinshaw, Edward F. Hutton,
A. Graham Miles, .James Tolman Pyle,
Douglas Robinson, Theodore Roosevelt,
Sh., W. Austin Wadsworth; Miss Clara V.
Sin. i. max; Dr. Foster Kennedy; the
Reverend Tertius van Dyke; Messrs.
Irving W. Bonbright, Wilson Catherwood,
John Notes Mead Howells, Roland
Jackson Hi nter, Arthur Korth, Wilton
Lloyd-Smith, Wm. J. Ryan, William Ryle,
H. Sandhagen, Cb \hli.s E. Schley, Cb \ ri.es
H. Scott, P. Su \w Spragi b, Henry Osborn
Taylor, Si.ih K. Thomas, .Jr., T. Gaillard
Thomas, and Harold T. White.
308
X AT URAL HISTORY
Sustaining Mi mbers: Mrs. E. Walpole War-
ren; Miss Annette Tilfokd; Messrs.
Floyd L. Carlisle, Chas. M. Ditcher,
Hancke Hencken, Lewis A. Hird, and
Joseph Kohnstamm.
Annual Members: Mesdames John Storm
Appleby, George E. Claflin, James F.
Curtis, Blanche W. Freeman, Alva ().
Greist, Jesse Hirschman, Phosnix In-
graham, R. S. Kellogg, Samuel Kridel,
Jas. D. Layng, Jr., Dave H. Morris, Sidney
New, Sheffield Phelps, Wm. Scott Pyle,
George H. Richards, J. West Roosevelt,
Frank D. Skeel, William A. Slater,
Clarence Bishop Smith, R. Pen.v Smith,
Jr., Edgerton Swartwout, Francis B.
Swayne, Charles Newhall Taintor,
Joseph B. Thomas, Lewis S. Thompson,
Alfred B. Wade, Augustus B. Wadsworth;
the Misses Mary C. Crimmins, Eloise
Howard, Rachel Hopper Powell. M. M.
Reese, Henrietta Rhoades, H. Ricketts,
Jane E. Schmelzel, Corinne A. Sherman,
Allie Spies, Anne R. Weir, Elizabeth
R. Wellington; Brigadier-General
Samuel E. Tillman; Doctors Mary M.
Crawford, GustavA. Fried, F. S. Mandel-
baum, Lucns A. Salisbury, William Lord
Smith, Fred B. Sutherland, L. M. Waugh,
Charles L. Weiher; the Reverend Caleb
R. Stetson; Messrs. Nelson I. Asiel,
Joseph Barnett, Anton Basky, Ed. E.
Bechtel, Joseph C. Belden, Samuel Ben-
son, Wm. M. Bernard, Ely R. Callaway,
Arthur B. Cuddihy, William Dette,
Charles W. Dustin, Herman A. Flsberg,
Henry Estrhher. Theo. Foulk, Herbert
C Freeman, John D. Hage, Albert Clar-
ence Hegeman, Henry Hellman, Henry
Holt, Silas W. Howland, George H.
Hutzleh, E. Louis Jacobs, Wilbur S.
Johnson, Arthur W. Jones, Jr., William
B. Jones, Cornelius F. Kelley, Willy
Levy, Henry S. Livingston. Henry E.
Mendes, G. B. Moffat, Harold Nathan,
Charles W. Ogden, William Remsen,
Lloyd Richards, George Barclay Rives,
James H. Robinson, William A. Rocke-
feller, James Bryant Roy, Justus
Ruperti, Marshall Russell, R. Sanford
Saltus, Jr., Edwards S. Sanford, W. J.
SCHIEFFELIN, Jr., FREDERICK A. SEAMAN,
Edward G. Sparrow, E. Vail Stebbins.
C. J. Symington, David Taylor, Edwin
P. Taylor, Jr., Stephen H. Thayer, S.
Wadsworth, Maurice Wertheim, R. M.
Stuart Wortley; the City and Country
School and St. Catharine's Academy.
Associate M< mix rs: Mrs. Robert J. Simpson;
Miss Mary Lisa; Doctors John C. Bald-
win, H. C. Bradley, George Slocum, A. G.
Vestal; the Reverend W. F. Bumsted;
Messrs. Edward G. Ainley, Paul A. An-
derson, Charles G. Chapman, C. William
Cramer, Joseph F. Galloway, William H.
Gibson, E. V. Guernsey, J. C. Huston, H.
M. Merriman. Jr., E. J. B. Schubrinc,
Harry R. Sinclair, Thomas M. Smither,
L. L. Synder, C. H. Stuart, John A.
Thompson, Stillman F. Westbrook; the
Berkshire Athen.eim and the Oregon
State Library.
NATURAL
LJ 1
D
THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM
DEVOTED TO NATURAL HISTORY,
EXPLORATION, AND THE DEVELOP-
MENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
THROUGH THE MUSEUM
EH ill : ' '
JULY- AUGUST, 1923
[Published August, 1923]
Volume XXIII, Number 4
Copyright, 1923, by The American Museum of Natural History, New York, N. Y.
ATURAL HI STORY
Volume XXIII CONTENTS FOR JULY-AUGUST Number 4
In the Footsteps of Balboa H. E. Anthony 312
A later-day journey through the Darien, over river courses and through forests traversed by the
Spanish explorer
Original illustrations of the region by the author
The "Glory of the Sea " Roy Waldo Miner 325
The acquisition by the American Museum of a specimen of one of the rarest and most beautiful of
shells, celebrated in legend and story
With a full-page illustration in color and several text cuts
An Old-Time Bone Hunt George Bird Grinnell 329
An account of the expedition undertaken by Prof. O. C. Marsh in 1870 to the then Wild West
With group photographs of the members of the expedition
Maximilian's Travels in the Interior of North America, 1832 to 1834
Vernon Bailey 337
The early journey of a naturalist and ethnologist along the Missouri River into the heart of the Indian
country
Reproductions from pictures by the artist, Carl Bodmer, who accompanied the explorer
El Yado de los Padres George C. Fraser 344
The story of the old Ute Ford of the Colorado River, crossed in 1776 by the Spanish fathers, Escalante
and Dominguez, and nearly a century later by the Mormon pioneer, Hamblin ; long a route of maraud-
ing Indians
With photographs of the region, taken, with one exception, by the author
Fossil Bones in the Rock W. D. Matthew 358
The Fossil Quarry near Agate, Sioux County, Nebraska
With photographs of the quarry, specimens it has yielded, and Mime of the machinery employed in
lifting the larger blocks
Seasonal Records of Geological Time Chester A. Reeds 370
As noted in annual rings of trees, banded glacial clay-, and certain deposits made during periods of
arid climate
Illustrated by photographs, a map, and a chart
David Starr Jordan — Naturalist and Leader of Men. . . J. T. Nichols 381
As portrayed through his work The Days of a Man
With illustrations derived from this autobiography
The Ainus 387
Pictures of the aboriginal rare of Japan supplied through the courtesy of Dr. John O. Snyder
Louis Pasteur and His Benefactions to Mankind. .. George F. Kunz 391
Exemplified in the centenary exhibition recently held at the American Museum
With a diagram of the several stages marking one of Pasteur's epoch-making experiments, and
other illustrations bearing upon the exhibition
Swinging the Net in Southern Florida Herbert F. Schwarz 397
The recent field trip made by members of the department of entomology, American Museum, to the
Royal Palm State Park and other sections of the Peninsula
Photographs of the jungles and coastal areas of lower Florida taken by Dr. Frank E. Lutz
Notes 406
Published bimonthly, by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, N. Y.
Subscription price $3.00 a year.
Subscriptions should be addressed to George F. Baker, Jr., Treasurer, American Museum
of Natural History, 77th St. and Central Park West, New York City.
Natural History is sent to all members of the American Museum as one of the privileges of
membership.
Entered as second-class matter April 3, 1919, at the Post Office at New York, New York,
under the Act of August 24, 1912.
Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of
October 3, 1917, authorized on July 15, 191S.
S Copyrighted 1923 by H. E. Anthony
THE RIO TUYRA, NOT FAR FROM BOCA DE CUPE
The Rio Tuyra flows across almost the entire width of the Isthmus of Darien. Its
headwaters spring from the steep slopes of the Cordillera, which rests upon the Atlantic
shore, and the combined tributaries discharge into a broad tidal estuary of the Gulf of
San Miguel. It is the largest river in the Darien, and Balboa must have been in more or
less constant touch with it or its affluents for most of his passage from Atlantic to Pacific.
Our party ascended the Tuyra to the height of canoe navigation, leaving the waterway at
Tapalisa. For all of this distance the river flowed through magnificent tropical jungle,
the overhanging walls of which not infrequently converted our course into a shadowy
corridor, with bats occasionally flitting ahead alarmed by our approach
Volume XXIII
RAL HIST
JULY-AUGUST
X UMBER 4
In the Footsteps of Balboa
By H. E. ANTHONY
Associate Curator of Mammals of the Western HemUphere, American Museum
OX September 25, 1513, Vaseo
Nunez de Balboa, climbing to
the top of a mountain on the
Isthmus of Darien, discovered the
Pacific Ocean. Keats, with a fine
poetic disregard for the actual facts,
credits Cortez with the discovery but
draws a thrilling picture of the event
in the sonnet wherein he writes:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When some new planet swims into his ken,
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific — and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
In the spring of 1915, I was sent by
the American Museum to take charge
of an expedition into the Isthmus of
Darien and had an excellent op-
portunity to appreciate through per-
sonal contact the problems that con-
fronted the intrepid Spanish explorer,
since the itinerary of our expedition,
throughout part of its extent at least,
was in the footsteps of Balboa.
However, while he crossed from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, we entered
from the Pacific and proceeded in the
reverse order. Even today the passage
of the Isthmus of Darien is not to be
lightly attempted and one who has an
understanding of these conditions can
feel only the greatest respect and
admiration for the hardy band of ex-
plorers who pushed their way into an
unknown region, overcame every ob-
stacle, and won through to their goal.
In the story of Balboa the reader en-
counters the best of early Spanish ex-
ploration and few are the pages marred
by the blood-thirsty greed character-
izing the epics of Cortez and Pizarro.
Our expedition took launch from the
harbor of Old Panama for the Tuyra
River to the southeast. I was accom-
panied by William B. Richardson, a
veteran collector who had spent over
thirty years in Central and South
America, and by David S. Ball from
the department of birds of the Ameri-
can Museum. At the outset we dis-
covered that we had embarked upon a
journey of surpassing interest.
The launch was a small one loaded
to the gunwale with passengers and
their baggage, so I found it expedient
to stretch myself out on some of our
collecting trunks on the deck where I
was but a foot or two above the luke-
warm waters of the tropic Pacific,
which met the launch in a long rounded
swell. A gentle languorous breeze
brought off-shore the subtle odors of
the dense green jungle, only three or
four miles to the westward, and when
night came on, the darkness seemed of
velvet softness. From the forefoot
of the launch, twin crests of softly
hissing flame, bluish white in color,
spread out in an ever widening V to
mark our progress through the phos-
phorescent waters, while every moving
organism left a similar luminous path.
Small fish, alarmed at our approach,
darted to safety at the head of cool
lambent streaks which seemed to be
ever pursuing. Tiny bits of marine
life flashed in the depths and dis-
appeared astern, while occasionally
long, sinister shapes that streaked
313
314
X AT URAL HISTORY
Copyrighted 1923 by h. E. Anthony
El Real de Santa Maria, old as age is reckoned in the New World and now living in its
romantic past, is situated upon the high mud banks of the lower Rio Tuyra. The hot tropical
sun heats upon the yellowed thatched rout's as the listless life of the community goes on;
when the tide turns and the brackish current sets toward the sea, crocodiles crawl upon the
brown shores
diagonally away from our path with
the speed of torpedoes told us that the
launch had surprised sharks on their
patrol. The most beautiful effects
were produced when a flying fish would
break water and take to the air. From
the black depths would arise a swiftly
enlarging trail of bright bubbles which
broke at the surface in frothing fire
as the fish emerged, and then out over
the waves his progress could still be
followed by the falling drops of water,
magically converted, when they met
the ocean, into glowing pearls of light.
Sunrise revealed to us the fact that
we were entering the Gulf of San
Miguel, the mouth of the Rio Tuyra, at
this point about five miles from head-
land to headland. It was on the
lower reaches of this river and in this
gulf that Balboa encountered much
hardship when, after descending the
mountains, he drew near to the ocean
he had discovered. The Spaniards in
exploring the gulf, which Balboa called
the (lull' of San Miguel because he had
discovered it on September 29, the
day of Saint Michael, were over-
whelmed by a sudden storm and
forced to seek refuge on a tin}' island.
Eventually they reached the main-
land but only after trying adventures.
Up the Tuyra our launch ran for
some hours, stopping to land passen-
gers or cargo at little native villages of
thatched huts. In the afternoon of the
second day, after ascending the Tuyra
almost to the head of tidewater and
seeing it narrow from a stream several
miles in width to one about one hun-
dred yards across, we tied up at El
Real de Santa Maria, situated at the
junction of the Rio Pirre with the Rio
Tuyra. If space permitted, the history
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF BALBOA
315
of El Real would be well worth relating
in detail, for it was the principal
stronghold of the Spaniards in the
Darien for many years, serving as a
base for the operation of the rich mines
at Mount Pirre. It was attacked by
the English on several occasions, once
by a fleet of English vessels which
sailed up the Tuyra from the Pacific.
Two days by canoe up the rapidly
narrowing river brought us to Boca de
Cupe, a smaller settlement than El
Real and now used as a base for
present-day operations at the Pirre
mines. Here our equipment was divided
and part of it stored for future use,
while the remainder was taken to the
head of canoe navigation at Tapalisa.
On the night of our arrival at Boca
de Cupe we were the guests at dinner
of the principal C ninese merchant. He
gave us a very appetizing meal and
one that was greatly relished after
the snatches of food eaten in the canoes.
I had seen many chickens running
about his yard and so was prepared for
the chicken stew which was the piece
de resistance of the meal. Near the
close of the repast, during which I
had been so preoccupied in listening to
what our host had to say that I had
paid little detailed attention to my
plate, eating what was before me, I
turned over a chicken leg for the
meat remaining on it and discovered
that the foot which was still attached
had five claws; then I realized that I
had eaten my first iguana. The iguana,
a huge lizard, sometimes called the
"chicken of the tropics," reaches in
this region a length of six or seven feet.
The Spaniards of Balboa's day had
' opyr ihted 19S3 by II F. Anth
The native dugout, or cayuca, is an admirable crafl for the streams of the Darien. I'
would, perhaps, be exaggeration to say that the natives can run them over grass wet with a
heavy (lew, bul they ran work them upstream against a current seemingly navigable only to
Bat-bottomed <lucks or shallow-drafl eels
316
NATURAL HISTORY
also learned to eat iguanas and even
crocodiles, which finally they came to
esteem as a delicacy, although at first
they felt repugnance toward them.
Another two days of paddling and
poling from the Boca de Cupe, and we
reached our final base of operations,
Tapalisa, at the western foot of the
Copyrighted 19SS by H. E. Anthony
Our guide to the deserted village of Tacar-
cuna was a sturdy Indian. He was accom-
panied by his son. who hid part of his pack
the last day when he was tired of carrying it
Cordillera. This last bit of canoe
travel was up streams which had be-
come so shallow and swift that only
expert river men such as our natives
could have navigated them at all.
The canoe of this region is dug out of a
single tree trunk and has a long flat
platform at bow and stern upon which
the canoe men stand to use their poles
when working upstream against swift
water. Thrusting their stout poles into
the stream bed, the men walk toward
the stern, forcing the canoe upstream
under their feet. Then one or two of
their number hold the dugout station-
ary while the other polers move for-
ward for a new hold. A large dugout
may be thirty feet or more in length
and may be poled by three or four men,
who can drive it against swift water
over an incredibly shallow channel.
Mr. Ball and I left Richardson at
the base camp, Tapalisa, and struck
eastward for the crest of the Cordillera
and the highest mount of the Isthmus
of Darien, Mt. Tacarcuna.1 We had
been made most welcome by the
Indians at Tapalisa, who gave us a
large hut. After a consultation with
the head man we had arranged for a
guide and packers to carry our outfit.
These Indians have many interesting
customs and, because they frequently
come into contact with the Spaniards
from down river, have adopted many
of the conveniences of civilization. I
had no sooner arrived at Tapalisa and
been received as a guest in the hut of
the largest land owner there than he
brought mi1 a clock with the request
that I make it run. Considering what
might have happened to it, I feared
that this might be a pretty tall order,
but was relieved to find that a liberal
dose of kerosene was the only tonic
needed, for no sooner was this applied
than the clock began ticking steadily
and, since it was a German-made
affair with fancv trimmings, thence-
forth played a music-box tune regularly
■Dr. Thomas Barbour, in a recent article in the
Geographiral Review of the American Geographical
Society, calls attention to the spelling of the name of
this mountain, which he gives as Tatarcuna, without
citing his authority. As this spelling has not been
seen on any map consulted by me, and following the
pronunciation of the name given by the natives them-
selves, I have adhered to the spelling Tacarcuna as
published in papers of the American Museum and of
the National Museum
Copyrighted 1923 by H. E. Anthony
At the last house on the river our packers assembled for the climb over the Cordillera.
Spaniards, Indians, Negroes, and a dog or two made up the party, which required three days to
cut a trail to Tacarcuna
Copyrighted 1923 by H. E. At
The huts of the Indians are constructed upon simple lines. The fastenings arc all made
with lianas or strip.- of bark and the walls arc far from tight. The thatching, of plantain or
palm leaves, keeps the rain out and the interior is dark and cool. The floor is of earth and the
kitchen is where the fire is built; all about are piled w Leo dishes, gourd receptacles, crude
scats or benches, and baskets made of palm'lcavcs. Dogs slink about underfoot, while above.
tame parrots keep to a post of vantage, or demure parrokcets nod at one another as they tread
sideways along the paling of the walk
318
NATURAL HISTORY
CopyrighU I in", by H. E. Anthony
One of the very characteristic birds of the Darien is the hang-nest or cacique, also called
oropendula, a large, dark brown bird with bright yellow feathers in the wing and tail. The
oropendula builds long, hanging nests and is sociable in its nature, many individuals living in
the same tree
at twelve o'clock midday and mid-
night. I also saw a sewing machine in
the corner of the hut.
Whal a contrast these conveniences
represented to the condition found by
Balboa when he passed from tribe to
tribe! He, too, made some friends
among the Indians, but had he shown
them a music-box clock, the whole
village would probably have rushed to
the jungle for safety when the thing
struck. However, at Tapalisa we left
the last vestige of civilization behind
and advanced into the primitive jungle.
We had a party of ten Indians,
Negroes, and Spaniards, and the
packs, made up to weigh from fifty to
sixtv pounds, were carried high up on
the neck and shoulders of the porters.
At first the traveling was easy and
over a good trail, which crossed the last
level approach to the mountains.
Finally we began to climb the slopes,
the trail disappeared, and two men
were detailed to go in advance with
long brush knives, or machetes, and
clear a path. We were in a splendid
tropical jungle where luxuriant vegeta-
tion ran riot and where trails are
overgrown a week after they are cut.
Tall trees towered upward, overhung
by vines and lianas draped in coils
and festoons, while nearer to the
ground the vagrant rays of sunlight
which filtered through the mosaic of
leaves above were trapped by an end-
IX THE FOOTSTEPS OF BALBOA
319
less variety of shrub, palm, or fern.
Orchids, bromeliads, mosses, and ferns
grew along the limbs in crowded array,
and moisture dripped unceasingly.
Several times daily, short, violent, rain
squalls swept the wooded slopes, pelting
the foliage with a roar like a cataract.
Grotesque toucans with ungainly,
painted bills, leaned forward from
moss-enveloped boughs to yelp a dis-
cordant welcome; macaws flew by in
pairs, shattering the quiet of the green
forest below them by raucous, strident
cries; parrots and parrakeets furnished
the lighter motif in the jungle chorus
when the diapason of the black howl-
ing monkeys heralded the onrushing
storms; while solemn-faced marmosets
peered cautiously through the protect-
ing foliage, their wrinkled visages
startlingly like those of diminutive
old men. We shot parrots and guans
as opportunity presented and ate them
at nightfall. The reputation of the
parrot for longevity was well substan-
tiated by some of those we tried to eat,
for prodigious boiling made no impres-
sion upon them. Once we surprised a
small herd of peccaries, the little wild
pig of the Americas, the animal which
occasioned so much wonder among the
Spaniards, who thought that its dorsal
gland was its navel and consequently
the beast was in part bottom-side-up.
Three days were required to reach
the old deserted Indian village of
Tacarcuna, three long, hard days of
climbing and trail-making, days during
which because of the dense vegetation
we could seldom see more than thirty
or forty yards from the spot where we
stood. Only two or three times were we
able to see through the forest fringing
a ridge and to obtain a glimpse of the
distant terrain. Long ascents were
made, only to be lost when a valley had
to be crossed; anil the close, humid
atmosphere made us feel as if we were
in a Turkish bath.
How well I could appreciate what
such travel must have meant to Bal-
boa and his companions! Forced by
the hostility of the natives to wear
some sort of armor, the Spaniards
were compelled to travel at a great
disadvantage. They early abandoned
their armor of steel, replacing it by a
protection of quilted cotton, which,
although effective against Xew World
weapons, must, nevertheless, have been
very hampering on a march. The ticks,
which infest the jungle and nearly
drove us frantic, must have been a
terrible scourge to Balboa's party,
especially when they crawled beneath
the armor. These miserable creatures
hung upon the foliage in such numbers
that one brushed off dozens of them in
passing, and once upon the favorable
background of our Negro cook's arm
I saw a cluster of hundreds, which had
dropped from a thicket of cane. Later
on, one of our party was so seriously
infected on the leg by tick bites that
grave consequences were only nar-
rowly avoided, and this notwithstand-
ing the fact that we had a well stocked
kit of modern antiseptics. The Span-
iards knew of only one or two ways to
combat infection ;their chief reliance was
a probe of the spot with a red-hot iron.
At the village of Tacarcuna we lived
in a deserted Indian hut on the head-
waters of the Rio Tapalisa, about 2500
feet elevation. Here we were in a
region as wild as it was the day Balboa
crossed the isthmus and through just
such country as this he must have
passed, although probably a little to
the north of where we were. We had a
variety of interesting experiences at
this spot, not the least being the un-
expected arrival of an Indian family
who claimed to be the owners of the
320
XATURAL HISTORY
hut and of the deserted garden area we
had been ravaging. A state of mutual
distrust and armed neutrality pre-
vailed for several days until a party of
our packers from Tapalisa arrived and
among them one who could speak the
tongue of the old Indian who was the
though the leaves dripped moisture
with dismal regularity, it was very
difficult to locate a spring or running
water where a camp could be made.
The historians note that this scarcity
of water worked great hardship upon
Balboa and is all the more surprising
The interior of our hut at Tacarcuna The natives sleep in hammocks, which are slung up
out of the way during t he day. A balcony, extending over about one quarter of the floor space
was reached by a ladder made of a notched pole (the leaning pole just to the left of the hammock)
owner of the hut. This old Indian
had never seen a white man, spoke no
Spanish, and was so distrustful that he
was in constant fear lest we poison him.
Our last camp to the eastward was
made on the Atlantic slope of the
Cordillera. All of the higher mountain
country was uninhabited and was
almost tint ra versed bv trails. Al-
because the Darien is a region of
excessive rainfall. The cause of this
scarcity is the fact that the rain sinks
into the earth very rapidly and is
drained off from the steep mountains,
resulting in a lack of surface water.
I climbed Mt. Tacarcuna, which
reaches an elevation of about 5600
feet, and secured a superb view of the
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF BALBOA
321
Cordillera about me before the ever-
present clouds swirled up from below
and obscured the landscape. From Mt.
Tacarcuna I was unable to see either
ocean, although the Atlantic and
possibly the Pacific would have lain
within the range of vision had the
atmospheric conditions not been those
of the humid tropics. Mile upon mile
of jungle stretched out in every direc-
tion, a veritable sea of green foliage
that flowed over each ridge and down
into the valleys with nowhere a spot
of earth showing through. It was
quiet on the peak itself, which is
conical in shape and stands detached
by its elevation from the surrounding
slopes. From the forests far below
occasional cries of birds or mammals
were well nigh muted by the distance,
but the sonorous roaring of the black
howling monkeys nevertheless rolled
up to me from some remote band like
the far-off mutter of sullen surf. It
was a picture to fire the imagination
of any one, and to the Spanish ex-
plorers the sight of such an extent of
new and unexplored leagues must
have played no small part in strength-
ening their resolve.
From some similar peak Balboa must
have glimpsed the Pacific, but as to
just which peak it was, history is not
dear. While in Panama I heard it
said that the famous peak is Mt. Pirre,
but Pirre lies in the wrong quarter of
the compass and Balboa must have
approached the Rio Tuyra and the
Gulf of San Miguel along the north
bank of the river. At any event. Ban-
croft tells us of the clear morning when
Balboa and his men fought their way
to the summit of an eminence which
dominated the terrain. The soldiers
hacked a path with their sabers through
a tough growth of shrubbery, and it is
interesting to note that the hardest
wood I encountered on the entire
isthmus was the gnarled shrubbery
that clothed the upper limits of Mt.
Tacarcuna. To the Spaniards, Ban-
croft goes on to say. in these "terraces
of living green, sportive with iridescent
light and shade . . . visions of the
mighty future appeared pictured on the
cerulean heights, visions of populous
cities, of fleets and armies, of lands
teeming with wealth and industry."
During our stay in camp on the
crest of the Cordillera we experienced
one of the phenomena of the region
which may well have caused misgivings
to the first explorers of the isthmus.
About noon one day a severe earth-
quake passed through the heart of the
mountain range. The ground moved
and trembled, there was a deep sub-
terranean rumbling like distant thun-
der, the trees quivered, and dead twigs
broke off and fell to the ground, while
throughout the forests the howling
monkeys voiced audible protest.
One day Mr. Ball had gone farther
than usual to the eastward and from a
favored spot, whence he could com-
mand a view toward the Atlantic, he
believed he had seen in the uncertain
distance a large body of water. Sev-
eral days later I, too, visited this spot,
hoping to have a clear afternoon and
to secure a picture if possible. Climb-
ing a tree and looking out over the
intervening forest I saw a series 6i
steeply descending terraces, jungle-
clothed, a wide expanse of apparently
level, densely forested plain, and then
a silver sheet of water that met the
sky at the horizon. The atmosphere
was saturated with moisture, however,
and distance made the view hazy, but
there could be little doubt that I was
looking upon Atlantic waters. As I
was returning toward camp, I found
that Iliad misjudged time and distance
322
NATURAL HISTORY
Above all the other ridges and peaks Mt. Tacarcuna stands as a rounded cone,
and up to its very summit and flowing over it stretches the green jungle. From such an
eminence Balboa beheld the inspiring spectacle of the far-extending Pacific
and faced the prospect of spending the there was no trail, and very soon was
night in the jungle. In my haste I completely off my course. It was some
took the wrong ridge at a place where consolation to my sense of woodcraft to
/A* THE FOOTSTEPS OF BALBOA
323
Copyrighted 1923 by H. E. Anthony
On rare occasions it was possible to glimpse a distant scene through the foliage that screened
the higher ridges. Once, when a tree was climbed, a view was had of the Atlantic, far off and
five thousand feet below, dim and hazy on the horizon
reflect that it was not I but the trail
that was lost, but the final result was
the same. Sundown found me on a
ridge miles from camp and I hoped that
the night would not see any of the
torrential downpours so prevalent in
these mountains. Wood in abundance
was to be had but all so damp that
fire-making promised little success.
With scraps of paper from my hunting
jacket, using the driest of the dead
wood I could find and blowing care-
fully upon the tiny flame that sprang
up, I made three unsuccessful attempts
that left me half-stifled by acrid wood
smoke. I tried to sleep on the damp
ground in my sweat-drenched clothes,
but finally in desperation made one
more attempt to kindle a fire. This
time the blaze caught, wood piled
about the margins of the flame dried
out, and I kept a warm fire going until
dawn. Far off, toward camp, I could
hear the old muzzle-loader of Pedro,
my cook and camp tender, booming at
intervals, as the faithful fellow ex-
plored the trail near the tent; but I
made no attempt to cross the pathless
jungle to him or to attract him to me
by firing my gun, since such travel
would be hopeless at night. A tinamou
I had shot during the afternoon made a
very acceptable meal when boiled
before the fire; no rain marred the
night; nor did the wind rise to make
falling trees and boughs a menace.
Soon after sunrise I met Pedro near the
trail and came into camp for breakfasl .
Many incidents occurred during the
period of our stay in the Darien that
threw a side light on the accounts of
the early explorers : storms thai lasted
324
NATURAL HISTORY
for days, when the water fell in tor-
rents; high winds, when trees went
down right and left throughout the
jungle, and among them several that
stood about the tent; days when the
fine mists drove through the trees and
transformed noonday into gloomy twi-
light and we had to work by candle
light; times when provisions ran low,
when the jungle yielded practically
nothing to eat; strange calls at night
in the forest, which the natives could
not identify; frogs that barked like
shaggy mastiffs; vampire bats that bit
exposed ears or toes; and other things
that might seem commonplace today
but must have been marvelous to be-
hold for the early Spaniards.
The hardships that were experienced
by Balboa and his men, the courage
they required to face the terrors of a
new and unknown land, the fortitude
they displayed in meeting fever,
insects, and countless discomforts, the
initiative they showed in solving new
problems as they arose, and finally the
efforts of Balboa to make friends of the
Indians wherever they would accept
friendship — all have united to make
Balboa my favorite among the New
World Spanish explorers, and the
glimpses I have had into present-day
conditions in the Darien have con-
vinced me that this explorer is well
worthy of all the credit that can be
given him.
Copyrighted 192S by H. E. Anthony
Gatun Lake at Sunrise.— What a contrast exists between the man-made lake at Gatun,
where palatial steamers pass over the ancient jungle submerged beneath eighty feet of water,
and the Isthmus of Balboa's time when the weary soldiers dragged their feet through tangled
wilderness and at nisht often had little assurance that they would see the next day's sun arise!
'THE GLORY OF THE SEA"
(Conus gloria-maris)
Natural size
The "Glory of the Sea
By ROY WALDO MINER
Curator of Lower Invertebrates, American Museun
DURING the year 1838, Hugh
Cuming, the great British
conchologist of that time, while
collecting on a Philippine coral reef,
chanced upon three specimens of the
rare and beautiful mollusk known as
the Conus gloria- mar is, or the "Glory
of the Sea." A few weeks later, so the
story runs, the reef was destroyed by an
earthquake and tidal wave, and though
the region was systematically searched,
no more specimens were located. In
fact, since that time, no one has seen,
so far as our information goes, a living
example of this species. The shell was
found at various times before that date,
and was known to collectors as early as
1758, but even then was considered to
be the rarest and most desirable of
acquisitions and was consequently
much sought after. Only twelve to
fourteen specimens are represented
today in collections, and not more than
half of this number are perfect.
Hence the American Museum con-
siders itself fortunate to have secured
a fine and richly colored specimen of
this shell, which has recently been placed
on public exhibition. It is illustrated by
the accompanying colored plate, which
gives a faint idea of the delicate trac-
ery of its pattern and the rich beauty
of its coloration.
The shell itself is practically five
inches in length, and like its immediate
relatives is conical, but in this species
the unusually slender and graceful
proportions and tapering spire suggest
an unfolding rosebud. The ground
color is pale ivory, overlaid with a
mosaic of thousands of triangular
figures ranging from an eighth of an
inch to an almost microscopic size,
practically defying reproduction by the
lithographer. These triangles are out-
lined in chrome yellow or deep chest-
nut brown. Three broad spiral bands
of orange encircle the body whorl
beneath this fretted pattern, adding
richness to the color scheme. One
must see the shell itself to appreciate
this and sense the porcelain luster that
in certain lights suffuses it with a faint
rosy sheen.
As mentioned above, Cuming's speci-
mens came from the Philippines. The
reef where he found them was located
off Jacna on the island of Bohol. Other
examples collected earlier are recorded
from the island of Oram in the Moluc-
cas, and the label accompanying the
specimen in the American Museum
ascribes it to the latter group. The
range is therefore very limited and the
species is doubtless practically extinct.
The gloria-maris was famous among
the Dutch collectors of the eighteenth
century, and a number of traditions
have grown up around it. The great
collector Hwass owned a fine example,
and when another was put up at auc-
tion, he bid it in for a large sum and
then crushed it under his heel, exclaim-
ing, "Now I possess the only specimen
in the world ! ' '
The shells of the family Conidae, to
which the gloria-man's belongs, are
readily recognized by their character-
istic conical shape. They are noted for
their striking and variable coloration
and hence are much sought after by
collectors. Many species are of wide-
spread occurrence throughout the trop-
ical seas of the world, but the shells of
326
XATURAL HISTORY
The textile eone is one of
the commonest and hand-
somest of the cone shells.
The breathing siphon, which
is brightly colored, extends
upward from the shell open-
ing. The proboscis is con-
ical and extends forward
between the sensory tenta-
cles, which also bear the
eyes. The proboscis con-
tains two bundles of poison
teeth, i Natural size; after
Lydekker)
this family are especially abundant
and diversified in the Pacific and Indian
oceans. One species occurs in the
Mediterranean.
The cones are often found in the
neighborhood of coral reefs, where their
rich hues rival the brilliancy of reef-
fishes, corals, and sea-fans. Here they
lurk in hidden crevices whence they
emerge to attack their prey, which
consists largely of other mollusks. For
this purpose they possess :i mosi effec-
tive weapon concealed in a proboscis,
which projects forward and resem-
bles a conical snout. The mouth is
located at the end of this organ, and in
the cones is furnished with a bundle of
about sixty extremely sharp barbed
teeth, set in pairs in a fleshy tube.
These are used for biting the prey
or as a drill to penetrate its shell.
Other carnivorous mollusks differ from
the cones in having their numerous
small teeth set in rows on a '"lingual
ribbon," which is pulled back and forth
like a belt over a pulley to permit a
rasplike action.
At least three species among the
cones, namely, the cloth-of-gold cone
(Conns textile), the brunette cone
(Conns aulicus), and the tulip cone
{Conns tulipa), are notorious for their
poisonous bite, and probably all the
members of the family are more or less
venomous, as the teeth have a hollow
tube or duct which leads from a gland
that apparently secretes poison. There
are a number of instances on record
showing that the above-mentioned
species are dangerous to handle. Mr.
Arthur Adams, in the Narrative of the
Voyagi of tht Samarang, relates as
follows:
"The animal of Conns aulicus has
the proboscis beautifully varied with
red and white, and there is a square and
very minute operculum on the dorsal
One of the sixty or mere poison teeth from
Conus imperialis. There is a poison gland in
the base of each tooth from which a duct
leads to the tip. The tip is furnished also with
one or two barbs. The figure is enlarged
about fiftv-five'diameters. ( After A. H. Cooke
THE "GLORY OF THE SEA"
327
surface of the hinder part of the foot.
Its bite produces a venomed wound,
accompanied by acute pain, and mak-
ing a small, deep, triangular mark,
which is succeeded by a watery vesicle.
At the little island of Meyo, one of the
Moluccas, near Ternate, Sir Edward
Belcher was bitten by one of these
Cones, which suddenly exserted its
proboscis as he took it out of the water
with his hand, and he compared the
sensation he experienced to that pro-
duced by the burning of phosphorus
under the skin. The instrument which
inflicted the wound, in this instance, I
conceive, must have been the tongue,
which in these mollusks is long, and
armed with two ranges of sharp-
pointed teeth."
It is said by the natives of certain Pa-
cific Islands, that ( 'on us textile throws its
poison from a distance of several inches.
Certain harmless, herbivorous mol-
lusks of quite a different family, the
Strombidae, apparently mimic the poi-
sonous cones and are thus literally
protected by sailing, or rather crawling,
under false colors. At least Strombus
mauritianus closely resembles Conns
janus in shape and color pattern.
The American Museum possesses an
unusually fine collection of cone shells,
many of which were originally in the
Jay and Steward collections. Among
them arc many beautiful and inter-
esting, as well as rare, specimens. For
example, there is the record specimen
of the largest known cone (Conus pro-
metheus), which measures nine inches
in length. One of the most beautiful
species is the rhododendron cone (Conns
rhododendron).
The Conns gloria-maris, however, is
now the most highly prized of all the
cones in the Museum. It is planned to
exhibit this shell in such a manner as
tn give it special prominence.
These two shells from the island of Mauri-
tius illustrate the theory of mimicry in
animals. The specimen to the right is Conns
janus, a species known to be poisonous. To
to the left is Strombus mauritianus, belonging
to quite a different family, the members of
which are never poisonous. The shape of the
shell in most species of this family differs
considerably from that of Conus. The species
illustrated, however, is closely similar in
shape to the Conus, so that from a superficial
examination it could easily be mistaken for
one. As the two species are found in the
same locality, it is supposed that the harm-
less species is protected from enemies by its
resemblance to its poisonous neighbor
Through the courtesy of Mrs. F. A.
Constable of this city we are able to
present in this article a photograph of
another specimen of Conus gloria-
man's, which was acquired by her late
husband while building up the im-
portant private collection associated
with his name. This specimen, while
not so large or so brightly colored as
that in the American Museum, is
nevert heless beautifully proportioned,
with an unusually perfect spire.
The Museum specimen, the Con-
stable specimen, and another belonging
to Mr. A. L. Ward of Shelbyville,
Illinois, are the only examples of this
species in the United States known to
the writer. The Museum specimen
was obtained from Mr. Walter F. Webb
of Rochester, and formerly belonged to
the noted collection gathered by the
328
NATURAL HISTORY
This beautiful specimen of Conns gloria-
maris is in the collection of Mrs. F. A.
Constable. The unworn spire is practically
perfect. This specimen, the one in the Amer-
ican Museum, and a specimen owned by Mr.
A. L. Ward of Shelbyville, Illinois, are the
only three specimens that, so far as is known,
exist in American collections. The illustra-
tion is natural size
late Mrs. S. L. Williams of Chicago.
She obtained it from Mr. Hugh C.
Fulton of London, England, who
secured it from the collection of the
late Dr. James Cox of Australia Its
previous history is unknown, but as the
latest recorded find was that of Hugh
Cuming, in 1S38, as mentioned above,
it must antedate that year, and may
easily have been collected by some
Dutch trader in the eighteenth century.
Three of the specimens in European
collections are in the British Mu-
seum, one is in the Amsterdam Mu-
seum, and one, it is said, is in the col-
leetion formerly belonging to the King
of Portugal. Still another specimen is
accredited to the Melbourne (Austra-
lia) Museum. Perhaps four or five
others are in the hands of private
collectors.
Parity in living forms is often the
result of the practical extinction of a
group. Hence this species doubtless
represents the surviving remnant of a
vanished life, standing in somewhat
the same relation to shells as the great
auk and Labrador duck stand to birds
ami the okapi to mammals. Such
records are often lost to science by
being retained in private collections,
while if placed in a large museum they
are permanently preserved. To the
popular mind the rare and the beau-
tiful always make their appeal, and
in the case of the "Glory of the
Sea," the eagerness with which it has
been sought for the greater part of two
centuries among the Spice Islands of
the Far East has imbued the shell with
a legendary charm such as now and
then brings romance and color into the
dry atmosphere of scientific records.
Prof. 0. C. Marsh and members of his expedition in the field near Fort Bridger, Wyoming.
Standing (left to right): Dr. Thomas Carter, J. W. Griswold, H. B. Sargent, G. B.
Grinnell. C. W. Betts, O. C. Marsh, C. T. Ballard. J. R. Nicholson, J. M. Russell. Sitting:
Eli Whitney. A. H. Ewing, H. Ziegler. and Bill, the cook
An Old-Time Bone Hunt
AN ACCOUNT OF THE EXPEDITION UNDERTAKEN BY
PROF. O. C. MARSH IN 1X70 TO THE THEN WILD WEST
By GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL
IN the spring of the year 1870 it
became known to members of the
senior class at Yale that Prof. 0. C.
Marsh contemplated making a geo-
logical expedition to the Ear West, for
the purpose of collecting vertebrate
fossils. Marsh, although then profes-
sor of palaeontology at Yale, did not
conduct courses and was personally
known to few undergraduates. The
students knew little about palaeon-
tology and were not greatly interested
in geology.
From boyhood I had read the books
of ('apt. Mayne Reid, which told of
the western country in the forties,
and that country and its wildness had
taken strong hold on my imagination.
WheD I heard of the proposed expedi-
tion by Professor Marsh. I determined
that, if possible, I would accompany it ,
but 1 felt that I had no qualification
for a position on such an expedition.
However, after much pondering I
mustered up courage, called on Profes-
sor Marsh, and asked if I could in any
way attach myself to his party. I
found him far less formidable than I
had feared. He said that he would
consider my application, and later
told me that he would he glad to have
me go. He discussed with me the
composition of the party, and after a
little it developed that 1 was the only
member as yet chosen. His consulta-
tions with me enabled me to suggest
129
330
XATURAL HISTORY
to him names of men I knew well and
whom I wished to be of the party.
Marsh was possessed of considerable
means and had a wide acquaintance.
He had interested General P. H. Sheri-
dan in his project and from him had
obtained orders directed to military
posts in the West to provide the party
with transportation and escorts needed
in passing through dangerous Indian
country. Besides that, some well-to-do
business men had contributed funds to
defray the expenses of the trip, and
I have always suspected thai ><>me of
these, being railroad men. had given
Marsh either free transportation for his
party or at least rates much lower than
those usually in force.
In the light of later events the per-
sonnel of the expedition is more or less
interesting. Among its members were
James W. Wadsworth (the father of
the present senator from New York)
who left Yale in 1804 to join the
Union forces and who subsequently
for twenty years represented one of
the districts of northern New York in
Congress; C. McC. Reeve, who later
did good service in many directions for
his fellow men, was a general in the
Spanish War; and served effectively in
the Philippines; Eli Whitney and
Henry B. Sargent, who in later years
were members of the corporation of
Yale University; J. R. Nicholson,
who subsequently staved as chancellor
of the State of Delaware; and a
number of others, who became success-
ful business men. All these finally
left New Haven, June 30, on their start
for a west that was then actually wild.
Probably none of them except the
leader had any motive for going other
than the hope of adventure with wild
game or wild Indians.
Except through what they had read
Professor Marsh and his party knew
nothing about the West. It was an
entirely innocent part}' of '"pilgrims,"
starting out to face dangers of which
they were wholly ignorant. At this
time the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians
occupied the country of western Ne-
braska and that to the north and north-
west, and they objected strongly to the
passage of people through their terri-
tory, and when they could do so — that
is, when the}- believed they had the
advantage, — attacked such parties.
We crossed the Missouri River in
one of the old-fashioned stern-wheel
ferry boats and spent a day or two in
Omaha, where some of us tried our
rifles, which up to then we had not
fired, at targets in what is now the
fashionable residential section of the
town, but which was then bare — and.
of course, uncultivated — prairie. Pro-
fessor Marsh and Jim Wadsworth went
on ahead to Fort McPherson on the
Platte River, then the headquarters
of the Fifth Cavalry, where General
Emory was in command. The rest of
us followed a day or two later.
The day we reached the post a party
of two or three antelope hunters out
from the fort had been attacked by a
dozen Indians who had swooped down
upon them. One of the Indians, bear-
ing in mind the injunction often given
him by his elders that it is no disgrace
to be killed in battle, rode up close
to one of the antelope hunters and sent
an arrow through his arm. The
hunter responded with a well-directed
rifle ball and the Indian rode away,
falling from his horse before he got
out of sight, whereupon the antelope
hunters returned to the post.
A troop of cavalry sent out to over-
take the Indians, of course failed in
their purpose but found the dead
Indian boy, wrapped in his buffalo
robe, on top of a hill near where he had
O _ -5
oo O
H ?<<
z —
u =
- ;.
332
XATCRAL HISTORY
fallen. William F. Cody — Buffalo
Bill, — who was then post guide at Fort
McPherson, brought in the boy's moc-
casins and some trinkets taken from
the body, at which the newcomers
from New Haven stared in wonder.
Professor Marsh had arranged that
we should go first from Fort McPher-
son to the Loup Fork River to the north,
where, it was understood, there were
late Tertiary fossil beds of considerable
interest. A troop of cavalry was to
accompany us as escort, with six army
wagons to carry the provisions and
supplies, including tents, blankets, and
ammunition.
The young men from the Fast, some
of whom had never mounted a horse.
were taken out to the corral near the
post stables and there were introduced
to a lot of Indian ponies captured from
the Cheyennes the previous autumn at
the Battle of Summit Springs. Major
Frank North with two of his Pawnee
Indian scouts had taken part in that
fight and they chose for us the gentlest
mounts.
We crossed the Platte River and,
led by Major North and his Pawnees,
started north through the desolate
sand hills toward the hoped-for river.
No one in the outfit, excepting the
Pawnee Indians, had ever before been
through the country, but by keeping
north we could not fail to strike the
Loup River. The sand hills1 were not
high but they were very steep, and the
sand was deep, making the pulling
hard for the teams. Major North,
riding ahead, selected the easiest way
for the wagons, while still ahead of him
the Indian scouts went forward and
from the tops of the highest hills peered
through the grass to see whether
enemies could be discerned.
The country to be passed over was
dangerous, for at any time one might
meet parties of Sioux Indians, who
would certainly attack us if they felt
that they could safely do so. We were
blissfully ignorant of all this and sup-
posed that because we saw no Indians,
there were none about and that there
was no danger.
Perhaps none of tin1 eastern members
of the party had ever before been very
far out of sight of a house, and none
could understand the possible danger
of the situation, because all the sur-
roundings were something entirely
outside of their experience. The first
day's march was long, monotonous,
and hot, and there was no water to
drink. Some of the young men
imagined that they were perishing from
thirst and thai they must have a drink
of cold water.
At the end of the long day's march
one of the soldiers, hot, thirsty, and
utterly weary, was heard to exclaim,
"Wha1 did ( iod Almighty make such a
country for?" To which one of his
companions made the reply that "(iod
Almighty made the country good
enough, but it's this infernal geology
that the professor talks about that has
spoiled it all!"
Just before dark, water was found and
we camped for our first night out of
doors. That night at the camp fire
Professor Marsh talked to us and to an
audience of soldiers about the geo-
logical changes that had taken place
here in past ages and about the dis-
coveries of unknown animals that he
hoped to make. Buffalo Bill, who had
ridden out with us for the first day's
march, was an interested auditor and
was disposed to think that the professor
was trying to see how much he could
make his hearers believe of the stories
he told them.
The hot . waterless marches continued,
anil two or three davs satisfied the
AN OLD-TIME BONE HUNT
333
young men that they had seen quite
enough of Nebraska. However, as the
journey went on, they became more
accustomed to the situation — to the
heat, to the lack of shade, and to the
absence of water — and began to take
an interest in the country. Every day
Major North took ahead with him one
of the young men, whom he permitted
to shoot at the antelope. No member
of the party killed anything, which is
not surprising in view of the fact that
none of tis knew anything of hunting
or rifle shooting, or of the arms we
were using.
At last we reached the Lotip Fork,
not without some alarms of Indians, for
from time to time columns of smoke
were seen, — signals indicating that the
Sioux were communicating with one
another. It was even said that an
Indian had been seen watching the
outfit from a distant hill.
The Loup River flows through a val-
ley far below the general level of the
prairie, and into this valley open many
canons, narrow and wide, in the sides
of which were seen the strata of an
ancient lake bottom through which the
water had cut. There were many ex-
posures of the so-called mauvaises
terres, and in these bare clay surfaces
fossil bones were found. The escort
made short marches up the river, and
the easterners, with a small guard of
soldiers to act as lookouts, devoted
themselves to bone hunting. After a
little while the soldiers became as
interested in collecting fossils as the
members of the party, and broughtin
many specimens. As they gained
experience, some of them became quite
skillful collectors.
The region then examined was of
late Tertiary age and gave us many
Pliocene mammals horses, camels,
and other vertebrates — which tended
to throw light on various problems
more fully elucidated by recent in-
vestigations.
The country was full of game, ante-
lope being by all odds the most
abundant. This was long prior to any
settlement on the plains and the
antelope were still nearly in their
primitive numbers. On the Loup
Fork River elk were found and killed,
and fresh meat for the party was never
lacking. More than once we came
upon Indian burial places, the wrapped-
up bodies resting on platforms, each
supported by four poles standing in the
ground. With the bodies had been
placed the usual accompaniments of
arms and implements, and beneath each
platform were the bones of two or three
horses, killed to provide the owner with
mounts in his future life. The dried
skulls of the Indians on these platforms
were added to the party's collections.
One night a prairie fire, which, it
was thought, had been kindled by the
Sioux, crept down toward our camp
from both sides of the river, but as we
were in a bend, it was not difficult by
back-firing to protect ourselves from
the flames. The advance of the fire
along the hills on either side of the
river was interesting and — when our
anxiety with regard to the camp had
subsided — very beautiful. For the
next day or two, however, the question
of grass for the animals was one of
difficulty.
We worked up the river quite1 a long
way, but I have never known which of
the branches we followed. At last,
turning southward, we set out again
for the railroad, and once more entered
an area where water was hard to get.
What little we did find, was bitterly
alkaline. This was a region of dry
lakes, and water could be had only by
digging. Some years later, when as a
334
XATURAL HISTORY
humble cow-puncher I worked cattle
through this country, I often had excel-
lent deer-hunting among these dry
lakes.
Journeying south through this coun-
try we followed down the Birdwood
River and one evening crossed the
Platte, and at North Platte City had a
real meal, sitting in chairs at a table and
eating from china plates. There we
learned of the Franco-German War,
declared in our absence, and that night
on our return to camp, Lieutenant
Reilly ordered his men to fall in and
with something of a flourish of oratory
announced to them that war had been
declared between France and Germany.
The men, who were more or less sur-
prised at the unusual order to get in the
ranks while they were in camp, mani-
fested slight interest, and when they
were dismissed, I heard one of the
soldiers declare with forcible profanity
how little he cared about the news.
From Fort McPherson we proceeded
west by rail to Cheyenne, and a few
days later left Fort D. A. Russell,
Wyoming Territory, to explore a
icgion lying between the north and
south forks of the Platte River. Before
long we came upon some bad lands not
previously known, the southwestern
boundary of a Tertiary lake basin, in
the margin of which were entombed
and waiting to be excavated turtles,
rhinoceroses, Oreodon, and the huge
Titanotherium. These beds we fol-
lowed for a long distance westward.
At Antelope Station on the railroad,
a locality from which Professor Marsh
had secured some fossils the year be-
fore, we found several species of horse,
one of them a little fellow only two feet
high and having three toes.
Crossing the North Platte River we
came upon and followed the old Cali-
fornia and Oregon trail, along whose
ruts so many searchers for wealth had
traveled less than twenty years before.
The grass was growing all along the
road and where the wagons had passed
was a continuous bed of sunflowers.
Shortly before we reached Scotts
Bluff we came upon another outcrop
of fossil bones.
From the Platte we went to Horse
( reek searching for other fossil grounds,
and here two of the young men left
our party, after being informed by the
commanding officer that camp would
be made about twenty miles farther
along the creek, and followed up the
stream to shoot the ducks that then
were migrating in great numbers. The
commanding officer did not know, nor
did anyone else, that near here the
creek made a great bend and that to
follow it around to the place1 where the
camp was to be pitched meant a
journey of fifty or sixty miles.
The duck shooters killed some ducks,
but as the sun drew toward the west,
they began to be doubtful aboui reach-
ing camp. They started back, intend-
ing to cut across country and strike the
trail of the command, but before they
had gone far, they were threatened by a
prairie fire. One man dismounted and
began to back-fire, but with the fire
came a tremendous wind which swept
on the flames at an inconceivably rapid
rate. Finally he who was watching on
his horse shouted to his companion to
mount. He did so just as the flames
swept toward them singeing the hair
of men and horses; but two or three
jumps took them to a burned space and
the fire passed by on either side. The
young men believed that the fire had
obliterated the trail and rode back to
the stream, feeling that this was a
guide that would not fail them. They
only now realized that to be far away
from camp unarmed, except with shot
AX OLD-TIME BOXE HUXT
335
guns, on the bonier of the Cheyenne
Reservation was not a pleasant situa-
tion. They rode down the stream,
stopped just as the sun set, built a fire,
and made preparations for spending
the night there. As soon as it grew
dark, however, they remounted, rode
into the stream, followed that down for
a mile, so that no trail should be left,
and then riding out on the bank spent
the night there without fire.
Meantime Professor Marsh and all
at the camp were much concerned
about the absentees. Searching parties
were sent out next day but found no
trail they could follow. They came
upon a couple of crippled horses aban-
doned by Indians, and this lowered the
spirits of the searchers, who supposed
that their companions had been killed,
their horses taken, and these cripples left
in their place. Meanwhile the lost ones,
following the stream down to the camp
of the day before, took the wagon trail
there and that night appeared in camp.
After some weeks in this general
legion the party traveled west by rail
to old Fort Bridger in Wyoming, a
trading post established long before
by the famous Jim Bridger. At and
near Fort Bridger a long stay was made.
South of the fort were great washed
deposits of greenish sand and clay of
Eocene age, and here we found great
numbers of the extraordinary six-
horned beasts later described by Marsh
as Dinocerata. It was from this
locality too that came Eohippus, the
earliest horselike animal of which we
know.
South of this great bone field, which
was explored during early Sept ember,
was Henry's Fork of (Ireen River, on
which was camped a little company of
old-time trappers living with their
Indian families in buffalo skin lodges.
They still trapped the beaver and
several times during our stay in this
neighborhood I spent the night in their
camp and in the morning went out
with them to look at their catch. It
was a glimpse of the old-time trapper's
life in the Rocky Mountains of thirty
years before, and a most interesting
one. All the members of this little
group wore buckskin clothing, and the
men hunted and trapped, drawing their
support from the country. One or
two of them had come out to the
Rocky Mountains in the year 1834.
Another survivor of early days seen at
Fort Bridger was "Uncle" Jack Robin-
son, who was of the famous band of
trappers who had found the Arapaho
Indian baby later known as Friday.
Professor Marsh wished to go still
farther south to reach the junction of
the Green and the White rivers in
Utah. The way was unknown to
anyone, but finally a Mexican, who
knew a part of the route, went along
as supposed guide. He did not know
the mountains, however, and we were
obliged to follow down the Green River,
passing through Brown's Hole, finally
to reach White River not very far
above its junction with the Green.
There were no roads and travel with
wagons was impossible. With some
difficulty the journey was made by
pack train. On the way we saw many
wonderful things which now can hardly
be told of. Here is a paragraph written
by one of the men which suggests a
view seen from the eastern ends of the
Uinta Mountains.
"After crossing an extensive table
land a grand scene burst upon us.
Fifteen hundred feet below us lay the
bed of another great Tertiary lake.
We stood at the brink of a vast basin,
SO desolate, wild and broken, SO life-
less and silent that it seemed like the
ruins of a world. A few solitary peaks
336
X AT URAL HISTORY
rose to our level and showed that ages
ago the plain behind us had extended
unbroken to where a line of silver
showed the Green River twenty miles
away. The intermediate space was
ragged with ridges and bluffs of every
conceivable form, and rivulets that
flowed from yawning canons in the
mountain sides stretched threads of
green across the waste between their
falling battlements. Yet, through the
confusion could be seen an order that
was eternal, for as age after age the
ancient lake was filled and choked with
layers of mud and sand, so on each
crumbling bluff recurred strata of
chocolate and greenish clays in un-
varied succession, and a bright red
ridge that stretched across the fore-
ground, could be traced far off with
beds -of gray and yellow heaped above
it."
At White River, not far from where
it joins the Green, many Pliocene fossils
were found, and before long, with
pack animals heavily loaded, we
crossed the Green River near the an-
cient trading post known as Fori
Roubidoux and made our way to Fort
Uinta, the agency of a section of the
Ute Indians. From here a Shoshoni
Indian guide led us through the Uinta
Mountains, over a beautiful forested
country with frequent open parks
through which flowed clear sparkling
trout streams. The region, known
only to the Indians, had much game,
and the journey in early autumn was
full of joy. Going down one of the
rough narrow mountain trails toward
the valley of Henry's Fork we lost the
pack mule which carried our mess out-
fit, and at the foot of the cliff were able
to recover from its load only a few
battered tin plates and broken knives
and forks; even the saddle that the
animal wore was smashed to match-
wood.
It was here that a curious free Cre-
taceous crinoid Uintacrinus was discov-
ered. This was described much later.
At Salt Lake City some of us met
Brigham Young. From there we went
on to California, visiting the Yosemite,
the Mariposa Grove of "big trees" and
the geysers. Returning eastward we
stopped at some of the famous old-
time placer mining districts in Cali-
fornia, and thence went on to a point
not far from Green River, Wyoming,
where in an early Tertiary deposit
many petrified fish and some fossil
insects were found.
The plains of Kansas were the next
collecting ground and here great num-
bers of Cretaceous reptiles were un-
earthed, among them giant mosasaurs
and many fishes. From these beds
came, a little later, the extraordinary
birds with teeth — Hesperornis and
Tchthyornis — and later still many ptero-
dactyls. These bone fields are in a
region that is now a great wheat -and
corn-growing district. In Kansas some
members of the party killed buffalo,
which were abundant there.
The expedition now began to break
up. Some of its members returned in
late November, and before Christmas
time the last of them had reached New
York and Xew Haven.
In subsequent years Professor Marsh
conducted other expeditions to the west-
ern country and all of them yielded
rich results. Later his collections were
made by hired collectors. The sum
total of the material brought together
is now preserved in the Washington
and New Haven museums, and not
all of it has yet been worked up.
Maximilian. Prince of Wied-Neuwied, explorer,
naturalist, and student of primitive race-
Maximilians Travels in the Interior of North
America, 1832 to 1834
By VERNON BAILEY
Chief Field Naturalist, Biological Survey, U. S. Department of Agriculture
NINETY-ONE years ago Maxi-
milian Alexander Philipp, Prince
of Wied-Neuwied, came to
North America as an explorer, ethnol-
ogist, and naturalist. Born on Sep-
tember 23, 1782, the eighth child of
Friedrich Karl, ruler of a small prin-
cipality in Rhenish Prussia, he had of
necessity given some years to military
training and service. He had taken
active part in several wars, had been
captured at the battle of Jena, had won
the iron cross at Chalons, had been
promoted to major-general, and was
with the victorious army that entered
Paris in 1813. Soon after the peace
of Paris he was allowed to retire
from military service and to devote his
time to study and research, which had
ever been his great desire.
Encouraged from childhood in his
love of nature byhismother, and later
a pupil of the famous Blumenbach, he
had become an enthusiastic naturalist
and in his younger days had gathered a
creditable collection for his private
museum. At the close of his military
career he at once set about fulfilling
his cherished hopes for travel and in
L815 made a trip to South America,
338
NATURAL HISTORY
where he spent a couple of years in
collecting specimens representing the
native fauna and flora of Brazil, and in
studying the ethnology of the various
indigenous tribes.
As a result of this trip he published
in 1820 his Reise nach Brasilien in two
large quarto volumes, accompanied by
an atlas containing plates and maps,
and by a collection of ninety colored
plates of mammals, birds, reptiles,
and batrachians. Later (1825-33) he
published his Beit rage zur Naturge-
schichte von Brasilien, containing de-
scriptions of great numbers of new
genera and species. Thus even before
his trip to North America in 1832 he
had taken high rank among men of
science.
His object in visiting North America
was to reach the little-known interior
of the continent, study the native
tribes, and make collections of natural
history specimens. Accompanied by
his hunter, Dreidopple, and his artist,
Bodmer, he arrived in Boston on the
Fourth of July. He subsequently
visited New York and Philadelphia
and spent some time with friends at
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Thence he
made his way across the mountains to
Pittsburgh and by various boat trips
to New Harmony, Indiana. There he
arrived in October and, tempted by its
excellent library and such congenial
spirits as Thomas Say, Charles Alex-
ander Lesueur, and William and
Robert Dale Owen, he remained
throughout the winter, collecting speci-
mens, studying the reports of previous
expeditions in the West, familiariz-
ing himself with their results, and
planning his own trip with great care
and forethought.
In the spring of 1833, being then at
St. Louis, he embarked with his party
and outfit on the steamer "Yellow-
stone," and made his way slowly up
the Missouri River to Fort Buford,
near the mouth of the Yellowstone
River, where he transferred to a river
keel-boat, propelled by man power
and sails, and in it continued up the
river to Fort McKenzie, just below the
Great Falls of the Missouri and in
the country of the Blackfeet. Here
he remained long enough to obtain
vocabularies of several tribes of Indians,
to do considerable collecting of mam-
mals, birds, reptiles, and plants, and to
experience an Indian battle between
the Blackfeet and Assiniboines. He
then ret in ned to Fort Buford and below
to Foil ( Hark, where Lewis and Clark
on their memorable journey across the
continent had spent the winter twenty-
nine years before. In this area were
located the Mandans and other neigh-
boring tribes of Indians with whom he
sojourned. Here he made his most
important ethnological observations,
for the long winter gave him time for a
close study of Indian languages and
habits, and enabled his artist to make
numerous drawings of the natives, the
animals, and the country. Valuable
collections of specimens of animal and
plant life were also made, and a con-
siderable number of genera and species
previously unknown to science were
obtained.
In the spring of 1834, before the
steamers were running, he embarked
with his party in a large Mackinaw
boat and rowed down the river to St.
Louis, thence returning to his native
land with a part of his collections,
including a couple of live grizzly bears.
The greater part of his collections,
entrusted to the care of the American
Fur Company's steamer "Assiniboine,"
was later destroyed by fire on the way
down the river, and the net results of
his trip thus seriously curtailed. For-
MAXIMILIAN'S TRAVELS IX NORTH AMERICA
339
tunately, however, his notes and draw-
ings and many specimens escaped the
fire.
Besides descriptions of new species
and the more technical results of his
expedition published in scientific
journals, Maximilian has left us two
large quarto volumes of narrative,
mostly in journal form, entitled Reise
in das Innere Nord- America in den
Jahren 1832 bis 1834, published at
Coblenz in 1841. These volumes con-
tain a vast fund of interesting and
valuable information on the physical
features, geology, natural history, and
native peoples of the region visited. In
numerous appendices the mammals,
birds, and plants are listed and vocabu-
laries of many tribes of Indians are
given. His ethnological notes are
especially full and valuable, but to the
naturalist his descriptions of the animal
life in the days of abundant buffalo,
elk, deer, antelope, mountain sheep, and
grizzly bears are equally fascinating.
An excellent map of the eastern
states and Great Lakes region and the
little-known plains country west to
the Rocky Mountains accompanies the
volumes and furnishes a valuable rec-
ord of names and places no longer
found on our maps, besides giving the
outlines, as far as then known, of the
areas occupied by the various tribes
of Indians of the Missouri Valley.
The numerous illustrations through-
out the text and in the accompanying-
folio of plates contributes not a little to
the value of the work, for Maximilian
was accompanied by Carl Bodmer, a
young Swiss artist of unusual ability
and later of considerable fame. A great
number of the plates are of Indian
types in lull regalia or with war equip-
ment, so carefully done that the mark-
ings on the skin, the feathers, and other
ornaments arc as readily recogniz-
able as from the best of photographs.
As a painter of men and animals in
action, however, the artist especially
excelled, and his pictures of primitive
life in America are worthy of more
general recognition.
The original German text was trans-
lated into English and published in
London in 1843, and retranslated in
this country in 1906, as Volumes XXII,
XXIII, and XXIV of Reuben G.
Thwaites' Early Western Travels. Even
in this more recent and excellent trans-
lation some of the natural history
notes have been omitted and some of
the charm of both original text and
illustrations is necessarily lost.
Three years after the death of
Maximilian in 1867 his zoological col-
lections were purchased by the Ameri-
can Museum of Natural History and
brought to New York, where they
became a valuable addition to the
Museum collections. The specimens
consisted of about 4000 mounted birds,
600 mounted mammals, and 2000
fishes and reptiles.
The specimens were from many
parts of the world, but by far the
greater part were from North and
South America, and include the types
of a large number of species described
by Maximilian. In commenting on
the South American birds in this col-
lection in the Bulletin of the American
Museum for 1889, Dr. J. A. Allen says ;
"Maximilian for the time in which he
lived and worked was an excellent
ornithologist, combining ample field
experience with a good technical
knowledge of his subject. lie not
only took careful measurements and
notes of the color of eyes, bills, feet,
etc., from freshly killed specimen-,
but his published descriptions in
respect to detail and the careful dis-
crimination of nice points are not
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MANDAX INDIANS
One of these gorgeously arrayed Indians is wearing a necklace made of the claws of the
grizzly. This illustration is another example of the work of Carl Bodmer
MAXIMILIAN'S TRAVELS IN NORTH AMERICA
343
excelled and rarely equaled in our best
modern work."
As much could be said for his descrip-
tions of new genera and species of
mammals, while his notes on the habits
of his little tame kit fox. his grizzly
bears, and many other vanishing spe-
cies can never be duplicated.
In the period when his journey was
made grizzly bears were still common
along the Upper Missouri River and, as
they had not learned to respect the
white man and his weapons, which at
that time were not very deadly, the
prince and members of his party were
several times attacked and narrowly
escaped with their lives. The long
front claws of these bears were worn
as much prized necklaces by the Indian
hunters, as shown in the pictures of
some of the chiefs and leading warriors
who had won the right to wear them,
while the canine teeth of the elk were
used as dress ornaments by the Indian
women only.
Buffaloes, still in untold numbers,
were the main source not only of meat
supply, but of the skins used for
tepees, robes, and bedding by these
tribes of hunting; Indians. Maximilian
and his party also found in the buffalo
their chief sustenance, although elk,
deer, antelope, mountain sheep, beaver,
and game birds all contributed to the
support of the expedition. The buffalo
hunt is well shown in the picture by
Bodmer, who accompanied the hunters
and depicted the details from a knowl-
edge that few artists have ever attained.
The little kit fox, or swift, an animal
then common but now almost unknown
in the region that Maximilian visited,
was easily domesticated. The kit fox
that the prince kept all winter as a pet
was gentle, affectionate, and full of
quaint interesting little ways and dog-
like tricks. It also proved useful as
well as interesting, for the common
house rats had found their way up the
river on the steamers and become a
great pest among the food stores of the
Indians. At night the little fox was
placed in rooms where the Indian corn
was stored and where he took great
delight in killing the rats.
As our wild life and primitive condi-
tions disappear, such records of the
New World before the newness was
gone have an ever increasing value and
should be more generallv known.
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El Vado de los Padres1
THE STORY OF THE OLD UTE FORD OF THE COLORADO RIVER. CROSSED
IN 1776 BY THE SPANISH FATHERS. ESCALANTE AND DOMINGUEZ, AND
NEARLY A CENTURY LATER BY THE MORMON PIONEER, HAM BUN;
LONC A ROUTE OF MARAUDING INDIANS
By GEORGE C. FRASER
THE upper waters of the Colorado
River are augmented by con-
fluence with Green River in
southeastern Utah. Thence for five
hundred miles the river flows through a
series of canons trenching the plateau
country and emerges into the open
beyond the Grand Wash escarpment
near the Arizona-Nevada boundary.
Throughout this long stretch nature
has provided but a single crossing, and
that available only in autumn and
winter when the river is low— the
Old Ute Ford, best known as the Gloss-
ing of the Fathers (El Vado de los
Padres) five miles north of the Utah-
Arizona line. There are other places
where the canon walls break down and
the river can be crossed with craft or
by swimming; but swimming is always
dangerous because of the ferocity of
the stream, its swiftness, turbulence,
and overload of silt. Under primitive
conditions, therefore, this waterway
was an effectual barrier, and its only
ford was a factor of economic and
ethnological influence.
The name, "Grossing of the
Fathers," commemorates a most daring-
piece of exploration. On July 29, 1776,
Fathers Francisco Silvestre Velez de
Escalante and Francisco Atanasio
Dominguez with seven Spaniards and
some Indian servants left Santa Fe.
New Mexico, in search of a new route
to the Mission of Monterey, ( Jalifornia.
For about three hundred miles they
followed substantially the line of
what later became known as the Old
Spanish Trail, and then, abandoning
this easier course, veered easterly and
northerly through a portion of what is
now Golorado. North of White River
they turned to the west and in late
September reached Utah Lake. The
eighth of October found the party
at the westerly margin of the snow-
covered High Plateaus of south-
western Utah, suffering from cold,
and with provisions nearly exhaust-
ed. The dangers ahead and the cer-
tainty, if Monterey were reached,
that they would see Santa Fe again
only after long delay, "prejudicial to
the souls of the Indians to whom we
promised to return and who sought their
eternal welfare by means of holy
baptism," led them to abandon their
aim and seek the shortest way home.
They headed south and by the fifteenth
of the month appear to have reached
the Virgin River near the site of St.
George, Utah, in such condition that
Escalante notes, "tonight all of our
provisions are entirely gone, leaving lis
only two tablets of chocolate for to-
morrow morning."
Had Escalante been fully informed,
ten days' riding easterly on a fairly
easy trail would have brought him and
his party to the ford. Instead, under
advice of frightened Indians, who per-
haps were misunderstood, they wan-
dered soui herly into rough dry country,
as if directed to the Colorado within
the ( rrand < "anon or below ( irand
■Photographs by the author, with the one e» eption noted
346
NATURAL HISTORY
Wash. After becoming quite lost they
turned to a proper easterly and north-
erly course, ultimately approaching the
rim of Marble Canon and coming to
the river at the mouth of the Paria,
the present Lee's Ferry.
Subsisting on seeds, cactus, herbs,
pifion nuts, and the meat of such horses
as could be spared, they threaded Paria
Canon a little way, scaled its northerly
ing it necessary to cut steps with their
hatchets in the rock of the mountain.
This canon led in brief space to the
Colorado River.
"We continued downstream for a
distance of about two gun shots . . .
until we reached what seemed the wid-
est part of the current where there
might be a ford. One of our people
entered, and found a foothold, without
6 • Ev^IanteiCanr
iJKi. Ind'jn Camps
G • Probable site of St. Georqe
H . House Rock Valley
K . Trie Ka.bab (Bueksmn MtO
L . Lees Ferry
M • Marble Canyon
N . Navajo Ml.
P . Parfa River
S.J.. 6an Juan Dive
Legend
t« West to Last
T- Probable site of Toquerville
V- Virgin River.
X- The Cross, nq of the Fathers.
Z = Temples or the Virgin at entrance 3r
to ;.on National ParX. T • L i~73cV^ * sS"5x J(°% i **«""*.
r -«sg*^^
itr- de {<*-J>urrj * -. ..JT- «... X fr ^ — \."\
9%m
Excerpt fnom
Map of Escalante's Route
dated 1776
showing the country traversed between
the Virgin Piver and the Crossmq of the
Fathers.
The map from which the above lias been traced was lately found in Mexico, ami a
photograph thereof sent to Mr. F. W. Hodge, of the Museum of the American Indian. Heye
Foundation, by whose kind permission this portion is reproduced
wall and with difficulty progressed over
the broken bare rock surface in which
the Colorado is here entrenched.
Seven days later the}- "arrived for the
second time at the river, that is to say,
on the edge of the canon, with its great
bank and sides, from which the descent
to the river is very long, very high,
very precipitous and rocky," again to be
disappointed in their search for the ford.
On proceeding upstream near the
rim, "a trail not much traveled" was
encountered leading to the river where
it was "very wide" and "did not seem
to be very deep, judging from the cur-
rent." Finally, on November 7, a
dangerous descent was made into a side
canon, the members of the party find-
being obliged to swim at an}- point.
... At about five o'clock in the after-
noon we all accomplished the passage
of the river, praising the Lord our God.
and firing off a number of musket
shots to show the joy we felt at having
triumphed over so great an obstacle,
that had cost us so much labor and
long delay."
Eight days more of strenuous though
less trying travel brought the Padres to
Oraibi, a village of the friendly Hopi,
whence they proceeded by leisurely
stages, via Zufii and Acoma, to Santa
Fe, ending, on January 2, 1777, a five
months' journey of 1600 miles, for the
most part unguided and through an
unknown wilderness.
EL VADO DE LOS PADRES
347
It has long been my desire to follow
Escalante's trail. Portions of it I have
covered in New Mexico, western Utah,
and near the Utah-Arizona line, where
I have wandered during many seasons
with my friend, D. D. Rust of Kanab,
Utah. Besides possessing the extra
sense or two of the accomplished plains-
man, Mr. Rust is versed in the history
of his people and state and has supple-
mented college courses in natural
science with acute and interested ob-
servation. To him I am indebted for
seeing (and for the capacity to see)
much that in other company would
have escaped me, and for reference to
many of the facts here noted.
The accurac}^ of description charac-
teristic of Escalante's journal as a whole
is wanting in the portion covering his
journey from the Virgin River valley to
Oraibi. The privations and anxiety en-
dured during the weeks spent in this
wilderness doubtless account for the
fragmentary and inconclusive diary
entries of that period. The salient
physical features of the region will be
fairly clear, however, to an}- one who
has traversed it with attention and
viewed it from high vantage points.
Grateful indebtedness is acknowledged
to Mr. F. W. Hodge of the Museum of
the American Indian, Heye Founda-
tion, for his courtesy in allowing the
use here of part of a hitherto unpub-
lished map of Escalante's route re-
cently found in the Mexican archives.
Reference to it discloses the course of
Escalante's wanderings in the rough
country between the Colorado and the
established trail.
In the period intervening between
Escalante's journey and the advent of
the Mormons, other white men t nip-
pers, prospectors, or Canadian voy-
ageurs, — may have used or passed the
Crossing, but the next reference to it
that I find is in connection with Jacob
Hamblin, locally famous as an ex-
plorer and revered for his services as
a missionary of the Mormon Church
among the Indians.
In 18-17, when Brigham Young led
his followers to their promised land,
the Latter-day Saints were as effectu-
ally cut off from the world and as
dependent on the resources of their
vicinage as wTas Robinson Crusoe. Al-
most everything requisite to existence
had to be found in their new country.
Primarily a colonizer, a Cecil Rhodes in
our Southwest, President Young began
the exploration of his territory im-
mediately after the emigrants were
assured of food by raising a crop near
Salt Lake. As early as 1854, it was
conceived that cotton and other warm-
weather plants might be raised in the
low-lying Virgin River valley, appro-
priately known in Utah as "Dixie."
In 1855, a settlement was established
near the site of St. George, where good
soil and abundant water for irri-
gation combined with a mild climate
to promise productivity. Among the
first colonists was Jacob Hamblin, and
to him fell the duty of establishing
and maintaining friendly relations with
the neighboring Indians, who then, as
in Escalante's time, were engaged in
primitive farming.
Hamblin's success as a diplomat,
founded on rare tact, indomitable cour-
age and strict observance of the truth in
his dealings, marked him for further
service as plenipotentiary of the
Church. Accordingly, in 1858, he was
commissioned to visit the Ifopi on the
far side of the ( Jolorado, whither he set
out with a party of twelve in late
October.
"A Spanish interpreter was thought
advisable from the tact that the
Spanish language was spoken and
348
XATURAL HISTORY
understood by many of the Indians in
that region of country. A Welsh inter-
preter was taken along, thinking it
possible that there might be some truth
in a report which had been circulated
that there were evidences of Welsh
descent among these Indians. An
Indian guide was requisite, from the
fact that none of the brethren had
traveled the route."
Going by Pipe Spring and across the
northerly portion of the Kaibab "after
climbing dangerous cliffs and crossing
extensive fissures in the rocks, the tenth
day out from home we crossed the
Colorado River, at the I'te Ford,
known in Spanish history as the
'Crossing of the bather-.'" eighty-two
years to the day. after Escalante's
crossing.
Four of the brethren were left among
the Hopi to "study their language, get
acquainted with them, and. as they are
of the blood of Israel, offer them the
gospel"; the remainder returned by the
same route, anticipating that "sixteen
days of hard travel would he necessary
to accomplish the journey." Intense
cold, deep snow, loss of provisions by a
runaway, and failure to encounter
Indians from whom they might get
meat, caused delay and privation,
necessitating tin4 killing of a horse
for food. "The journey home was very
laborious and disagreeable" a volume
in a sentence, for Hamblin was neither
soft nor fastidious.
Hamblin again traversed the trail
to the Hopi villages and hack in the
autumns of 1859 and 1860, maintain-
ing a schedule of fifteen to seventeen
days en route. In the course of the
latter journey one of his companions
was killed by Navajo and the rest were
in jeopardy. Thanks to Hamblin's
shrewdness, however, the party safely
returned to the ford and thence arrived
at the settlement in nine days, ''jaded
and worn with hard travel and anxiety
of mind."
Two years later Hamblin broke a
new trail to the Hopi country across the
river at the Grand Wash, over the
( 'oconino Plateau, around the base of
the San Francisco Mountains, and
through the Painted Desert. Three
Hopi returned with him and. although
"they objected on account of a tradi-
tion forbidding them to cross the great
river," he induced them to wade the
ford on New Year's Day, 1863. Failure
of the Welsh interpreter to be of service
on the previous expedition had not
stilled the rumor of the Hopi's Welsh
extraction. These Indians were con-
sequently promptly taken "to a Welsh-
man who understood the ancient Welsh
language. lie said he could not detect
anything in their language that would
warrant a belief that they were of
Welsh descent." Thereupon, "As
I. chi promised his son Joseph that all
his seed should not he destroyed, it was
in the minds of the brethren who re-
flected upon this subject, that in the
Moquis [Hopi] people this promise was
fulfilled."
Hamblin had many of the qualities
of the Spanish fathers. Convinced
that Indians were the Lamanites of the
Hook of Mormon, and regarding them
:i< errant brothers, he earnestly sought
to minister to their spiritual welfare
and ignored every risk and sacrifice
involved in the service which his con-
victions demanded. Hamblin's early
journeys over the ford paved the way
for Mormon colonization in Arizona.
His descendants now living on either
side of the river recall his work as
pioneer and leader in bringing about
tlic settlement of the country.
With the influx of settlers stock on
the ranges multiplied, and much "of
.
EL VADO DE LOS PADRES
349
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"The Gunsight." — The trail to the Crossing from the west is blocked by a rocky spur jut-
ting to the canon rim from the heights bounding the river plain. The notch in the center of
the picture, however, affords a pass, steep of approach ami barely wide enough to accommodate
packs. It is shaped like the rear sight of a rifle and when looked through, as here, reveals a
distant knob analogous to the front sight of a gun; hence the name
the vegetation that had produced
nut lit ions seeds, on which the Indians
had been accustomed to subsist," was
devoured. "Lank hunger," which
resulted, led to many depredations;
the settlers retaliated, often to the
injury of the unoffending when the
culprits had escaped, so that those who
were well-disposed also became des-
perate. A striking feature of travel in
this country is the recurring evidence
of the effect settlement and over-
stocking the ranges has had upon plant
life and even the face of the land.
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EL YADO DE LOS PADRES
351
Pioneers say that in the earliest days
the Utes were to be feared and the
Navajo were not troublesome until
the sixties. This accords with the
inference to be drawn from the Cross-
ing's original name — the Old Ute Ford.
Navajo raided at Kanab and Pipe
Spring in 1865 and 1866, and two men
were killed near the latter place. This
led to Hamblin's organizing a body of
Piutes to cooperate with the brethren
in watching the eastern frontier. He
spent the next four seasons cultivating
peace with the Indians on the west side
of the river and guarding the passes,
occasionally having a skirmish with the
Navajo.
The era of scientific exploration com-
menced at this time. Major Powell
on his canon voyage in 1S69, recog-
nized the Crossing from Esealante's
description, and noted there a well
beaten trail and the ashes of many
camp fires.
A detachment of the Wheeler Survey
visited the ford in 1872, and reported,
"The scene is of remarkable grandeur
and almost unique in its loneliness."
The early seventies saw the begin-
nings of Mormon settlement east of the
Colorado. As the trail via the Crossing
was impracticable for wagons, the
colonists used either a route into the
San Juan country, striking the river
to the north, at Hole in the Rock, near
the mouth of the Escalante River,
where a stretch of still water made it
possible to float rafts and wagon boxes
across, or Lee's Ferry, forty miles
to the south, where a boat was kept
after 1871, and through which a road
was laid out in 1873, giving access to
northern Arizona. The ford conse-
quently fell into disuse save by maraud-
ing Navajo. To stop their raids the
sufferers finally blasted away the rock
trail leading to the river on the west
side and thus effectually relegated the
Crossing of the Fathers to history.
The country about the Crossing is
barren, rocky, cut by deep canons,
dominated by high buttes, and lined
with precipitous walls. Here color, in
delicacy of shade and sharpness of
contrast, combines with the natural
sculpture, light, and atmosphere to
create effects beautiful and appealing.
An earlier generation of geologists —
Newberry, Powell. Gilbert, Dutton,
Marvine, Howell. Thompson, to men-
tion only a few — in this vicinity
learned their science at first-hand from
the book of Mother Earth, wide-open
and illustrated in color. Such scenery,
moreover, carries interest in the tale it
unfolds of geologic processes obscured
in more favored regions. Here nature,
stripped of her accustomed mantle of
vegetation, unreservedly reveals her
curves of beauty and her faults — the
structures and fractures influencing
the plateau province's major topog-
raphy— and through the distinct and
varied tinting, texture, and form of the
features displayed, lays herself open to
appreciative observation.
Little traveled nowadays, the trail
to the Crossing still bears evidence of
long usage, and occasional artefacts
strewn along it speak loudly of the
past. The abandonment of the ford in
favor of more accessible ferries leaves
this section deserted save by cowmen
and sheepherdeis. who find sparse
winter range for their stock in the low
lands near the river. A journey t hither
now, as in all previous time, calls for
good trail horses and pack animals, the
same equipment Escalante and Ham-
blin had, for it is — and until the Colora-
do shall be dammed and harnessed, will
remain — remote and difficult of access.
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THE AGATE FOSSIL QUARRY IX WESTERN NEBRASKA
The two isolated hills are outliers of the high plain through whieh the Niobrara River
has cut a broadivalley. The bone layer is a little above the level of the saddle between the
two hills and outcrops all around the slopes of both peaks but is especially rich on the south
(right hand) face of Carnegie Hill, the larger hill to the right. Here are situated the principal
quarries of the Carnegie Museum and of the American Museum, the dump showing as a
level terrace in front of the quarries. The University of Nebraska opened a quarry on the
smaller hill, hence called University Hill, and secured from it a fine collection.
It is estimated that the total accumulation of bones in Carnegie Hill represents about
17,000 skeletons, chiefly of the little pair-horned rhinoceros, or Diceratherium
358
Fossil Bones in the Rock
THE FOSSIL QUARRY NEAR AGATE, SIOUX COUNTY, NEBRASKA
By W. D. Matthew
Curator-in-Chief, Division of Mineralogy and Geology, American Museum
THE Agate Fossil Quarry, dis- its name of quick) and with it the
covered by James H. Cook in buried bones would be shifted around,
1877, is one of the greatest fossil disarticulated, and displaced, so that
quarries ever found in America. The when finally buried deeper by later
bones are in a layer from six to twenty sediments of the river valley, they
inches thick, packed closely together, would be preserved as they are found
They are seldom articulated, but most here, complete and almost undamaged,
of the bones of a single skeleton lie yet all separate and dissociated,
near together, although some parts The bones taken from this quarry
may be found at a little distance. belong almost wholly to three species:
The quarry is near the Niobrara (1) The dwarf pair-horned rhinoceros
River, although seventy-five feet above Diceratherium cooki.
its present level. It is in the Lower (2) The chalicothere, or clawed
Harrison beds of the Arickaree forma- ungulate, Moropus elatus.
tion, belonging to the beginning of the (3) The entelodont, or giant pig,
Miocene epoch of the Age of Mammals, Dinohyus Holland i.
or Tertiary Period. The formation is a The little rhinoceros is b}r far the
rather soft sandstone of light gray most abundant and has been found
color, made by the accumulated flood- everywhere in the bone layer. The
plain sediments of a river that flowed Moropus is found chiefly in the north-
east ward across the plains, for then as ern end of the quarry, and the Dinohyus
now the region was one of open country is the least abundant .
and grassy savannas. It is believed A block, b% X 8 feet, taken from
that the accumulation of bones was this quarry in 1920 and now on ex-
formed in an eddy in the old river hibition in the hall of fossil mammals,
channel at a time when the valley was American Museum, contains twenty-
not so deeply cut out as it is now and two skulls and an uncounted number of
when the river flowed at the higher skeleton bones, all of the little rhinoc-
level. A pool would be formed at this eros. If the various bones of the body
eddy, with quicksands at its bottom, and limbs correspond in numbers to
and many of the animals that came to the skulls, we may estimate the total
drink at the pool in dry seasons would number of bones as follows:
be trapped and buried bv the quick- ,,,,,. .. ,, ,
11 . • ' Each skeleton of a dicerathere consists of
sand. The covering of sand would , ,, , , ., ,
" skull and lower jaw. 1 hones
serve to protect the bones from de- 7 cervical, 19 dorsal, 5 lumbar,
cay and prevent them from being 26 caudal vertebrae, and the
rolled or waterworn by the current, sacrum 58
or from being crushed and broken up 19 pairs oi ribs
i 4l , r .■ l 4i 5 sternal segments 5 "
ov Ihe trampling ol animals that came ., , .
'- scapula', humeri, radii, and
there to drink. Hut sand ot this kind M|li;1. s
is always moving and shifting (whence 8 cjarpals on each ford foot. 16
359
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FOSSIL BOXES IX THE ROCK
361
Northwestern Nebraska, showing location of Agate Fossil Quarry
4 metacarpals (one vestigial)
on each fore foot S bones
9 phalanges on each fore foot 1 8
Pelvis, 2 femora, 2 tibiae, 2
fibulae ~
7 tarsals on each hind foot. 14
3 metatarsals on each hind foot ti
9 phalanges on each hind foot. IS
198 "
Twenty-two skeleton*, each of 198
bones, give a total of 4356 bones in
this block of 44 square feet, or on the
average 99 bones to the square foot.
It is doubtless true that many of the
bones belonging to these twenty-two
skulls are not in (his block; but by
the laws of chance their numbers
should be offset by a corresponding
number of skeleton bones which are in
this block but belong to skulls that
are not hoe.
The total area of quarry opened up
by the American Museum amounts to
about 2750 square feet . The bones in a
large part of this area were as abundant .
apparently, as in this block. In other
parts the bone layer is much thinner.
An average of a little less than one-
half the numbers shown in this block,
or forty bones to the square foot,
would perhaps constitute a fair esti-
mate. In addition to the area uncov-
ered by the American Museum, about
1350 square feet have been exca-
vated by the Carnegie Museum. On
the basis of forty bones to the square
foot there are in this excavated area
164,000 rhinoceros bones, belonging to
820 skeletons. Mr. Peterson estimate! I
that more than two hundred individuals
of Diceratherium were represented in
t he ( larnegie collect ion alone.
362
NATURAL HISTORY
According to the estimate of Mr.
Albert Thomson, field representative
of the American Museum, not more
than five per cent (one-twentieth) of
the total area of the bone deposit has
been uncovered if, as appears prob-
able, it extends through the entire
isolated hill. On this basis the total
James H. Cook, the discoverer of the fossil
quarry, well known as an army Seoul in his
early days, settled on the Niobrara in the
seventies. His ranch, covering many thou-
sands of acres in and along the fertile little
valley, has become a place of pilgrimage for
visitors from far and near
number of skeletons in the hill may be
roughly estimated at:
Diceratherium 820X20 16,400
Moropus 25 X20 .500
Dinohyus 5X20 100
The number is probably too high
for the Moropus and Dinohyus, but
too low for the Diceratherium.
It is to be observed that the five
per cent excavated has cost more than
$20,000, not including the expenditure
for preparation work, which would
amount to a much larger sum than the
collecting. If one had a million dollars
to spend! — but then if one had, there
are a good many other problems that
would be more important to investigate.
I think it unlikely that the great quarry
will ever be entirely cleaned up — at any
rate not in our day. it is to be feared.
The Agate Fossil Quarry was dis-
covered by .James If. Cook. It is
situated on the eastern border of his
ranch, which extends for some miles
west ward on the Upper Niobrara River,
or Running Water, to the Nebraska-
Wyoming line. It was upon Mr.
( look's invitation that various museum
expeditions have undertaken collecting
work in and around the fossil quarries,
Harold Cook, son of James H. Cook, is the
owner of the quarry. He is a palaeontologist
of high standing, devoting such time as he can
spare from t he care of the ranch to fossil hunt-
ing and the study of the very considerable col-
lection that he has brought together. Many
valuable fossils in the museums in New York,
Lincoln (Nebraska), and Pittsburgh were
found by him
and all are indebted to him for many
and various kindnesses. The quarry is
owned by his son, Harold J. Cook, who,
himself an expert palaeontologist, has
maintained the family tradition of
FOSSIL BOXES IN THE ROCK
363
open-minded generosity, and to his
courtesy and aid the many scientific
museums in this country and in
Europe are directly or indirectly under
obligations for their representation of
fossils from this remarkable quarry.
The Dicer atherium, by far the most
abundant fossil in the quarry, is a
rhinoceros with a pair of horns placed
side bv side on the nose instead of with
blunt nubs like the back horn of a
white rhinoceros.
Skeletons of the Diceratkerium from
this quarry have been mounted in
various scientific museums. It is the
intention to mount a group of them for
exhibit in the American Museum. :••!
The Moropus belongs to the chali-
cotheriids. an extinct family of mam-
mals of the order Perissodactvla and
Courtesy of the University of Xebraska
The Diceratherium, or pair-horned rhinoceros, was about the size of a year-old calf and had
a pair of small horns, or bony nubs, at the front of the muzzle instead of the single or the tandem
horns of the modern rhinoceroses. The mounting of the skeleton on a panel, with the restored
form of the animal and an appropriate scenic background faintly suggested, represents an
unusual and very artistic method devised by Professor E. H. Barbour
tin1 single horn of the Indian rhinoceros
or the "tandem" arrangement of the
horns seen in the two African rhi-
noceroses. These pair-horned rhinoc-
eroses lived about the middle of the
Age of Mammals, and various species
have been found all over western
Europe and in North America from
New Jersey to Oregon. The species of
the quarry was a small one, a little
larger than a pig, with somewhat the
same proportions of body, but a very
different head. The horns were prob-
ably not long and pointed, but stoul
about equally related to the horse, the
rhinoceros, the tapir, and the titano-
there (also extinct). It combines
characters of all four of these animals
with some peculiarities of its own.
The neck and the general shape of the
head remind one of the horse. The
short arched back, sloping hips, and
rudimentary tail, suggest the tapir.
The limbs and feet resemble the pro-
portions and construction of the great
modern rhinoceroses, except that the
fore limbs are longer. The grinding
teeth are most like those of the extinct
3(34
X ATI' HAL HISTORY
titanothere. while the front teeth are
those of a ruminant. But the toes are
the most remarkable feature of this odd
beast, for they are tipped with claws
instead of hoofs as in horses, tapirs,
rhinoceroses, etc. This feature, in an
animal that certainly is one of the
the pangolin. Only when they were
found together as parts of the same
skeleton was the proof afforded that
they belonged to the same animal.
The chalicotheres are rather scarce
among the fossils of Europe and Asia.
and exceedingly rare in America, except
Skeleton of the Moropus, or clawed ungulate, in the American Museum. — The name
"clawed ungulate" sounds like a contradiction in terms, for the distinguishing feature of the
ungulates is that they have hoofs instead of claws. The Moropus, however, belongs unmistak-
ably to the ungulate division. It is related, although distantly, to the horses, tapirs, and rhinoc-
eroses, but in its case the hoofs have been changed into large compressed claws on the forefoot
and into smaller claws on the hind foot. The animal is as large as a modern camel
ungulates, as shown by every other
character of its skeleton, is unique and
very difficult to explain. When the
bones of chalicotheres were first dis-
covered in western Europe, the skull
and teeth were recognized as being-
akin to those of the titanotheres, etc.,
but the toe bones were supposed to be
those of a gigantic edentate related to
in this quarry. They are by no mean-
so common in the quarry as the rhi-
noceroses, but a number of incomplete
skeletons were obtained by the Carne-
gie Museum, and seventeen complete
skeletons by the American Museum.
The Dinohyus is the largest of the
entelodonts. These extinct animals
are commonly called giant pigs, al-
FOSSIL BOXES IN THE ROCK
365
though they were not very piglike in
appearance, and were not related to the
pigs any more closely than to the
ruminants. These entelodonts are
fairly common in some of the American
formations, and are also found, al-
though more rarely, in Europe and
Asia. They were rather tall, but com-
pactly proportioned, with two-toed
feet like a bison's, very large, heads
with long muzzles and large, powerful
tusks. The tusks and indeed all the
front teeth are much more like those of
tions is to cut down the overlying rock
to about two feet above the bone layer.
This is done by the usual methods of
rock-cutting with drills, dynamite, and
blasting powder, heavy picks to trim
the rough surface to a floor, and team
and scraper to remove the debris.
Next comes the far more careful
work of removing the cover down to the
bone layer itself. This must be done
with light hand picks, awls, and
whisks, the debris being shoveled away
as it accumulates. As soon as bone is
Courtesy of tin Carnegit Museum
Skeleton of the Dinohyus, or giant pig, in the Carnegie .Museum at Pittsburgh. This
animal was somewhat larger than a modern bison, lint the huge head, with its long jaws and
powerful, wolflike teeth, suggests a fierce, aggressive beast, as active as a bison and more
savage than a wild boar
wolves or other large carnivores than
like those of any living herbivora,
while the back teeth are <d omnivorous
type. These formidable beasts were
probably omnivorous like the pigs and
bears, but better equipped than cither
to pursue and attack animal prey.
It may be of interest to the reader to
know how these fossils are taken out of
the quarry. The first stage of opera-
reached, its surface is carefully fol-
lowed and exposed. It is cleaned with
small soft brushes whereby the risk is
avoided of breaking through the deli-
cate1 brittle outer skin of the bone sur-
face, and it is soaked with thinned
shellac varnish, especially at parts
found to be cracked or shattered.
When a considerable strip of the bone
surface has been thus exposed, the lay
When this large L>!< »<k was taken from t be bone layer at t he Agate Fossil Quarry, it was
channeled all around, the edges were undercut, and the top and sides were bandaged with
strips of burlap dipped in cement. A box was then buill around it, tightened with long rods
bolted from side to side and end to end. as well as through the middle beneath the bone
layer, and a crisscross of wooden braces was fitted over the surface before the cover was
nailed down on it
jrfflMi
When completely boxed in, this block, weighing more than two tons, was jarred loose
from the rook floor, lifted, and turned over with tripod and tackle. The under side was then
trimmed off, flooded with cement, and the bottom nailed on. The block was then turned right
side up, loaded on a wagon, and hauled twenty miles to the railroad
FOSSIL BOXES IN THE ROCK
367
of the bones can be studied and a de-
cision made as to how the problem of
taking them out can best be handled.
If some of the bones belonging to the
rarer Moropus or Dinohyus are lying
closely packed in with a mass of
Diceratherium bones, it may be neces-
sary to sacrifice some of the latter in
order to channel around the more
valuable bones, and secure all of these
without damage. If large blocks of
the dicerathere bones are desired, it
will be necessary to channel all around
them, at the sacrifice of some other
parts. In any event the bone layer
must be reduced to blocks of a size that
can be handled and transported, which
means usually not over four or five
feet square and one or two feet thick.
After a narrow channel has been cut
all around the block through the bone
layer, it must be undercut a little, that
is, as far as is safe, and then bandaged.
Before being bandaged it is very
thoroughly soaked with the shellac, as
much being used as it will take in on
repeated applications, and then given a
few days to dry in the hot western
sun. Strips of burlap are thereupon
dipped in plaster of Paris, applied to
the surface, and kneaded down upon it
so as to stick as closely as possible.
The strips are laid parallel until the
entire surface is covered. A second set
of strips is then laid on at right angles,
mid finally cinching strips are placed
around the undercut margin. One or
more additional series of strips are
sometimes required for large and heavy
blocks. When the plaster sets and
dries, a rigid and tough casing is formed
over the block and around its edges.
The next stage is to undercut the
block farther until it is nearly U-w from
the quarry floor below, when it can be
loosened and carefully turned over.
The under side is then trimmed smooth.
soaked with shellac, and similarly
bandaged, and when thoroughly dried,
the block is boxed or crated and by
skids and levers is lifted on board a
wagon and hauled to the railway sta-
tion. For handling large heavy blocks
a tripod with differential pulley and
ropes or chains is necessary.
Arrived at the Museum, the block
casing is cut away from the top of the
block and the work of preparation
begins. This is much more delicate
and careful than the rough cleaning
out in the field. Most of it is done
with saddlers' awls, curved and knife-
edged. The matrix is scraped away
bit by bit, chiselled away with fine
chisels where necessary, the surface
being kept clean, the rock scrapings
removed with a vacuum cleaner, and
the bone surfaces continually soaked,
as they are exposed, with shellac solu-
tion. In this way as much of the rock
is removed as is thought desirable or
practicable, and the bones are taken
out or (in the case of the big block)
left in place. Record has been kept at
all stages of the position and orienta-
tion of each block or of each separated
bone, and upon being thoroughly
cleaned, the bones can be fitted to-
gether. When the fit is precise or for
other reasons they are considered to
belong to one individual, they are
associated under one record number.
The huge block 44 square feet in
area, already referred to. is the largest
single section yet taken out of the fossil
quarry. The larger the blocks are. the
more difficult are they to handle and
transport without breakage. The sur-
face of the bone layer was exposed and
the block channeled around, bandaged
and undercut and turned as explained
above. On the under side was then
laid a permanent base of cement.
framed and covered with wood, through
FOSSIL BOXES IN THE ROCK
369
which iron bolts were passed from side
to side and from end to end. The
block was then turned right side up
and the sides and top boxed in. The
block, when boxed, weighed 4800
pounds, and was of course turned
and moved with chains and tackle.
When it reached the Museum, it was
brought up to the exhibition hall,
cleaned there, the base set upon a
frame with castors, and the glass case
built around it.
It is remarkable that the great
multitude of bones in the quarry be-
long to but three species. The forma-
tion in which the quarry lies has been
quite thoroughly prospected for fossils,
and a large number of specimens have
been found representing many species
of animals. Several kinds of oreodonts,
or "ruminating hogs," several kinds
of three-toed horses, of primitive
camels, primitive deer, wolves and
foxes and other Carnivora, primitive
beavers and pocket gophers — all of the
same geologic age — have been found
in the same region and formation. All
of these animals undoubtedly were
living in the vicinity at the time that
the bone layer was made. Occasionally
one finds fragments of their bones or
teeth in the quarry; but never com-
plete skulls or skeletons, and the bones
or teeth are always more or less rolled
and waterworn. These waterworn frag-
ments were evidently brought down by
the current of the stream from some
distance above and deposited at this
quiet eddy. They were in no case
trapped and buried at the place where
they are found.
The explanation no doubt lies in
some differences in drinking habits.
One might think it a question of size,
the smaller animals escaping because
they were too light and active to be
caught in the quicksand, or because the
large, powerful beasts drove them away.
But this would hardly explain why the
larger oreodonts — as large as the little
rhinoceros and quite as wTell able to
take care of themselves in a fight-
are never found in the bone deposit,
although they are one of the most
abundant of the animals in the strata
round about. It might be supposed
that the animals not represented in the
quarry left the plains and went up into
the wooded hills during the dry season,
when we may assume the river dried
up and the pool became a water hole
and drinking place at which certain
animals would congregate. But this
explanation of their absence from the
quarry deposit would scarcely apply
to the rodents, or to various other
members of the fauna that are more
adapted to open dry plains than are
the three that we find in the quarry.
Whatever be the explanation, the
fact remains as a curious limitation,
though one not uncommonly found in
these fossil quarries. Another quarry
two or three miles from the Agate
Quarry has yielded great numbers of
skeletons of the gazelle-camel Steno-
mylus, a small slender creature of the
size and proportions of the vicuna, but
practically nothing else. There are
reasons to believe that this Stenomylus
quarry was the bedding ground of this
extinct animal; at all events the condi-
tions of deposition there were very dif-
ferent from those in the Agate Quarry,
as many complete articulated skeletons
have been found there. At the Ameri-
can Museum five of them may be seen
in the camel alcove near the Agate
Quarry exhibit, in a large block, lying
just as they were found in the rock.
" ■■-■<.'
m
m
TREE RINGS USED IN MEASURING TIME
Two hundred three years of seasonal records, as shown by the annual rings (natural size I
on the section of the big Sequoia tree in the American Museum of Natural History. Time
represented 1150 A.D. to 1353 a.d.
370
Seasonal Records of Geologic Time
AS NOTED IN ANNUAL RINGS OF TREES, BANDED GLACIAL CLAYS, AND
CERTAIN DEPOSITS MADE DURING PERIODS OF ARID CLIMATE
By CHESTER A. REEDS
Associate Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology, American Museum-
WE are all impressed with the
variable daily amount of light
and heat received from the
sun and with the recurrence of day
and night caused by the revolution of
the earth on its axis every twenty-
four hours. We are not unmindful,
too, of the gradual passing of the
seasons, spring, summer, autumn, and
winter, and the accompanying varia-
tions in temperature and moisture, as
the earth completes its annual circuit
about the sun. The questions natu-
rally arise: what is the net result of
these seasonal fluctuations, for how
many years have they been going on,
and what will be their tendency to-
morrow? We turn to the past records
for an indication as to the future. We
know that there have been seasonal
variations for the thousands of years
that man has been keeping his calendars
and writing history. We also have
good reason to assume that they were
true for prehistoric man, who kept
no tangible records, as well as for the
great eons of time that preceded the
advent of man upon the earth.
Those of us who have observed
nature in one or more of her varied
phases are greatly impressed with the
effect of the seasonal changes upon the
plants, which have adapted their
growing periods to spring and summer,
and their resting or maturing stages to
autumn and winter. The researches of
Dr. Ellsworth Huntington and Prof.
A. E. Douglass on trees and climate are
especially interesting in this connection.
In the trees the seasonal changes are
recorded in the annual rings. Soft
white cells grow at a rapid rate in the
spring. This growth is dependent upon
the relative amounts of snowfall and
rainfall of the preceding winter as well
as upon the porous or compact nature
and depth of the soil. In the autumn,
due to lowered temperature or dimin-
ished water supply, there is a gradual
cessation of the activity of the tree.
This change is recorded by the deposi-
tion of denser and darker material in
the cell walls. During the winter,
growth practically stops.
Occasionally, due to two stages of
growth in one year, superfluous rings
may arise, or, due to the lack of a
spring development, two or more
autumn rings may merge together and
an apparent omission of rings will
occur. To detect a possible error in
counting these abnormal rings, groups
of rings in different trees are compared
and "cross-identifications" are thus
established. Years deficient in rainfall
or lowered temperature are more
noticeable and more widespread than
favorable years, for a deficient year is
characterized by an individual ring-
that is small compared to those beside
it. Large rings are more apt to come in
groups and are not so extensive geo-
graphically as small rings.
Variations in climate can thus be
detected in the growth rings of trees.
Successive years are not all alike, for a
factor like rainfall may be variable;
besides, more than one factor may
371
372
NATURAL HISTORY
A portion of a fossil Sequoia tree of Middle Tertiary (Miocene) age from the Yellow-
stone National Park, showing annual rings
affect the tree rings, such as rainfall,
temperature, and length of growing
season. In regions where trees have an
abundance of moisture there is often
noticed a beautiful rhythm of annual
rings which matches with the sun-spot
cycle of 11.4 years. Other cycles of 6
years, 22 years, 35 years, and 100 years
have been noted. In fact, different
centuries may have different combina-
tions of climatic cycles. When they
are better known, they may give us a
basis for long-range weather fore-
casting. Some of them have been
used by Professor Douglass in determin-
ing the relative dates of prehistoric
ruins in northern New Mexico.1
'See the article entitled "Dating Our Prehistoric
Ruins," by A. E. Douglass, Natural History, Janu-
ary-February, 1921, pp. 27-30.
The longest record of tree growth is
that found in the "big trees" of
( Jalifornia, the Sequoia washingtoniana.
Some of these trees have lived for more
than 3000 years. In the Jesup collec-
tion of North American woods in the
American Museum, there is a cross
section of a large Sequoia five which
was cut in 1894. According to the
count of the annual rings this tree
started to grow in a.d. 550. Recently
Doctor Huntington has added to this
exhibit a climatic curve based on the
variable growth in the Sequoia and has
indicated the rise and decline in
response to climatic variations of the
great governments of the countries
bordering the Mediterranean from 1300
b.c. to the present. This comparison is
SEASONAL RECORDS OF GEOLOGIC TIME
373
possible since a study of the countries
bordering the Mediterranean shows
that the climatic pulsations felt there
were similar to those indicated by the
"big trees" of California, and indeed
the climate of the two regions is still
of the same type.
From the trunks of fossil trees it is
probable that a very much longer
record will be obtained. Trunks of
fossil Sequoia trees occur in the Yel-
lowstone National Park, in the eastern
foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and
elsewhere, in places where the trees do
not now grow. The cross section of the
silicified wood sample, p. 372, shows
ninety-two well marked rings with a
thickness of about one millimeter each.
Fossil woods exhibiting annual rings
have been found in rocks of various
ages from the Upper Devonian Period
to the present, that is, as far back as
18,000,000 years ago, but only com-
paratively few have been collected
and are accessible.
A longer annual record than that
afforded by the living Sequoia trees
has been obtained in Sweden from the
glacial clays deposited in fresh-water
lakes which laved the retreating ice
front of the last continental glacier.
The stratified clays of the Hudson,
Hackensack, and Connecticut river
valleys and of many other points in
America were likewise deposited in
fresh-water lakes which followed the
retreating ice border of the last great
North American ice field.
On close inspection these glacial
clay deposits show distinct seasonal
layers or bands: a summer layer.
which is the thicker, of more sandy
material, and of lighter color, usually
gray; a winter layer, which is the
thinner, of very fine clay, and of darker
or reddish color, depending upon the
color of the rock from which the fine
clay particles were derived. In passing
upward from a dark winter layer to the
Handed glacial clay (vane clay (from New
Haven, Connecticut, showing seven dark win-
tor layers and six lighter summer layers (nat-
ural size). An annual deposit consisting of a
summer layer and the succeeding winter
layer is called a varve. Collected by Dr. E.
Antevs, 1922
*'
Postglacial banded clay exposure at Dunnings Point on the Hudson River near Beacon,
New York. Photograph by t In- author, September, 1922
Varve clay from clay pit one-quarter mile north of Mountain View, New Jersey. The
deposit was made on the bottom of the former glacial lake, Passaic. Photograph by the
author, September. 1922
SEASONAL RECORDS OF GEOLOGIC TIME
375
coarse gray summer. layer, the change is
abrupt ; from the summer layer to the
winter layer, however, the change is
gradual in all cases. The coarse sum-
mer layers have very fine wavy lines
of bedding while the fine winter layers
are homogenous and uniform in appear-
ance. These seasonal layers alternate
in position without exception through-
out the deposits. A pair of such layers
is called a varve, or annual deposit.
In different years different quantities
of sediments were carried to the glacial
lakes and consequently there arose
variations in the thickness of the
varves. Over the several areas of sedi-
mentation, however, the varve for a
particular year is approximately of
the same relative thickness. Another
circumstance of considerable note is
that the varves overlap each other very
much like the shingles on a roof. This
was brought about by the amount of
summer melting and the annual re-
treat of the ice northward. The loca-
tion of the northern limit of each varve.
that is where it touches the bed rock,
thus enables one to determine the posi-
tion of the ice for a particular year as
well as the rate of retreat.
In Sweden the rate of glacial retreat
was irregular; in Scania and Belecking
about 75 meters a year. Before reach-
ing the two great Fennoscandian
moraines near Stockholm, which repre-
sent distinctly adverse climatic condi-
tions, it increased to 100 meters or a
little more. North of the great
moraines the retreat fluctuated from
100 to 300 meters or more a year and
only occasionally was it interrupted by
a stoppage or small advance.
This retreat of the last glaciation in
Sweden, (see map) may be subdi-
vided and summarized as follows:
(li Daniglacial Pari of Denmark, part
of Scania, and north central Germany south
of the Baltic Moraine. Time undetermined.
(2) Gotiglacial — Retreat from the termi-
nal moraines in middle Scania to the southern
border of the great Fennoscandian moraines
south of Stockholm, 11,600 b.c. to 8600 B.C.,
or 3000 rears.
5 m ?5 30 3S 4] 45
Retreat stages of the last glaciation in
northwestern Europe. After Osborn and
Reeds, 1922
(3) FixKiLACiAL — The retreat from the
southernmost of the Fennoscandian moraines
to the parting of the land ice into two parts
in the Ragunda district, 8600 b.c. to 6600
B.C., or 2000 years.
(4) Postglacial of Swedish geologists,
based on the work of Liden in the valley of
the river Angermanalven, 6600 b.c. to 1900
a.d., or 8500 years. The above figures give a
total of 13,500 years for the retreat of the
last ice sheet from central Scania to tin-
present small ice caps in north central
Sweden.
The glacial clay studies in Sweden
have been made chiefly by Baroo
Gerard de Geer1 and a number of
younger men trained by him, particu-
larly Dr. R. Liden and Dr. E. Antevs.
It was in 1878 that De ( leer arrived at
the conclusion that a pair of these
seasonal Layers constituted an annual
deposit, or varve. De Geer also devel-
oped a method of correlating these
'See the article entitled "Baron ( lerard de ' ieer and
His Work" by James I' Kemp Natcrai History,
Vol. XXI. i>!>. 31-3.
376
NATURAL HISTORY
deposits not only in the same region
but also in different regions.
Studies of glacial clay, deposited
during the retreat of the last ice sheet
in North America, have been made by
a few investigators, particularly Antevs,
1921-22, who has determined a se-
quence of varve clays representing
4100 years for the retreat of the ice
front from Hartford, Connecticut, to
Saint Johnsbury, Vermont, a distance
of 185 miles. The average rate of
retreat was a little more than one mile
in 22 years, but it was not regular.
Between Springfield and Amherst,
Massachusetts, a distance of twenty
miles, it was much slower, about a
mile in 47.5 years. Then for 350
years the ice front remained in the
vicinity of Amherst, but at the
termination of that span of years re-
treated more rapidly, about a mile in
15 to 16 years. The results of Doctor
Antevs' investigations have been pub-
lished in book form, under the title
of The Recession of the Last Ice Sheet in
New England, by the American Geo-
graphical Society, New York, 1922.
Banded clays of an earlier glacial ion
were described by Prof. R. W. Sayles
in 1916 from the Sqantum peninsula
near Boston, Massachusetts. It is
estimated that they are 13,000,000
years older than the clays deposited
during the retreat of the last or
Quaternary (Pleistocene) glaciation of
northwestern Europe and eastern
North America. They are 800 feet
thick and have been referred to the
Permian Age, a period nearly one-
fourth the way down the geological
scale (see p. 378). Since deposition
these ancient banded clays have been
converted by diastrophic movements
into slate or argillite, but they still
retain their original relations and char-
acteristics.
The most ancient glacial clays with
varves so far noted appear near the
base of the geological column and are
estimated to be 37,000,000 years old or
older. They exist as argillites asso-
ciated with the Huronian glacial drift
deposits at Cobalt, Ontario, Canada.
According to the late Prof. Joseph
Barrell, they occur at the south end of
Cobalt Lake; they are delicately
handed and indicate rhythmic deposi-
tion. The bands are grouped in series
that show larger rhythms representing
climatic fluctuations covering periods
of years.
Deposits made under arid climates
sometimes show seasonal develop-
ments. According to R. Gorgey
( 1911) seasonal bands appear in certain
salt deposits of northern Germany.
Varves representing 5653 years have
been noted in these deposits. The salt
beds which exhibit this banding are
associated with red formations and
gypsum of Upper Permian age. Unlike
the varve clays, which formed under a
moist glacial climate, these salt de-
posits were developed from brines
under a period of continued arid
climate characterized by excessive
evaporation during the summer.
Another example of seasonal bands
formed under an arid climate is fur-
nished by the specimen of Triassic red
sandstone shown on p. 377, which the
author found in September, 1922, as a
sporadic bowlder in the five feet of
"yellow drift" overlying the late
glacial clays of the Quaternary (Pleisto-
cene) Period in the vicinity of Little
Ferry, New Jersey. The normal posi-
tion of the Triassic rocks in this region
is beneath and on the margins of the
Pleistocene clays. In cross section this
specimen shows more than nineteen
annual bands of red sand. The summer
layers are the lighter in color and are
SEASONAL RECORDS OF GEOLOGIC TIME
377
relatively thick with moderately coarse
sand; the winter layers are the darker
and are thin, being composed of a
finer grained sand than the summer
bands. The varves are quite regular
and show marked seasonal differences.
From the instances cited it is appar-
ent that seasonal records of one kind
or another occur at widely separated
that is, the two extremes of climate.
Furthermore, their presence is re-
stricted to the fresh-water lakes which
laved the retreating ice front or to the
vanishing lakes of arid regions. The
marine formations, which constitute
the greater portion of the stratified
rocks of the earth's crust, show no
varves or seasonal banding; hence
M^P^
Cross section of varves in a Triassic red sandstone bowlder from Little Ferry, New Jersey
intervals in geologic time, in fact so
early and so late and with sufficient
frequency to justify one in assuming
that seasonal changes took place
regularly from year to year throughout
all geologic history. Seasonal records,
however, have not been preserved for
every year, as a certain combination
of circumstances must exist to bring-
about deposition. Sharply marked
seasonal deposits were formed either
under glacial or under arid conditions,
deposits exhibiting varves form only a
small part of the geologic record.
Such deposits are of the greatest im-
portance, however, in the study of
geoehronology, climates past and pre-
sent, and the evolution of life.
Where varves exist, they can be
counted and the actual length of time
involved in their depositiou ascertained.
In the many instances, however, where
they do not exist, the duration of time
is uncertain; nevertheless, the thou-
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1
A (HART OF GEOLOGIC TIME
The glacial epochs are shown by the shaded areas (dotted where the data are indirect ;
the arid climatic pulsations by a curved line (dotted where the data are indefinite); and the
varve deposits by a V, placed on the left of the ruled line where glacial action is responsible
and on the right of the line where the varves were produced by arid climates
378
SEASONAL RECORDS OF GEOLOGIC TIME
379
-amis of sedimentary beds represent
millions of years for their deposition.
Competent observers using different
criteria have made various estimates as
to the age of the earth. Some say that
it may be 60, 100, 200, or even 750
million years old. Whatever the true
estimate may be, there are actual
beds of rock which represent a tre-
mendous length of time for their
deposition.
In recent years many geologists have
concluded that the earth's climate has
pulsated back and forth and that a
stable climate has not prevailed for
any great length of geologic time.
There have been periods when exten-
sive land areas, now comparatively
free of ice, were covered with great
ice sheets. At other times arid to
semi-arid or desert conditions often-
times prevailed in the same or even
higher latitudes. To account for
changes in civilization at various places
in historic times, Prof. A. Penck and
Dr. E. Huntington point to the shifting
of climatic zones back and forth and
cite examples along the northern and
southern margins of the Sahara and So-
noran deserts.
Xow it may be observed that due to
repeated oscillations of the climate
during geologic time from one extreme
to the other, life has passed through
successive' crises and that each crisis
was a step forward toward the estate
of man. The various groups of life
which have been successively dominant
on the earth have been listed in the
life column on p. 000. That these
various classes of life are genetically
connected is known (1) from the recapi-
tulation, in the enibrvological stages of
the higher animals, of the types of life
that have preceded them; (2) from
the finding in the geological record of
large numbers of fossil specimens which
bear witness of this connection and
development.
Variations in climate should not be
regarded as the sole cause of evolution
but one of four or more contributing
factors which Prof. Henry Fairfield
Osborn has considered in his book.
The Origin and Evolution of Life. It
may be noted, however, that geologic
and secular changes of environment
have preceded many of the most pro-
found changes in life.
In the Archseozoic Era, which em-
braces the oldest rocks, there is in-
direct evidence that unicellular forms
of life were present, also that nothing
higher existed.
The Lower Huronian Period, with
an extensive glaciation in southern
Canada and other parts of the world,
was among the first of the critical life
periods. The Archaeocyathinse, coral-
like animals, appear in great numbers
before the close of the period. They
represent the oldest invertebrates
known and an early step forward in the
evolution of life from the unicellular
forms.
Toward the close of the Proterozoic
Era another pronounced glacial climate
prevailed in various parts of the world,
the net result of which was the sudden
appearance in the Cambrian rocks of
numerous examples of all classes of
marine invertebrates. It is also prob-
able that the tendency toward verte-
brate life was initiated at this time, for
primitive fossil fishes have been found
in the Upper Ordovician rocks of
( Jolorado and Wyoming.
The next important crisis occurred in
the late Devonian when, due to the
rather extensive arid conditions in
many parts of the world, there was an
emergence of the earliest vertebrates
from the water. Huntington says it was
drought which apparently drove our
380
NATURAL HISTORY
fishlike ancestors out of the water upon
the land. He considers this a most
momentous step, for only in the highly
varied environment of the land does
brain power develop rapidly.
Glacial conditions which were to
have a far-reaching effect upon life
returned in the late Pennsylvanian and
again in the Permian periods. The
Permian glaciation was prominent in
both the southern and northern hemi-
spheres to within 30° of the equator.
It was during these trying times that
the warm-blooded mammals probably
arose. Their bones, however, have not
been found earlier than the Upper
Triassic. According to Huntington,
the transition from cold-blooded to
warm-blooded animals represents one
of the most profound developments in
the history of evolution.
Throughout the Mesozoic Era the
reptiles were the grand masters of the
realms of land, air, and sea. During this
time they waxed strong, deployed
widely, and became adjusted to their
environment. Then there came a
great change over the landscape in the
early Tertiary: the Rocky Mountains
were uplifted, seas and marshy lowlands
were drained, glaciation returned, the
reptile horde was diminished, and the
mammals became the dominant class.
The mammals in turn took on many
diverse forms and, like the reptiles,
occupied all the media of land, water,
and air during the millions of years of
the Tertiary Period. When they had
reached a condition of complete domi-
nance and adaptation, they too were
suddenly wiped out in wholesale lots.
This may be attributed directly or in-
directly to the severe climatic vicis-
situdes of the Pleistocene or early
Quaternary glaciations.
The Quaternary Period is called the
Age of Man. In Europe south of the
fifty-third parallel evidences of Pleis-
tocene man and even of a late Tertiary
(Pliocene) man have been found. Suc-
cessive types of men lived, struggled,
and endured the privations of the
glacial and interglacial epochs. Dur-
ing these times the cultural develop-
ment of man centered about the per-
fection of stone implements of chipped
flint, the palaeolithic stage; then during
the short Postglacial stage, with its
minor climatic oscillations, he passed
rapidly through the neolithic into the
historic and modern culture stages.
According to Huntington, it was
apparently this Glacial Period which
chiefly stimulated man's mental devel-
opment and caused his intelligence to
dominate the earth.
We pause on the threshold of the
future; we dare not enter, for we have
a profound respect for the past. We
know that this is the Age of Man but
we do not know what the next age will
be. We feel assured that seasonal and
climatic variations will continue in a
pulsatory way as before, but as to
man he will in all probability succumb
in time, as did his ancestors, to the
natural forces that caused him to rise
and conquer.
DAVID STARR JORDAN*, 1921
From a portrait by E. Spencer Macky, presented to Stanford University by Mrs. Jordan
David Starr Jordan — Naturalist and Leader
of Men
AS PORTRAYED THROUGH HIS WORK "THE DAYS OF A MAX'
By J. T. NICHOLS
\-m> Late Curator of Re en< Fishes, American Museum
THE scientific value of autobio-
graphical documents varies with
the point of view, training,
ability in expression, originality, and
"apperceptive mass" of the author.
Autobiographies of men of eminence
reflecting a wide and intimate contact
with life have a peculiar interest. As
was to have been expected, notes cov-
ering more than half a century of an
active life, brought together in two
volumes by Chancellor David Stan-
Jordan, of Stanford University, under
the title The Days of a Man is a publica-
tion of more than ordinary importance.
It is not too much to say that no
American naturalist can afford to he
without access to this work, for refer-
ence if for no other purpose. .Jordan's
interest in the natural sciences has been
381
382
XATCRAL HISTORY
a very wide one. With great talent for
leadership and for cooperation he has
crowded into this narrow span of years
an astonishing wealth of personal con-
tact with individuals representing
many different fields of thought, and
with events of importance to our pres-
ent knowledge of natural history sub-
jects. Trivial sidelights some of these
contacts may have been, but chrono-
logically recorded as they are, elabo-
rated where pertinent, and made
accessible for reference by an index
they form a preeminently useful histori-
cal document.
It would seem that with the pleasure
of recalling and making permanent
record of incidents and friendships of a
lifetime, Jordan also had in mind the
preparation of just such a useful his-
torical document rather than a purely
personal or literary work. It will be
criticised as rambling in character,
and much of it as being beside the
point, but how else could it fulfill its
reference function?
Further light on the scope of this
autobiography may be had by quoting
two paragraphs from the Foreword:
"For half a century the writer of these
pages has been a very busy man, living mean-
while three more or less independent lives:
first, and for the love of it, that of naturalist
and explorer; second, also for the love of it,
that of teacher; and third, from a sense of
duty, that of minor prophet of Democracy.
If he had his days to live over, he would again
choose all of the three."
********
As stated in The text, this work is essen-
tially a record of friendships; but even as
thus considered it is far from complete. For
in the author's varied experience as teacher
and as executive, he depended on the willing
cooperation of his associates — aid granted in
an unusual degree. To every one who has
shown him sympathy and tolerance he is very
grateful.
Bits of interesting natural history
lore blossom from page to page of the
two volumes. These items have for
the most part been published elsewhere
in something like their present form,
but are essential here for the proper
background. A naturalist cannot fail
to enjoy them, and should find some
with which he was previously un-
familiar.
The work is a narrative of travel.
Jordan's keenest interest in natural
phenomena from the outset appears to
have been in their relation to one
another in the formation of some larger
whole rather than in an analysis of
their minutiae — a scenic rather than a
microscopic viewpoint. A very early
interest in botany manifested itself in a
comparison of his home woods with
others farther afield, where different
trees kept company with different
flowers. Indeed, he tells us that
inability to travel extensively at that
time and to make wider comparison of
other floras, the vegetation of foreign
lands, probably prevented him from
becoming a botanist. As the years
went by, he seized upon and made
opportunity to visit all parts of our
United States and many foreign lands,
and throughout there is interesting
comment on his impressions thereof.
He says of an early sojourn among
the mountains of the Southern States
(1877):-
This wild, rough mass locally known as
Black Mountain, beset with dark balsam
firs, soft moss, and many subalpine plants,
rises 6711 feet above tidewater — that is.
about 500 feet higher than Mount Washing-
ton. It does not, however, give the same
impression of altitude because of the richness
of its vegetation under a warmer sky. On its
towering summit, under an overhanging
rock, we passed a night.
Of Switzerland (1881) he writes:—
The Matterhorn burns itself into the
memory as nothing else in all Europe does.
Three of its neighbors, Monte Rosa, The
Weisshorn, and the Michabelhorn or Dom.
DAVID STARR JORDAN
383
The steep-sided peak of the Matterhorn,
climbed by Doctor Jordan in 1881
-the "huge pyramid of the grandest of the Alps,
as well as Mont Blanc, are indeed a little
higher, but no other peak in the world makes
such good use of its height. Most great moun-
tains have white rounded heads, their
harsher angles worn away by the long action
of glaciers. The Matterhorn, however, is too
steep for snow to cling to and no glacier has
ever rounded its angles. It is therefore a
creature of sun and frost, the wrreck or relic
of some ancient giant from which the strong
gods of heat and cold have hurled down their
avalanches of loosened rocks.
With this introduction we read of an
adventurous ascent of the Matterhorn
wherein one of the party, Doctor
Gilbert, nearly lost his life. Jordan
tells us elsewhere that the motto "there
is plenty of room at the top" impressed
itself upon his memory in early life.
The reader may, if he likes, connect this
fact with Jordan's evident reluctance
to leave any eminent mountain peak
unconquered.
On a trip to Japan (1900) he visited
one of the few remaining villages of the
Ainus, which people occupied a large
part of Japan prior to its conquest by
the present-day Japanese: —
For myself the only thing apparently
worth while was to visit the little Ainu vil-
lage of Edomo, four miles away. But it was
too damp to walk and the only available
horses were wild, unbroken brutes. A boat
was then suggested if I didn't mind getting
wet. Meanwhile, an Ainu woman witli bushy,
curly hair and tattooed mustache trotted
gayly into town, her tight blue trousers cov-
ered with mud — altogether an amazing
freak that made me wish to see more where
that one came from. So, buying an oiled-
paper blanket and borrowing coat and um-
brella, I hired a little sailboat with two fisher-
men and started out .
This is his pithy description of the
South Seas (1902)-—
Four thousand miles from the Golden ( late
the little archipelago of Samoa lies in the
384
NATURAL HISTORY
heart of the "South Seas," a stretch of warm
ocean dotted with the asteroids of our earthly
Cosmos, tiny verdant worlds — thousands of
them between Java and the Marquesas —
filled with joyous people as innocent of
curiosity as to what happens in London or
New York as the folks of Vesta and Ceres arc
careless of the politics of their planetary
neighbors, Mars and Jupiter.
The narrow home may be an atoll, a ring
of broken corals fringed with tall coco palms
which skirt a serene blue lagoon; or it may be
a tangible island, the sharp verdure-clothed
enst of an uplifted volcano, its wide-leaved
evergreens mingled with royal palms and tree
ferns, the whole inextricably tied together
with a meshwork of climbing vines. Lava.
however, constitutes the solid framework of
all the islands; two hundred inches of rain a
year and an ardent tropic sun urge their
wonderful "bush" and guarding palms; the
coral polyp builds up the white shore-lines
and the cruel reefs; copra (dried meat of the
coconut) creates t heir economic value.
Down through the dense greenery leap
clear, dancing streams witli deep pools where
lurks the agile sesele or mountain bass, while
under the white waterfalls laughing girls
disport themselves. Along the shores sway
bending palms; from every vantage poinl one
sees blue water meet blue sky, and ever tot he
ear comes the low growl of surges along the
barrier reef. And all about (at least in olden
days) swarms a joyous people with shining
skins of yellow-bronze straight and strong
as Greeks; simple as children also, happy,
affectionate, irresponsible, and human.
In the author's words 1his narrative
is a record of friendships; as such it is a
record of personalities. Therein per-
haps lies its greatest human interest.
There also may be found a real value,
for a very large and representative
number of the world's citizens, men
and women, has gravitated within
range of his keen sympathy.
There is space here to quote, as an
illustration of his talent for portraiture,
only the description of the elder
Agassiz : —
None of us will ever forget his first sight
of Agassiz as we arrived on a little steamer
from New Bedford in the early morning, and
he met us at the landing, his face beaming with
pleasure. For this experiment might prove
to be his crowning work as a teacher. His
tall, robust figure, his broad shoulders bend-
ing a little under the weight of years, his large,
round face lit up by kindly, dark-brown
eyes, his cheery smile, the enthusiastic tones
of his voice, his rolling gait — all these entered
into our abiding impression of the great
naturalist.
To the Darwinian theory as it looked to
him he was most earnestly opposed. Essen-
tially an idealist, he regarded all his own
investigations not as studies of animals and
plants as such, but as glimpses into t he divine
plans of which their structures are t he expres-
sion. "That earthly form is the cover of the
spirit was to him a truth at once fundamen-
tal and self-evident." To his mind, also,
divine ideas were especially embodied in
animal life, the species being the "thought
unit." The marvel of structural affinity —
unity of plan in creatures of widely diverse
habits and outward appearance he took to be
simply a result of the association of ideas in
the divine mind. To Darwin, on the other
hand, those relations illustrated the tie of a
common heredity acting under diverse condi-
t ions of environment.
Yet Agassiz had no sympathy with the
prejudices exploited by weak and foolish
men in opposition to Darwin's views. He
believed in the absolute freedom of science,
and that no authority whatever can answer
beforehand the questions we endeavor to
solve -an attitude strikingly evidenced by
the fact that every one especially trained by
him afterward joined the ranks of the evolu-
tionists. For he taught us to think for our-
selves, not merely to follow him. Thus,
though I accepted his philosophy regarding
the origin and permanence of species when I
began serious studies in Zoology, as my work
went on their inipermanence impressed me
more and more strongly. Gradually I found
it impossible to believe that the different
kinds of animals and plants had been sepa-
rately created in their present forms. Never-
theless, while I paid tribute to Darwin's
marvelous insight, I was finally converted to
the theory of divergence through Natural
Selection and other factors not by his argu-
ments, but rather by the special facts unrolling
themselves before my own eyes, the rational
meaning of which he had plainly indicated.
I sometimes said that I went over to the
DAVID STARR JORDAN
385
evolutionists with the grace of a eat the boy
'"leads"' by its tail across the carpet!
All of Agassiz's students passed through a
similar experience, and most of them came to
recognize that in the production of every
species at least four elements were involved —
these being the resident or internal fac-
tors of heredity and variation, and the exter-
nal or environmental ones of selection and
segregation.
To the writer the chief charm, the
main value (if The Days of a Man is
that it gives us a tangible expression of
Doctor Jordan's personality. There-
fore he hopes to be pardoned for devot-
ing some space to this aspect.
In spite of the fact that a not incon-
siderable percentage of our American
population aspires to leadership, a
young man instinctively turning to his
elders for that intangible commodity
may sometimes look around in vain for
just the kind he can use. By reference
to the index we find in Volume II the
following incident relating to a collect-
ing trip made by Jordan and others in
the Hawaiian Islands in 1901 in the
interest of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries.
"[A] lad, John T. Nichols, since
ichthyologist of the American Museum
of Natural History, joined us as
volunteer assistant." That, my first
meeting with Jordan, was the occasion
on which this peculiar quality of leader-
ship which he possessed came to my
attention. Many others have noticed
that quality in him, before and since.
In this as in other cases leadership
is doubtless duo not to a single trait of
character but to a balance wherein
several such traits have their part.
Any attempt to trace the nature of
leadership will not be a complete suc-
cess bu1 some probably contributory
causes in Jordan's ease may be touched
on to advantage. Jordan has been pre-
eminently fearless, preeminently sim-
ple, democratic; he is a man with wide
sympathies and a true dramatic sense.
He says that to the best of his recol-
lection he only once experienced an
overpowering sense of fear, apparently
a common one among mankind in
general. Speaking of his early child-
hood he cites a single childish panic as
an incident to be valued in after years
a- giving an insight into such feelings
in others.
To be sure, this one incident is
sufficient to show that he was not in-
capable of fear, but the writer's surmise
as to why his sense of fear never de-
yeloped — a surmise which may be
readily verified from incidents in the
narrative of the autobiography — is
worth emphasizing, for it introduces
another marked trait of character.
After one taste of that disagreeable
emotion Jordan probably concluded
that it had nothing to recommend it
and was unnecessary, therefore shut it
out from future consideration.
To those who know him Jordan
always seems to have mental leisure.
It is axiomatic that an active person, in
order to have any leisure, must elimi-
nate the unnecessary. This was pointed
out some centuries ago by Marcus
Aurelius, and likely earlier. Many of
us follow it as a precept but not with
this complete success, from which it
may be further surmised that Jordan
has combined with great mental and
moral sensitiveness an emotional and
nervous insensitiveness rather in keep-
ing with his large frame and his rugged
physical strength in early years. That
an explanation in line with the above is
more or less corred is attested by
various personal matters recorded in
the autobiography, for instance his
attitude toward the use of tobacco, to
which he has always been opposed.
Those who find solace in the fragrant
weed are able through its means to
shut out more or less successfully
386
XATURAL HISTORY
assaults on their nerve centers by the
complications of a civilization that has
grown almost too rapidly for human
adjustment.
It's nice to feel
When planets reel
Like drunken ships at sea
That there's only the scratch
Of a lighting match
Between my pipe and me.
To the invulnerable such a smoke
screen will appear merely useless waste
of a man's better energies, its essential
friendliness not being apparent.
Democracy is a subtle art and seldom
found without impurities in great
universities, city governments, or else-
where. The democracy of Jordan
seems always to have been of a very
high degree of concentration, which has
tended to give him the support of free
men and increase his influence among
free men.
As to the part played by the
dramatic in leadership, we may point
to a parallel in nature. A swallow-
tailed kite, one of the most inspiring
of our native birds of prey with mag-
nificent aerial control, seen resting mo-
tionle s on the air currents, whether
favorable or adverse, makes one feel
instinctively that here is a bird that
can soar to any height.
The connection which doubtless
exists between leadership and the
dramatic has been noticeable in Jor-
dan's career. Native fearlessness quite
above any petty embarrassment in the
company of truth unadorned, simplic-
ity fostered by years of training in the
rigid elimination of the unessential in
word and deed, a democracy founded
on Puritan ideals and conscience, were
combined at any given point of contact
with his fellow men, whom he loved.
by a rare dramatic intuition.
An interest in verse furnishes a side
light on his personality, quite a number
of contributions from his own pen being
scattered through the two volumes of
this autobiography. The appeal for
him in this mode of expression seems
to have lain in its economy of words
and its dramatic possibilities. We
quote two choice bits, first a jingle
illustrative of the "pidgin," or trade
English, of the west-coast Chinaman;
the second, a stanza of a longer poem,
partaking of the nature of propaganda.
Mellican man go China side
Catchee China dishee;
China man go Mellican side
Catchee Mellican fishee.
Lorenzo's city, can it be
Thou livest but in history?
Arc all the glories of thy race
Dissolved in sordid commonplace?
Seek'sl thou on an unfriendly shore
The petty pillage of the Moor?
O Florence! thou shalt rise again,
Thy deeds once more be deeds of men!
Such real men the ages know
Crowded thy Ponte Vecchio —
Not stage-struck singers of the day
With "endless dirges to decay."
Even thy Ghibelline and Guelph
Lusted for power and not for pelf.
The history of one of the most suc-
cessful teaching careers that America
can show, about which these biographi-
cal notes are grouped, has not been
touched upon in the present review.
I have also left unnoticed Jordan's
activities as "prophet of Democracy."
It is well known that he devoted him-
self whole-heartedly to world peace for
years, to have his labors in that direc-
tion interrupted by the most universal
and destructive of wars. Whereas
they may bear fruit in the years beyond
our knowing, it is also true that schol-
ars were often unlucky in politics,
even in Cicero's day. Comment upon
these things has been omitted because,
as a naturalist, I like to feel that
Jordan is and has been primarily a
naturalist, a leader, carrying the torch
of knowledge forward in that field.
The Ainus
THE ABORIGINAL RACK OF JAPAN
In the course of his travels in Japan Dr. David Starr Jordan visited the little Ainu village
offEdomo, referred to on page 383 of the preceding article. Meanwhile his traveling com-
panion. Dr. John O. Snyder, visited Sapporo and there obtained the pictures of Ainus which
through his courtesy we are privileged to reproduce herewith
AX AINU WOMAN IX JAPANESE DRESS
The Ainus arc a dwindling race, today numbering about 20. 000 individuals; yet of old
they occupied large sections of Japan and apparently offered stubborn resistance to the invad-
ing Yamato tribe. The woman in the picture is married, a fact indicated by the black mustacl e
tut tooed on the lip
3
<j +=
~ '- -
— .-- /:
THE AIM'S
AINU WOMEN GRINDING MAIZE
Doctor Jordan tells us that in the north grain is never ground into meal, "for the usual
Japanese stove is a mere box or pan burning only a few twigs at a time, and thus no food which
takes long to cook can be utilized." Before the introduction of maize into Asia, a mortar and
pestle of the type here shown were used solely for the pounding of rice, and that is still their
main function. Among our eastern woodland Indians strikingly similar implements were also
used for grinding maize
390
Louis Pasteur and His Benefactions to Mankind
EXEMPLIFIED IN THE CENTENARY EXHIBITION RECENTLY
HKLD AT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM
By GEORGE F. KUNZ
Research Associate of Gems, American Museum
The Pasteur exhibition at the American Museum was initiated by the New York
Mineralogical Club with the cooperation of the Museum and with contributions of exhibition
material and assistance from the United States Department of Agriculture, the New York
Academy of Medicine, the New York State Board of Health, t lie New York City Board
of Health, and other institutions, and individuals. To enumerate all of those to whom
credit is due is not possible within the available space, yet special mention should lie made
of the Secretary of Agriculture and of the following members of the scientific staff of the
United States Department of Agriculture for their efforts in behalf of the exhibition: Dr.
E. D. Ball, director of scientific work: Dr. E. T. Wherry, for the exhibit having reference to
the development of isomerism in crystals; Dr. Charles Thorn, of the Bureau of Chemistry, for
the series showing experiments in lactic and alcoholic fermentation, processes carried out by
Pasteur controverting the theory of -spontaneous generation, aerobic and anaerobic life, and
proof of germs in the atmosphere; Dr. John S. Buckley and Dr. W. S. Gochenour, of the
Bureau of Animal Industry, who have shown as closely as possible the work carried out by
Pasteur on anthrax, chicken cholera, and rabies; Mr. B. A. Linden, of the Bureau of Chem-
istry, for drawings, photo-micrographs, culture media, and glassware similar to that used by
Pasteur, and also for the coordination and installation of the exhibit at the American Museum.
For their special helpfulness grateful acknowledgement is due also to Mrs. Henry Fairfield
Osborn, Dr. Robert Abbe, and Monsieur Vallerv Radot, the son-in-law of Pasteur.
THE centenary of Louis Pasteur
was observed at the American
Museum not only in the form of
a memorial meeting held on the
evening of December 27, 1922. bu1
through the installation, in the early
weeks of 1923, of an exhibition illus-
trating the great contributions to
science and to human welfare made by
Pasteur. The results of tin1 impetus
which Pasteur's discoveries gave to
later medical research were also graph-
ically set forth, and finally the per-
sonal side of this groat scientist and
his relationship to the world in which
he lived were indicated by hundreds of
photographs, paintings, statues, let-
ters, autographs, and memorabilia.
It is by his epoch-making discoveries
that Pasteur opened up a new field for
scientific exploration and it was fitting
that the material illustrating these
should have had the place of greatesl
importance in the exhibition. Through
certain carefully planned experiments
Pasteur was able to demonstrate the
true nature of fermentation, thereby
overthrowing the popular doctrine of
Liebig and others, that fermentation i>
a spontaneous chemical or semi-
chemical process. According to tin-
belief held in Pasteur's day all fermen-
tations, alcoholic and putrefactive,
wetc the result of the chemical changes
taking place in dead matter. This idea
was repugnant to Pasteur, and his
preliminary experiments led him quite
naturally to think of fermentation and
putrefacl ion as vital acts.
A number of Hasks (exact reproduc-
tions of those used by Pasteur) were
introduced in the exhibit to show the
phenomena of lactic fermentation.
One of these contained some bouillon,
which had been heated to sterilize it s
contents. Under such circumstances
301
392
X AT URAL HISTORY
Louis Pasteur, the father of bacteriology, through whose discoveries a
new field of medical research was opened up
the contents remain clear. Another
flask showed bouillon that had been
inoculated with some cabbage, thereby
causing the lactic organisms to develop
in great numbers and the bouillon to
become turbid. Still by way of illus-
trating the experiments of Pasteur, a
tiny speck of liquid was transferred
from one flask to another, the contents
of which were perfectly clear. Within
twenty-four hours bouillon thus in-
oculated will display a tremendous
growth of lactic organisms. The sugar
present in solution is converted to
lactic acid after several days' growth
of this lactic ferment.
Passing now to alcoholic fermenta-
tion,— Liebig had regarded yeast, and
in general all ferments, as a nitrogenous
albuminous substance, which had the
LOUIS PASTEUR AXD HIS BEXEFACTIOXS TO MAXKIXD 393
power to cause certain chemical decom-
positions, but he failed to insist that in
its quality as a living organism it had
anything to do with the fermentation.
He considered as far back as 1843 the
organic nitrogenous matter as ab-
solutely essential for fermentation.
Berzelius, for his part, asserted that the
ferment only exerted an action by its
presence and caused decomposition of
the organic matter without changing it
quantitatively or in quality.
For Pasteur, however, the ferment
was not a dead substance in process of
destruction, but a living thing in
process of organization. To refute the
old theories he grew yeast in liquids
from which all organic nitrogenous
matter had been removed; for instance,
in one containing only pure cane sugar,
certain mineral salts, and an am-
monium salt to provide nitrogen.
Pasteur triumphed over Liebig and
Berzelius by producing a fermentation
under these conditions. The yeast
multiplied, the added weight coming
from the sugar, and Pasteur declared
that increase of weight wTas a proof of
life, of a profound chemical work of
nutrition and assimilation.
These various experimental tests of
the true cause of alcoholic fermenta-
tion were illustrated just as thoroughly
and consecutively as in the case of
lactic fermentation.
The clarification of the long-dis-
puted question regarding spontaneous
generation was another of the great
contributions made by Pasteur. To
say nothing of the rather childish
beliefs of ancient physicists, and indeed
those of much later periods, it was still
the general conviction in Pasteur's time
that the organisms accompanying
putrefaction and fermentation woe
spontaneously produced by the ele-
ments of the putrefying substance or
of the fermenting liquids.* But Pas-
teur's experiments in fermentation had
taught him differently and led him to
the discovery that there are constantly
floating in the air vital germs which
will multiply as soon as they find a
favorable environment.
The course of the experiments
whereby he refuted the theory of
spontaneous generation was shown in a
series of flasks. Pasteur drew out in a
flame the neck of a flask containing a
vegetable or animal infusion, and then
boiled the liquid so as to destroy by
heat anything living it contained. The
vapor produced by boiling drove out
the air and at the same time the in-
terior of the flask was sterilized. The
vapor escaped into the outside air after
traversing a platinum tube, heated to
redness in a gas furnace. (The appa-
ratus, as well as the flask with length-
ened neck, is shown in the topmost
drawing on page 394. ) After some time
the flame was extinguished, the liquid
was cooled, the vapor was condensed
and was replaced by air which had
traversed the red-hot platinum tube,
wherein everything living had been
burned. The tapering neck was then
sealed in a flame and the infusion re-
mained clear, for nothing living was
able to enter it. (This condition is
represented by the flask on the left of
the middle series of drawings.) Taking-
one of these sterilized flasks. Past em-
passed into the neck a little piece of
cotton soiled by dust from the air, the
living quality of which his critics had
denied (center of middle series). As
long as this cotton remained fixed in
the neck, the liquid retained its clear-
ness. However, when at the end of
fifteen days he caused the cotton to
fall into the infusion by simply inclin-
ing the flask, the liquid became clouded
in twenty-four hours, and at the end
394
NATURAL HISTORY
of forty-eight hours it contained mil-
lions of living organisms (right of mid-
dle series).
To prove to his critics that the piece
remained clear and sterile indefinitely.
Pasteur then cut off the neck of the
flask, so as to leave the fluid exposed
to the fall of atmospheric dust (right
of cotton used in the previous experi- of lowest series). In two or three days
Through a series of experiments, indicated in the above diagram and described in the text
of this article, Pasteur decisively refuted the theory of spontaneous generation
ment did not influence the result, he
introduced into a swan-neck flask
(left of lowest series) an infusion capa-
ble of fermentation. He thereupon
boiled the fluid until all the air had
been driven out of the flask and the
fluid was sterilized. Ordinary air
was permitted to enter the flask
through the curved neck. The flask
the fluid was swarming with micro-
organisms.
The tests of putrefying matter were
then taken up, and a drop of liquid
from some decaying organic matter
undergoing butyric fermentation was
added to liquid in a sterilized flask. A
u;i> was liberated, but it differed from
alcoholic fermentation, consisting of
LOUIS PASTEUR AND HIS BENEFACTIONS TO MANKIND 395
carbonic acid gas and hydrogen. Ex-
amining a drop of the liquid under
the microscope, Pasteur saw to his
surprise a great number of motile rods,
so disposed as to prove that reproduc-
tion took place by fission. Thus was
revealed the new world of bacteria,
more active and more densely popu-
lated than the world of yeasts.
In 1877 the French Government re-
quested Pasteur to undertake the study
of splenic fever (anthrax) because
of losses mounting up to 20,000,000
francs annually from this disease.
Pasteur was able in a very short time
to confirm the findings of Davaine,
who had previously seen rod-shaped
bodies in the blood of animals dead of
anthrax, and claimed these rods to be
the cause of the disease.
Pasteur prepared a vaccine No. 1
and later a second culture of the
anthrax organism, a somewhat stronger
vaccine Xo. 2, yet one not wholly
virulent. This is administered ten
days after vaccine Xo. 1.
In 1880 Pasteur started his studies
on chicken cholera, and in the course
of these he developed as a culture
medium for the growth of the micro-
organism a bouillon of chicken gristle,
neutralized by potash and rendered
sterile by subjection to a temperature
of from 110 degrees to 115 degrees
Centigrade. Cholera could be pro-
duced in healthy chickens by means of
the organism grown in this medium.
Pasteur's work on chicken cholera
w;is interrupted for several months.
When he again took it up, he found
that the old cultures' were no Longer
capable of producing the disease in
healthy fowls. < )nthe contrary, inocu-
lation with these old cultures broughl
about a marked immunity in the
fowls, so that they were able, when
subsequently inoculated with virulent
cultures of the chicken cholera organ-
isms, to withstand the disease. Thus
was established a fundamental prin-
ciple in the attenuation of micro-
organisms and this principle has been
made use of since then in preparing
vaccine for immunizing animals against
certain diseases.
Pasteur's first experiments on im-
munization against rabies were con-
ducted on dogs. He proved conclu-
sively that by repeated injections of
rabies virus which had been attenuated
or weakened, dogs could be rendered
immune to rabies, no matter how
severe the exposure.
Pasteur first immunized dogs with
repeated injections of a virus which
had passed through monkeys a number
of times. He found this virus to be
not only harmless when injected into
the dog, but that repeated injections
made the animals refractory to the
disease. Later, by a number of pas-
sages through rabbits he was able to
increase the virulence of the virus, so
that rabbits were brought down with
the disease regularly in seven days.
He found that this virus, which was
present in the spinal cords of rabbits
that had died of the disease, could be
attenuated or its virulence reduced by
drying, so that after fourteen days the
virulence of the virus was destroyed.
He evolved from this a system of vac-
cination, starting with a cord which
had been dried fifteen days, and suc-
cessively injecting emulsions of cords
dried fourteen days, thirteen days, and
so on until the last injection was that
of the emulsion of a cord dried only
one day. Experiments on dogs re-
vealed the fact that this method of
immunization was highly efficient .
So meat was Pasteur's confidence in
the efficiency of this method of vac-
cination, that he requested of the
396
XATCRAL J 1 1 STORY
Minister of Public Instruction that a
committee be appointed to determine
whether or not the dogs vaccinated
were refractory to rabies infection.
This request was granted and a com-
mission appointed. Pasteur furnished
the commission with nineteen dogs
which he himself had vaccinated,
and these nineteen dogs together with
nineteen control dogs, were exposed
by the commission to rabies infection.
The results were as Pasteur had
predicted. Of the nineteen vaccinated
dogs not one developed rabies, while
of the nineteen control dogs, thirteen
died of rabies infection. Later his
methods were utilized for the cure of
rabies in humans. Pasteur's method of
vaccination has also had considerable
use in veterinary medicine, and has
been of economic value in the pro-
tection of livestock exposed to rabies
infection by bites of rabid dogs,
wolves, coyotes, etc.
In conclusion, we must repeat that
the Department of Agriculture faith-
fully reproduced all of Pasteur's ex-
periments with apparatus exactly like
that made for and used by him in these
investigations. The apparatus was so
systematically disposed that one was
able to study the great discoveries just
as Pasteur saw them. So impressive is
t he restaging of these world-famous ex-
periments that the Department of Agri-
culture will make a permanent exhibit
of them, now that the apparatus has
been returned t° Washington.
There is no single discovery of Pasteur more dramatic or more far-reaching in its benefi-
cence than that of the cure for hydrophobia. The picture shows Pasteur surrounded by a
group of children whom he saved from the fatal results of this disease
Courtesy of Dr. Frank E. Lulz
Royal Palm State Park (formerly known as Paradise Key) is in the southern portion of
the Everglades and is a spot of great natural beauty as well as of exceptional biological
interest. Conspicuous are the majestic royal palms that rise to a height of more than one
hundred feet, proudly aloof from the lesser plant world. There are 4000 acres in the park —
960 acres ceded by the state of Florida in 1915, an additional 960 acres presented by Mrs.
Henry M. Flagler, and 2080 acres ceded by the state of Florida in 1921, The park is
owned and administered in the public interest by the Florida Federation of Women's Clubs
Swinging the Net in Southern Florida
By HERBERT F. SCHWARZ
Research Associate in Hymenoptera, American Museum
WHEN we left New York, the
feel of winter was in the air.
By the time we reached Mi-
ami, Florida, less than forty-eight hours
later, we had passed through more than
half of the cycle of the seasons. Spring
greeted us in North ( Jarolina, the white
bloom of dogwood spangling the green
of t he open forest. As the train moved
southward, flowers appeared in increas-
ing variety and we regretted thai we
could not jump off for just a moment to
peep into the funnel-like leaves of the
flaring-yellow pitcher plant (Sarraa nia
flava) and note its insect captives.
South Carolina, with its darkey cabins
and its mules, gave way to Georgia.
It was not the rising temperature alone
but the character of the landscape —
the abundance of fan-leaved palmetto-.
of stately royal palms, and of blooming
red Hibiscus — and especially the trucks
laden with freshly picked oranges that
told us we were rapidly reaching our
destination.
We had come to Florida to make a
collection of the spring and early sum-
mer insects and to pick up in spare
moments wbat information we could
regarding their habits. Dr. Frank E.
Lutz, curator of entomology in the
American Museum, who planned and
headed the Held trip, believed thai in
the area from Miami southward speci-
mens migbt be obtained thai would
link up in an interesting way with the
397
398
NATURAL HISTORY
insects collected in previous years in
the West Indies.
Over this southern portion of the
map of Florida is written in large letters
the term Everglades, a term that may
to some still conjure up a picture of
inaccessible swamp land, infested by
the deadly moccasin, — the lurking
place of scattered bands of Seminoles
who found refuge in its fastnesses after
the bulk of their nation had fallen in
battle or had been deported westward.
This region is, however, being rapidly
opened up. Already a road extends
from Miami, via Homestead, through
the Royal Palm State Park, to Flamin-
go on the Bay of Florida, and beyond
toward Cape Sable at the southwestern
tip of the peninsula. Another high-
way is now in course of construction,
and canals for drainage and as channels
of communication are among the
actualities. With this penetration of
what was once looked upon as prac-
tically impenetrable, it is probable that
before long the plant and animal life
of the region will be changed and there
is, therefore, no time to be lost if a
record is to be made of the interesting
species that dwell there.
The very first day of our sojourn
brought us evidence of the doom that
awaits some of the spots of greatest
biologic interest. On the outskirts of
Miami lies the famous "Brickell ham-
mock," a bit of West Indian jungle on
the mainland of the United States that
has been the collecting ground for the
representatives of several scientific
institutions. The growing city of
Miami has spread like a prairie fire
toward this spot. In places it has al-
ready reached it and in a little while will
have completely engulfed it. The dense
growth of tropical trees is falling before
the ax to make way for ornamental
gardens, and in time the true character
of the land will be a memory only, if
indeed it is not completely forgotten.
That we might contribute our small
share toward perpetuating the record
of this hammock, we collected for two
days along the jungle paths, in the
jungle itself, and in the open pine
land that flanks it.
Glad as we should have been to
continue our work in the environs of
Miami, other localities of the region
awaited our examination. At Miami
we had enjoyed many courtesies
through Dr. J. Arthur Harris, who at
the time was engaged in research work
at the Plant Introduction Gardens of
the United States Department of
Agriculture, and through his assistant,
Mr. ( Jrane, and it was in their company
that we were privileged to journey by
automobile to the Royal Palm State
Park. The road wound by many a fine
estate, past orange groves, some of the
trees of which bore both blossoms and
fruit, on to Homestead. It was while
stopping near Homestead for a few
moments that Doctor Lutz noticed a
bee of unusual appearance. A swing
of the net yielded the first Centris, a
tropical genus of bees the females of
which have on their third pair of legs a
heavy development of pollen-collecting
hairs that suggest the chaps of the
western plainsman. Although in our
later collecting we obtained additional
specimens of Centris, we were glad
indeed to feel that at least one of these
bees was represented in our catch.
We jumped into the auto again and
headed toward the Royal Palm State
Park. This park is owned and ad-
ministered in the public interest by the
Florida Federation of Women's Clubs,
as a site deserving of perpetuation in its
pristine state. Hunting, fishing, and
mutilation of foliage are forbidden on
the premises and if the danger of fire,
SWINGING THE NET IN SOUTHERN FLORIDA
399
Courtesy of Dr. Frank- E. Lutz
The Royal Palm Lodge affords every comfort for those visiting the Royal Palm State
Park. Provided with a screened porch, a comfortable living room and bedrooms, with run-
ning water, bathing facilities, electric lights, and other conveniences, it is a place where one
may sojourn with ease although surrounded by the primeval jungle
which has already devastated some por-
tions of the reserve, can be guarded
against in the future, a hammock of
unusual interest — perhaps the finest
hammock in the Everglades — will be
available for the study and enjoyment
of nature lovers. Dusk overtook us
before we reached the park but even
in the half light its dense verdure,
above which rose toweringly the tall
stems and graceful fronds of the royal
palms that give the park its name, was
in sharp contrast to the level grass land
through which the approach is made
In a few more moments we were in
front of the rustic gateway of the Royal
Palm Lodge. An electric light sur-
mounted this entrance, attracting a Ik >>t
of minute fliers; below on the path-
way were gathered a number of tiny
tree toads, waiting expectantly and not
vainly for the insects that dropped ex-
hausted after their spiral dance. Occa-
sionally a carabid beetle would scurry
across the path, clumsily pursued by a
hopping toad, but even when overtaken
would leave the aggressor staggering
and repentant and perhaps just a little
thankful too at having escaped swal-
lowing an insect that on closer acquaint-
ance proved so unsavory. We had
met with some of our competitors in
collecting; but in a bush, fully illum-
ined by the lamp, yet so intent in her
attitude, so statuesque in her absorp-
tion that it was necessary to glance at
this motionless thing twice to be sure
that the eye had not been deceived, was
another collector of insects, the mantis,
with her traplike front legs bent to
seize the hapless moth that might
thoughtlessly stray her way. We put
an end to her projects by capturing her.
There is sometimes a little satisfaction
in feeling that collecting includes the
predatory insects as well as the gath-
erers of pollen and the sunshine-loving
sippers of nectar.
400
NATURAL HISTORY
Next morning we were off for the tip
of Florida through the southern portion
of the Everglades. As the rainy season
advances, the grassy plains that stretch
on each side of the road become sub-
merged, creating a vast swampy area.
At the time of our visit, however, the
rainy season had only begun and the
plains were merely spongy to the tread.
Evidence of the true character of the
region was afforded, however, by the
canal of sluggishly flowing water that
ran parallel with the road. This road
was constructed by dredging in the
desired direction, a canal forming pari
passu in the ribbon-like excavation
that yielded the material out of which
the road was built. The canal was
water-filled even at the close of the dry
season and yet it was shallow enough
so that one could see from the moving
automobile the fish that swam just a
little below its surface or that rose and
splashed only to scurry below again.
An eagle1 flapped in low leisurely flight
ahead of our auto, keeping to the road
almost without deviation. Buzzards
were seen circling in intent examina-
tion of the flat expanse below. As we
passed marshy places, herons and ducks
winged away from us.
Even more interesting than the signs
of life about us was the country itself.
Here was a great sea, of prairie out of
which rose at irregular intervals islands
of tropical verdure, the so-called ham-
mocks. Rarely was there a stray tree
that overstepped the dead-line of the
island bounds. To penetrate these
compact jungles you would have to
step with care, so as to avoid the dense
network of ensnaring growths, and yet
just beyond the wall of green there was
a treeless stretch of coarse grass and
sedges. Though much of the country
was of this character, it was not
all treeless. We passed by areas on
which grew dwarf cypress, resem-
bling the artificially stunted trees of
the Japanese, and dwarf mangroves,
Courtesy of Dr. Frank E. Lutz
The southern coast of Florida is a low-lying flat area, menaced in the hurricane season
by the inrushing sea, which often pours far inland and in its retreat leaves sandy patches like
those shown in the picture
SWINGING THE NET IN SOUTHERN FLORIDA
401
st randed specimens of a tree that thrives
on the shores of warm seas. As we
approached the salt water, the man-
groves became larger, until finally they
stood well above us in height.
At last we reached the tiny settle-
ment of Flamingo on the Bay of
Florida. In former days, it is said, a
colony of flamingos existed on this
site. These beautiful birds have dis-
appeared but a faint suggestion of their
structure still survives in the stiltlike
supports on which the houses of the
region are lifted high above the ground,
thereby escaping the inrush of the sea
when a West Indian hurricane lashes
the coastal waters to fury.
We collected a few miles west of
Flamingo as well as on some of the
hammocks and along the flower-strewn
areas that we passed in returning to the
park. Bees — the particular object of
our search — were scarce, but occasion-
ally one was found visiting the wild
cotton, or busying itself in the cuplike
yellow flower of the cactus, or gather-
ing its provisions from some other plant
equally favored.
As the days went on we collected in
and about the park, choosing now the
flower-bordered roadside of the open
country, now the jungle paths that lead
into the green interior of the hammock,
now the pineland, where the graceful
Pinus raribsea — the same species that
grows on the Isle of Pines — shares the
terrain with the palmetto and the
cycad, the latter a true blue blood
among plants, tracing its ancestry
back to the Carboniferous. To one
entering the region for the first time
nothing is probably more impressive
than a walk into the jungle. One docs
not have to penetrate far to get the
feeling that one is entombed in green
and to observe the remorselessness of
the struggle for life in these congested
centers of plant population. It is not
only the weak that are crowded out :
the strong, too, are the object of more
or less successful attack. Here, for in-
stance, is a great live oak, the very
embodiment of strength. Yet about it
coils a ropelike growth (Hippocratea
volubilis) that fetters its limbs, while
up the trunk of the manacled giant
climb resurrection ferns, and pineapple-
like tillandsias take strategic positions
in the branches and on the stem, thus
simulating an attack even though, un-
like the Hippocratea volubilis, they do
not endanger the tree by their pres-
ence. Great curtains of Spanish moss,
ashlike in color, drape the oak like a
garment of repentance. The gumbo
limbo tree, with its cocoa-colored
bark, grows tortuously with sinuous
trunk and writhing branch. Indeed,
many are the twists and turns taken
by not a few of the trees of the park
jungle in their upward growth. In
contrast, the royal palms rise erect
and majestic, lifting their frond-
crowned heads above the lesser plant
world.
We frequently noticed the web of
a large, conspicuously marked spider
(Nephila clavipes) stretched across the
jungle paths. One night, provided
with an acetylene light that cast a
circle of radiance ahead of us as we
made our way through the soft dark-
ness, we came upon the web of one of
these spiders that presented points of
special interest. Along the supporting
st lands of this web, far away from the
center of the orb, where the true
proprietress had her stat ion, spiders of
different species (they were not the
males of Nephila) had constructed
little gossamer barriers of their own.
attaching them to the main web. It
is commonly thought that spiders are
cannibalistic. Vet these squatters
Courtesy of Dr. Frank E. Lutz
"BEARDED WITH MOSS"
Even more applicable than to "the murmuring pines and the hemlocks" of Arcadia
is Longfellow's description to the patriarchal live oaks of the Royal Palm State Park,
bearded as they are with a heavy gray growth of Spanish moss. Yet the botanist will inter-
pose an objection, denying such poetic license and calling attention to the fact that Spanish
"moss" is not a moss at all but related to the pineapple. Other epiphytic "pineapples" are
abundant on the trees of southern Florida. A beautiful example of one, a Tillandsia, is shown
in the picture on the opposing page. Spanish moss, in addition to being ornamental, has an
interest for the ethnologist, for it was used by the aborigines in making aprons and skirts
402
Courtesy of Dr. Frank E. Lute
THE JUNGLE OF THE ROYAL PALM STATE PARK
404
NATURAL HISTORY
upon another's property — nay. more
than squatters, possible poachers upon
the insects that, but for their snares,
might have found their way into the
larger web — were enjoying immunity.
It is interesting to note in passing
that the attempt has been made more
than once to use commercially the silk
of certain species of Nephila, including
that of clavipes. Though this silk is
stronger and finer than that of the silk
worm, it is an easier task to grow mul-
berry leaves and other food plants for
the larvae of Bombyx mori than to sup-
ply live insects to Nephtla, and it is
not likely, therefore, that the former
will ever be supplanted as man's chief
dependence for his supplies of raw silk.
Our net swings yielded many insects
— one of the advantages of entomologi-
cal collecting is that one is always
assured of a bag — but the catch of bees
was not as ample nor as diversified as
we had hoped might be the case. More-
over, we were at first surprised at the
paucity of andrenids and other ground-
nesting bees and at the relatively large
number of Megachilidse. A plausible
reason for this disparity seemed to be
the character of the country. Where
vast areas are submerged annually for a
period of months, the risks of ground-
nesting must be great indeed, many of
the larva? imprisoned in their cells suc-
cumbing as the water seeps in and turns
the earthern walls to mud, spoiling the
provisions that have been gathered by
the mother. Under conditions such as
these, the Megachilidse would have a
better chance of survival. One after-
noon the watchful eye of Doctor Lutz
detected one of the bees of this family
as it entered a hole drilled in a sign
board. It proved to be an Anthidium.
Of Dianthidium, a related genus, we
collected many specimens. In the Old
World, species of Magachilidae have
been found nesting in empty snail
shells. There was an abundance of
such shells in the hammock of the park
but, though we examined not a few of
those that lay in our path, we did not
discover a nest.
One of our hopes was to learn some-
thing of the nesting habits of Centris.
( )ne day 1 )octor Lutz observed a swarm
of bees flying in and out of a hole high
up in a tree. Their behavior suggested
that they were honey bees but we had
taken no Apis in spite of industrious
collecting and it seemed just possible,
therefore, that we were on the verge of
an interesting discovery. Tying his
net to the end of a long pole and climb-
ing into the branches of a neighboring
tree, Doctor Lutz was able to reach the
point, about forty feet from the ground,
where the insects were emerging. A
dexterous swing of the net while he
balanced on a support none too secure,
yielded a bee, but it was only an Apis,
and thus defeated our hopes that it
might be a species the nesting habits
of which are less well known. A little
later we caught an Apis on a flower and
this fact and the behavior of the swarm
suggested that these bees had arrived
only just before Doctor Lutz detected
their presence.
Doctor Lutz's triumph came, how-
ever, next day. While collecting in the
pine land at Homestead he observed a
Centris entering the earth that filled
a little irregular concavity in the rock.
He proceeded to excavate the nest
which lay more or less perpendicular to
a horizontal passageway about three
inches long that formed the entrance
hall. Two earthern cells were taken
out of it, one incompletely stocked with
food, the other containing not only
provisions but a small white larva. In
the course of the excavation the bee
was caught.
SWINGING THE NET IN SOUTHERN FLORIDA
405
At Homestead, which is beyond the
Everglades, the proportion of andrenid
bees was very much greater than in the
immediate vicinity of the park, thus
strengthening our impression that their
paucity in our earlier collecting ground
was due to the seasonal submergence
of that area. Confirmation came also
in a visit to Long Key, one of the islands
in the chain east and south of Florida
that have been made accessible by the
seaward projection of the Florida East
Coast Railway. Here we found an-
drenids in abundance but only a single
specimen of Megachile was represented
in our catch! As the train moved over
concrete bridges built in the shallow
sea and crossed narrow islands, we saw,
glancing oceanward, the brown pelican
as it swam leisurely over the emerald
waters or dropped beak-first from the
air upon some hapless fish. Near one
of these birds was a laughing gull, and as
the pelican emerged from the water, the
gull would alight on its head, presuma-
bly in the hope of sharing in the catch.
The time had come when one of the
members of the party had to start for
the north. Little by little the land of
oranges and palms faded in the distance.
As the train sped northward, the sea-
sons again succeeded one another,
only now they were running counter-
clockwise, the full tide of summer
ebbing into spring, and spring in turn
giving place to that in-between period
when things seem to be in a state of
equilibrium and only a little is needed
to advance the year or to throw it back
for a brief moment into winter.
A bit of palm-fringed shore on Long Key
Wesl and the Dry Tortueas
one ot the 1:
Courtesy of Dr. Frank E. LuU.
lands in I he chain that includes Key
NOTES
MARY CYNTHIA DICKERSON
On April 8, 1923. Miss Mary Cynthia
Dickerson died after an illness of nearly three
years. Even before becoming associated with
the American Museum, she was known, wher-
ever nature is revered, for the breadth of her
understanding of the world of living things
and her ability to convey to others through
her rich and many-sided personality their
interest, beauty, and significance. To her
the fields, the woods, the streams were places
of intimate sojourn, wherein she claimed as
familiar friends the tree-., the flowers, the
birds, the moths and butterflies, and the shy
creatures that slip silently in and out among
the cool shadows of the water grasses or spurt
unafraid in the sunny open shallows in the
sheer joy of living.
Many of Miss Dickerson's beautiful and
remarkable photographic studies depicting
phases of the life histories of these creatures
in their natural environment have found place
from time to time in the pages of Natural
History while the pictures in her Frog B<><>l:
and Moths and Butterflies attesl the skill of
the trained observer in producing records of
unusual value and interest.
During her years of association with the
Museum she was curator of woods and for-
estry, curator of herpetology, and editor of
Natural History, and she carried these
responsibilities not successively but simul-
taneously. Her achievement in each of these
departments considered independently was
such that it might well have constituted a
claim to enduring recognition. In a later issue
it is our hope to publish several art icles dealing
with the different phases of her work in the
Museum, but a special word of tribute to Miss
Dickerson for her untiring devotion to
Natural History may fittingly find place,
by way of anticipation, in this issue.
Miss Dickerson assumed the editorship of
the magazine in the course of 1910, having
previously been for some time associate
editor. In the ten or more years during
which she directed its destinies, the magazine
assumed a commanding position among
publications devoted to nature study. While
the undertakings of the Museum con-
tinued to receive deserved emphasis, space
was given also to contributors other than
those associated with that institution, and a
perusal of the list of those who have enriched
the magazine with their articles will be found
to include many of the ranking scientists of
this and other countries.
Miss Dickerson's vision of what the maga-
zine should be led her unfalteringly. Although
technically trained, she never lost the point
of view of the lay reader and she had the
almost magic ability of giving sparkle and
interest to whatever she touched with her
pen. With sturdiness of ideal, scientific
grounding, and rare literary aptitude, she
combined artistic intuition. The elements in
a photograph that lent themselves to effective,
independent treatment at once flashed upon
her, and many a picture published in Natural
History that has been admired for its
beauty and significance owed its effectiveness
to her perception of its possibilities when de-
tached from a larger composition.
It is a matter of great regret that her
versal ile personality has been withdrawn from
the field- of activity in which she found so
much genuine pleasure and satisfaction.
ASIA
The Third Asiatic Expedition" Resumes
Work in Mongolia. — When the Third
Asiatic Expedition set forth about the middle
of April last year for the Gobi Desert, few
would have ventured to predict that find- of
such momentous importance to the under-
standing of the animal life of the past would
be brought to light during the weeks that the
expedition devoted to the region. The dis-
coveries of 1922 made imperative a second
trip this year, so that this promising area
might receive the proper measure of attention.
Indeed so great a field as has been opened up
in Mongolia can be exploited only through a
campaign extending over several years, with
well organized field and transport arrange-
ments, such as are assured under Mr.
Roy Chapman Andrews' leadership. It has
taken seventy-five years to uncover the faunal
record of our Great Plains and the work is
still going on. Mongolia offers possibilities
comparable to those of the Great Plains.
The date of departure of the expedition this
year was set for April 17. On April 12, Presi-
dent Henry Fairfield Osborn cabled Mr. Roy
Chapman Andrews as follow-:
bast season's discoveries splendid. May
continued good fortune attend third season!
Look for Lower and Basal Eocene fossil
NOTES
407
mammal beds; also for Lower Cretaceous
land fauna unknown elsewhere. Round up
collections discovered last season. Expect
me end of September. Godspeed from all your
Museum friends!
The solution of many important questions
hinges upon the further discoveries of the
expedition. The real outstanding proof of the
Asiatic dispersal theory would be the finding
in the Cretaceous of placental mammals (five-
toed ancestors of the horse, etc.) It is the
prediction that these will prove to be small and
primitive and will require for their discovery
eyes specially trained in the detection of
Eocene mammals. Messrs. Granger, Olsen,
Kaisen, and Johnson are particularly fitted for
a successful scrutiny of the terrain. The
Tertiary faunas should yield strong evidence
as to the source of various later immigrations
— those of the cats, various ruminant phyla,
most of the later rodents, the rhinoceroses,
and, especially the ancestral series of man.
The first destination of the expedition was
Kalgan; thence it proceeded to Iren Dabasu.
The very first month's work yielded a find of
great importance, a perfect skull of a titano-
there, — a member of a group of animals that
had their origin in the Xew World. In addi-
tion to this Asiatic titanothere, the expedition
unearthed a choice collection of fossils of large
and small dinosaurs.
The American public will have the oppor-
tunity in the fall of hearing from the leader
of the expedition in person the account of its
adventures and accomplishments. Mr. Roy
Chapman Andrews, accompanied by Mr.
Clifford Pope, will sail from Shanghai on
October 13 to begin on November 26 a lecture
tour that will take him to different centers
throughout the United States.
A Betjsh with Bandits. — Heroism and
devotion are required of the collector in
China under the presenl turbulent conditions.
In :t recenl letter Mr. Roy Chapman Andrews
wrote, "lam a bit worried about Granger — a
big row has started in his vicinity.'' Mr.
Andrews' anxiety was not wholly ill-grounded,
as is indicated by the following citation from a
litter of Mr. Walter Granger regarding the
trip which Mrs. Granger and he took along
t he Yangtze:
Had a fine trip down through the Gorges,
five and a half days from Wauhsien to [chang.
Warm sunny days and favorable winds.
Kan into a small band of robbers in Wushan
Gorge and opened up on them with every-
thing we had; this broke up the party in
short order. Nobodv hurt on our side.
Mr. Granger's brief report of his experiences
is supplemented by a more detailed account
written by Mrs. Granger:
The pirate gang found us in the middle of
the Wushan Gorge, and a more isolated spot
could not be imagined. Recent depredations
by the band had driven all the inhabitants
from the neighborhood, and the river itself
was devoid of life because no coolies were
left (after the army passed through) to make
the boats go. In one place the soldiers
even stopped our boat and wanted to
confiscate our coolies to pull a boatload of
ammunition. However, nothing short of a
foreign gunboat would have been of any help
to us. As it was, we were able to defend
ourselves and we think the robbers must have
had the surprise of their careers when they
found their rifle fire returned with interest.
The prompt action was partly due to two
American sailors whom we brought down with
us from the United States Gunboat "Palos"
stationed at Wauhsien. Their terms of
service had expired and the captain in com-
mand thought it would be wise for them and
for us to be together. Each sailor had on an
automatic pistol which, when discharged,
sounded like a machine gun. Later one of
these men used Mr. Wong's rifle to good
effect. [Mr. Wong is the official interpreter
of the Third Asiatic Expedition.] Three shots
were aimed at us, none of which hit anything
but the water. By the time forty-three
rounds of ammunition had left our boat, the
five assailants were getting out of sight as
fast as they could. We are the only people
we have heard of who didn't have to let the
bandits have it all their own way. A big
American flag Hew bravely over our boat, but
that of itself was no protection whatever.
Plenty of natives do not know one flag from
another. This call to arms came about 1:30.
just as we had finished our luncheon. The
rest of that day was an anxious one. Not until
7:45 that night did we get out of this gorge
and into more open country where it was safe
to tie up until morning.
Mr. Clifford H. Pope, who has been collect-
ing reptiles and fish on behalf of the Third
Asiatic Expedition, writes from bandit-
infested Hainan:
Hainan is just now overrun with robbers
and one never knows when one will berobbed
or kidnapped although as vet these robbers
have not attempted to kidnap a foreigner. It
may lie because they have had few chances.
foreigners, other than missionaries, rarely
coming this way. They rob us al will. Only
a tew days ago they took a $250 microscope
on its way to the mission hospital. Chinese
citizens always travel with a military guard.
On this occasion I he band of one hundred well-
armed robbers easily put to flight the ten
guarding soldiers after blowing off the
sergeant's head. Tin- robbery took |
only four or five miles from Nodoa. There
have been several since my arrival. The
robbers enter the market when they wish, as
408
XATURAL HISTORY
no one dares molest them. We expect at any
time to be served a notice of a general attack
and looting. In that case one can (inly hide
one's money and wait. But one is so utterly
at the mercy of these outlaws that one never
fears. If they come, they come, and if they
stay away, one thanks one's stars for one's
good fortune in not being attacked. They
call themselves — "The People's Army."
Today half the missionaries leave for Kachek,
which is over on the east coast. Day after
tomorrow the last crowd leaves and then for
three weeks I shall be completely alone in
charge of the compound — four days from
the nearest foreigners.
A Triumvirate of Talent. — The Third
Asiatic Expedition was remarkably fortunate
in securing the services of three such experts
as Walter Granger in vertebrate palaeontology,
Frederick K. Morris in physiography, and
Charles P. Berkey in geology. This was a
triumvirate of unusual talent, inspired by a
single purpose, each doing what he was best
qualified by training and experience to do. all
working together to produce and perfect a
harmonious whole. In referring to the united
work of these three men in recent addresses
before the American Philosophical Society.
the National Academy of Sciences, the New
York Academy of Sciences, and the Explorers
('lull. President Henry Fairfield Osborn com-
pared them with the pioneer field workers in
western North America. Joseph Leidy as
vertebrate palaeontologist, William H. Holmes
as topographer, F. A. Harden as geologist.
The reconnaissance work done in Mongolia in
a single season is comparable with that done
in our western territory in several seasons,
partly through the accumulated experience of
the men, partly because < f the present rapidity
of transportation. Hayden and Holmes trav-
eled by wagon at the rate of fifteen miles a day ;
this was the rate of the came! caravan of the
Third Asiatic Expedition, while the automo-
bile caravan can make from thirty to forty miles
•i day Already two very important geologic
papers have been published by Messrs.
Berkey and Granger in Norritntes, copies of
which may be purchased by applying to the
ibrarian of the Museum.
The Trustees of the American Museum, in
recognition of the splendid field work of
Professor Berkey and of his devotion to sub-
sequent research and publication, have taken
great pleasure in appointing him Research
Associate in Geology, the first appoint-
ment of the kind in this department of the
Museum.
The Fatwthorpe Indian Expedition. —
The joint expedition of Col. J. C. Faunthorpe
and Mr. Arthur S. Vernay is fulfilling in a
remarkable way the purposes which it set out
to accomplish, and the record of its achieve-
ments is all the more notable in view of the
scarcity of several of the species obtained.
The expedition has enjoyed rare privileges,
meeting with the most generous cooperation
on the part of the native rulers and the govern-
ment officials. In Nepal, for instance, where
tigers and rhinoceroses are ''royal game" and
may be hunted only on exceptional occasions
— such as visits of royalty or of the British
Envoy, — Mr. Vernay was privileged to en-
gage in several tiger shoots, thanks to an
invitation extended to him by the British
Envoy.
The tiger after killing its prey drags it
some distance into thick jungle, there to feed
on it all night. By daybreak the beast is
gorged and abandoning its prey for the time
being, looks for a pool of water somewhere
comparatively near, where it rests during the
day. only to come forth again after dark and
resume feeding. Consequently, when a kill
has been located by the trackers, it is almost
certain that the tiger is within a quarter of a
mile of it . In Nepal — according to the graphic
account contained in one of Mr. Vernay's
letters — the method is to approach such a
lair silently with a herd of trained elephants
and then surround it. one line of elephants
executing an encircling movement to the left,
and the other a similar movement to the right,
until the two lines meet and complete the ring.
At intervals in the chain are the howdah
elephants hearing the gunners with their
rifies primed for action and confident that it
will not be long before the tiger attempts a
break for freedom. When the chain is com-
pleted, the elephants are about twenty yards
apart.
Now the sabedar (the equivalent of captain)
blows his whistle and at the signal the silence
that has previously been observed is broken.
Everybody deliberately begins talking.
Simultaneously the elephants are turned in-
ward, and as they move forward, the circle
gradually grows smaller and smaller. Mean-
while the tiger, hearing noises all around,
retreats bewildered toward the center. The
narrowing circle has shrunken to a diameter
of from 100 to 150 yards. The tiger by this
time is hidden in the thickest grass he has
been able to find or in thorn scrub.
NOTES
409
The important moment has arrived. The
in-moving elephants come to a halt. Two
of the largest tuskers are then sent into the
ring to beat the tiger out. Huge and powerful
as are these beasts, they are obviously nerv-
ous, trumpeting and tapping their trunks on
the ground, swaying their enormous heads in
order to break through the seemingly im-
penetrable cover. Suddenly there is a shrill
trumpet from an elephant, a roar from the
tiger, and the baffled and alarmed animal
charges. It is a tense moment. If the aim of
the gunner is not true, the elaborate prepara-
tions have been in vain, for the elephants in
most cases will not stand and the tiger may
break through a convenient gap in the circle.
The hunts in which Mr. Vernay partici-
pated were exceptionally successful. In the
course of seven days, five tigers were secured,
two of them falling to Mr. Vernay. The
number of participants in these hunts is an
indication of the princely scale on which the
operations were conducted, there being no
less than 58 elephants, 177 mahouts and ele-
phant men, as well as coolies, camp men, etc.,
totaling in all 533 people.
At the conclusion of the tiger hunts Mr.
Vernay joined Colonel Faunthorpe at Bagaha
in west Nepal. Thence they moved into
rough, difficult country to hunt the one-
horned Indian rhinoceros (unicornis) and
obtained three specimens (two males and a
female) that are well above the average in
size. (A cable announcing this valued acquisi-
tion was referred to in the May- June issue
of Natural History, p. 303.) "We stalked
the first one on elephants," writes Mr. Ver-
nay in his letter, "but when I saw a rhino
and shot it, my elephant tried to bolt, and
had the rhino charged, it would have been
rather uncomfortable as the howdah is apt to
lie swept off by the trees. So we stalked the
others on foot with satisfactory results."
To the Prime Minister of Nepal, Maharaja
Sir Chandra Shamshere Jung Bahadur, the
expedition and through it the American Mu-
seum are much indebted for generous aid, and
his gracious consent has been secured to the
proposal that the rhinos lie placed in his
name in the Museum.
Colonel Faunthorpe and Mr. Vernay next
turned their attention to Mysore, the Maha-
raja of Mysore having generously given his
consent to the securing not only of an ele-
phant Imii also of bison. Two bull elephants,
one of which is 9 feet 5 inches in heiehl and
has beautifully matched tusks, and a cow,
the hunting of which was attended by a good
deal of excitement, were obtained, one of the
elephants being shot in Mysore, the other two
in British Government Forest. The bison
secured will make a superb group. They
include two bulls (measuring respectively 5
feet 10 inches and 5 feet 9 inches at the
withers i. a cow, and a calf.
Leaving Mr. Vernay in this region, Colonel
Faunthorpe went with the photographer to
north Oudh and the Nepal border to obtain
the tigers, leopards, and sloth bears necessary
to complete these groups for the Museum, and
to secure motion pictures and photographs of
various animals in their living state.
According to information received by mail
two cases containing material secured by the
Faunthorpe Indian Expedition are on the way
to the American Museum. They include a
number of skins and skeletal material of such
mammals as the sambur, nilgai, gazelle,
swamp deer, chital, hyena, etc.
Mr. Douglas Burden:, who throughout
February and March hunted for the benefit
of the American Museum in the jungle of
Indo-China, writes from Delhi, India, under
date of April 3, 1923. that he has secured sev-
eral interesting specimens of the game of the
region, notwithstanding the fact that hunting
was difficult due to the long grass. The
specimens include a bull and a cow of the
water buffalo; a bull, a cow, and a calf of the
gaur and of the banteng; and a buck and doe
of the sambur, barking deer, and hog deer;
in addition, there is a wild boar and sow and
three kinds of civet cats.
SOFTH AMERICA
From the Interior of British Guiana. —
A note announcing Mr. Herbert Lang's pro-
posed trip to the interior of British Guiana
appeared in the issue of Natural History
for July-August, 1022, pp. 375-76. We give
now his resume of the expedition, to be fol-
lowed later by two articles dealing respec-
tively with the forests of British Guiana and
the life along the rivers of that country.
I left New York on September 15. 1922,
and returned to the Museum on March 10,
1923. Through the kindness of Mr. W. J.
La Varre, to whom I am indebted for much
assistance, everything was ready on my
arrival at Georgetown to start on the boat
journey up t he Ma/aruni River tot he interior.
His Excellency the Governor. Sir W.
Collet, through the Colonial Secretary, the
410
NATURAL HISTORY
•--THE CRAMPTON-LUTZ EXPEDITION, ISM; THE L.E.MILLER EXPEDITION, 1913; THE HERBERT LAND EXPEDITION. IB23-23
Hon. Hampton King, extended every possible
privilege, whereby my progress was rendered
easy beyond expectation. At the Department
of Science and Agriculture, Messrs. W.
Francis and L. D. Cleare, in the absence of
Professor J. B. Harrison, extended a hearty
welcome. Soon we were engaged in discus-
sing questions which brought forth much
helpful advice as both wished to make my
trip successful and pleasant. Georgetown
has among its men of distinction also Mr.
James Rodway, whose delightful volumes
have carried his fame far beyond the Americas.
Several visits to his home and subsequent
visits to the Museum under his charge
enabled me to benefit from his ripe experience.
Ever kind and helpful, he had brought to-
gether for me a number of separates of
Timchri articles in which various travelers had
published their accounts.
But I had not come to Georgetown as a
stranger. I was warmly welcomed and made
to feel at home by Director William Beebe
and the enthusiastic circle of collaborators
whom he has gathered about him at Kartabo,
the home of the Tropical Research Station
of the New York Zoological Society. Situated
at the very portals of the Essequibo, Maza-
runi, and ( Juyuni Rivers, the Station offers
unique advantages for the observation of the
inexhaustible wealth of tropical life. Far too
rapidly passed the hours in such fascinating
company. Mr. Beebe and his associates were
just setting out for new adventures in Vene-
zuela. With his customary generosity Mr.
Beebe insisted on my carrying away some of
the volumes from his own library, which
proved of great assistance later in the field.
In going up river we were favored by the
season. The volume of water was still ample
enough to allow us the use of the power boat
at our disposal. In less than half the usual
time, six and a half days, we reached Kama-
kusa base. 180 miles in the interior. The
many treacherous rapids and terrific currents
added sufficient zest to an otherwise monoton-
ous river journey.
Hardly had I made my first personal ac-
quaintance with the surrounding forest country
when good luck piloted my way Mr. George
K. Cherrie, well-known for his long and dis-
tinguished services in exploration. The
wealth of his experience gathered in nearly
every region of South America, as he imparted
it to me, opened up many vistas in my own
undertaking.
When after months in the interior among
the glories of untouched nature I had to turn
homeward, I was naturally sorry; yet, on the
other hand, I was glad that so many happy
incidents had helped make my first South
American journey successful far beyond un-
original expectation.
The collections proved to be interesting
as they were made in a region from which all
material is practically new and therefore a
desirable acquisition for the American Mu-
seum. Among the mammals is an undescribed
form of marsupial, together with a fine series
of peccaries, primates, and rodents, not to
mention a tapir and a rare puma. The birds
arc represented by 75 genera and 85 species
and are especially valuable as topotypes of the
Whitely collection of the British Museum.
The reptiles and batrachians number several
hundred. Among them are a scries of giant
tree-frogs and the first breeding specimen ever
brought to America of Hyla evansi, discov-
ered in 1904, carrying twenty-four well
developed eggs on its back. Fortunately
photographs from life were made of it [one
of these will appear later in Natural His-
tory]. Fishes were rather difficult to secure
but among the 135 specimens are some tine
examples and a good variety. To anthropol-
ogy the most interesting contributions arc a
series of photographs of the dwarfed Akawoi
Indians, especially as the measurements I took
NOTES
411
show that some of these forest people are
smaller even than the Congo Pygmies.
In all, the expedition was able to present
material to the departments of geology,
mammalogy, ornithology, herpetology, ich-
thyology, invertebrate zoology, and entomol-
ogy, not to mention more than six hundred
photographs and several thousand feet of
moving-picture film presented to the depart-
ment of public education.
A collection of 503 folders of plants was
presented to the Xew York Botanic Garden
and, it is said, supplements their own series
in a most fortunate manner.
Mr. Lang's expedition to British Guiana
recalls the interest of the American Museum
in this area of South America, as evidenced
by the three expeditions the routes of which
are traced on the accompanying map.
A. Hyatt Verkili.. Explorer axd Artist.
— A series of paintings by A. Hyatt Verrill
of Indian types encountered during his ex-
tensive travels and explorations in British
Guiana and in Panama has recently been on
view in the Southwest Indian hall of the
American Museum. Mr. Verrill, who has
undertaken expeditions to these regions in the
interest of the Museum of the American
Indian-Heye Foundation, has made valuable
pictorial records, not only of the better-known
tribes but of some that had not apparently
been visited by white men before Mr.
Verrill penetrated their country. In his pic-
tures he has brought out with full emphasis
the different physical characteristics of the
several tribes (as exemplified, for instance, in
the pale yellow or olive skin of the Caribs in
contrast to that of the other natives), their
distinguishing ornaments ranging from the
tuft of white down of the king vulture invari-
ably worn on the forehead by the Caribs, and
the beautiful, brightly tinted feather decora-
tions of such Indians as the Akuria and
Waiwos of British Guiana, to the remarkable
crowns of painted wood or baml worn by
the ( 'hokoi of Panama), and the tattoo mark-
ings of some of the tribes,— for instance, the
Chokoi, just mentioned, and the Patamona
and Atoradi of British Guiana. Although a
number of the pictures are portraits, others
show the Indians engaged in their wonted
activities. An Akawoia is depicted with
drawn bow, aiming his arrow at a fish, and a
girl of this tribe is shown squeezing sugar cane
From a typical Indian mill; an Arekuna is
seen using a blowgun, the dart of which has
been dipped in the deadly wurali poison, and
on another picture is a woman of this tribe
sifting cassava through a basket-work sieve.
PALAEONTOLOGY
( )sborx Library and Research Rooms. —
Research and publication in vertebrate
palaeontology in the American Museum have
produced a long series of valuable memoirs and
bulletins which in collected form are now
brought together in seven volumes under the
title Fossil Vertebrates in the American Mu-
seum of Natural History. On May IS, 1923,
the Trustees unanimously adopted the fol-
lowing resolution: that the Trustees, in
grateful recognition of Curator Osborn's
contributions to vertebrate palaeontology,
amounting altogether to $60,000, to the
presentation of his palseontological library,
the most complete of its kind, and to the
presentation of his biological library and col-
lection of historic portraits and memorabilia,
desire to provide for the continuation in
perpetuity of this branch of research. To
this end they set aside the present Osborn
Library and southeast tower room and
anteroom as the Osborn Library and Research
Rooms in Vertebrate Palaeontology for the
purpose ,,f research and discovery, in such
manner as they may from time to time direct.
The Osborn Library is already equipped
with about 6500 bound volumes and papers
relating to vertebrate palaeontology, but
includes also comparative anatomy and
zoology, evolution of man. and mammalogy
in all its branches. The library communi-
cates by a passageway with the tower room,
which will be equipped especially and per-
manently for research in vertebrate palaeon-
tology, and with the anteroom, which is
provided with materials and files to facilitate
the work of publication. On the list of
investigators who have taken advantage of
the hospitality of the American Museum
are many of the most distinguished palae-
ontologists, not only of America, but of
Europe, of Japan, and of South Africa. The
policy of the department of vertebrate
palaeontology has been to make the study col-
lection-, immediately accessible and to en-
courage the division of the collections .-111101141
investigators competent to reveal the wonder-
ful stores of information the fossils offer.
Charles R. Knight and His Achieve-
\ii:\Ts. There is probably no task confront-
ing the conscientious painter of animals more
difficull t ban t hat of giving life and character
to his restorations of extinct animals and yet
keeping within the bound- of ascertained fact
or legit imate inference. A master in tin- field
412
X AT URAL HISTORY
is Mr. Charles R. Knight, whose paintings
and drawings, made in large part under the
supervision of Professor Henry Fairfield
Osborn and other members of the department
of vertebrate palaeontology, American Mu-
seum, are praiseworthy not only as works of
art but as scientific records.
Although Mr. Knight has devoted himself
to this field of painting for thirty years, the
magnitude of his output and the variety of
the animal life depicted must have surprised
even him as he viewed his canvases ranged in
close array on the walls of the hall of horses in
the American Museum, where he has recently
had an exhibit. To pass from picture to
picture in this exhibit was to review the his-
tory of millions of years, from the reptilian
monsters of the Mesozoic to man of the
Glacial Age. Even some of the present-day
animals have been recorded in lifelike attitude
by Mr. Knight though for the most part he
has devoted himself to resurrecting the past.
Many of the paintings were arranged by
groups — such as those of the horse, living and
extinct, of the rhinos, and of the elephants —
enabling the visitor to compare the changes
manifested in these animals throughout the
ages or in different regions. In a collection of
such vast range and of such a high standard
of excellence, unanimity of choice is not to be
expected. Some will prefer one picture, some
another. Of wonderful impressiveness are
Mr. Knight's pictures of the felines, perhaps
the most outstanding of this group being the
picture of the saber-tooth tiger on the rim of a
cliff, his jaws wide apart showing the rapier-
like upper teeth, and the head and attitude
expressive of defiance, rage, and supreme
realization of mastery.
Wksterx Field Exploration of 1923 for
Fossils. — This is the thirty-second season of
continuous Western field exploration of the
department of vertebrate palaeontology,
American Museum, inasmuch as the first
expedition, made to the Wasatch formation of
Wyoming, was fitted out by Prof. Henry Fair-
field Osborn in the year 1891, in the hope of
showing the Trustees of the Museum what
might be done among the fossil mammals.
Dr. J. L. Wortman, trained for many seasons
under Professor Cope of Philadelphia, was in
charge of this party, and he returned in the
autumn with a small and interesting collec-
tion of Lower Eocene age. The work of pre-
paring these fossils was carried on in the attic
room on the sixth floor of the Museum, at the
top of the little elevator shaft of the old wing.
As t he fossils were cleaned, they were exhibited
in one end of a case in the hall of geology
and met with President Jesup's immediate
approval. This undertaking marked the be-
ginning of expeditions that have since extended
to all parts of the world and that are now 1 ic-
ing carried on more actively than ever.
In spite of the more extensive area today
under investigation the Western field work
has not diminished. Recently, under the
generous encouragement of Mr. Childs Frick,
a special Western field fund has been donated
in addition to the field fund donated annu-
ally by Honorary Curator Osborn. Mr.
Albert Thomson, who joined the Museum
forces in South Dakota twenty-nine years ago
and who came to the preparation laboratory
of the department of palaeontology twenty-
four years ago, has been promoted to the
senior post in the laboratory. For many years
he has also been chief of field work in the
wot em Nebraska section, where the Museum
has enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Harold
Cook and his father at the famous Agate
Springs Quarry. In the trip to the West this
summer Mr. Thomson will be accompanied by
a party of three young men, including a son
of Professor Loomis of Amherst . In the party
will be also one of the Museum preparators,
Mr. K. Lorenson. The owner of the land
where Hesperopiihecus was found will not allow
work in the locality he controls without the
payment of an exorbitant sum for the privi-
lege; consequently the Museum party will
work chiefly in various quarries of Upper
Oligocene, Miocene, and Lower Pliocene age.
The great collection of seventeen Moropus
skeletons secured in previous years in the
Agate Quarry is being described in the
Bulletin by Honorary Curator Osborn. The
remarkable collections of Miocene and Plio-
cene mammals secured by the expeditions in
this region are being described by Curator
Matthew, who has also contributed to the pres-
ent issue of Natural History (pp. 358-69)
a popular article on the quarry. The Museum
now has an absolutely complete picture of the
Eocene life of North America and is beginning
to fill out its picture of the Miocene and Plio-
cene life with equal fullness.
Fossil Fauna of Mexico. — Mr. Childs
Frick, research associate in palaeontology,
American Museum, has returned from a two-
months' visit to Mexico, where he devoted
himself to the study of the Pleistocene fossil
NOTES
413
mammals of the Valley of Mexico. This
classic locality has been well known as the
source of the splendid collections secured
chiefly during the opening of the great drain-
age canal and preserved in the two museums
of Mexico City. Mammoths and mastodons,
great glyptodonts (tortoise-armadillos) and
ground sloths, horses and camels, various
Carnivora, and other remarkable types of
extinct animals are well represented in these
collections. Some of the earlier finds were
described by the English palaeontologists,
Falconer and Owen; later on. Cope and other
Americans studied the collections and de-
scribed some of their novelties, and the
German, Freudenberg, has published two con-
siderable memoirs upon the collections. The
lack of specialists in fossil vertebrates in
Mexico has prevented their being fully and
adequately described or becoming as gener-
ally known as they should be.
Mr. Frick, following his usual policy of
promoting cooperation in research work, has
arranged for two months of active field work
by two members of the staff of the Geologic
Institute in Mexico. Sefior Vivar and Miss
Reyes, and for comparative study at the
American Museum of the collections made by
them. The collections are then to be returned
to Mexico. He has also taken steps in other
ways to stimulate interest in the search for
more material in connection with excavations
that are in prospect.
The Plumage of ax Eocexe Bird. —
Among recently installed exhibits in the
American Museum few have attracted as
much attention as the huge extinct flightless
bird Diatryma thai confronts the visitor as he
steps out of the elevator at the fourth floor to
roam among the animals of the past. Al-
though the skeleton of Diatryma is very
fully known, the question of its plumage
was until recently at least open to con-
jecture. Prof. T. D. A. Cockered of the
University of Colorado, who lias contributed
so much to our knowledge of the animal and
plant life, past and present, of that state,
believes that a specimen of the plumage of
the Diatryma lias at last been discovered.
During a recent visit to the fossil beds in the
vicinity of Roan ('reek, in western Colorado,
Mrs. Cockered, who accompanies her hus-
band on many of his trips, found long si rands
of plumage, of a sofl and wavy character.
even more filiform, more delicate, and less
bristly than the plumage of the cassowary.
Professor Cockered concludes that '•Among
the. known Eocene birds, this could only have
come from Diatryma." He has tentatively
named the specimen Diatryma (?) filifera, a
new specific name at least being justified in
Professor Cockerell's estimation because of
the fact that the specimen was found at a
horizon considerably higher than any pre-
viously known for the genus. During the
same trip Professor Cockered found "a typi-
cal contour feather of a bird, perhaps the
oldest ordinary feather known."
THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF
MUSEUMS
The Eighteexth Annual Meeting of
the American Association of Museums was
held at Charleston. South Carolina, April 4-8,
1923. Xo more appropriate gathering place
could have been selected, for it was in Charles-
ton one hundred fifty years ago that the mu-
seum idea first took root in America. It was
on January 12. 1773, that at a meeting of the
Charles Town Library Society "His Honour
the President [of the Society] proposed that a
special Committee should be appointed for
collecting materials for promoting a Natural
History of this Province which was agreed
to." In this manner the institution that was
incorporated in 1915 under the name of The
Charleston Museum began its career of
educational service.
The gathering at Charleston in April. 1923,
of the representatives of a great number of
museums scattered over the country — the
repositories of collections representing many
different fields of interest — evidences the
stage of growth that the museum idea has
already attained. That growth, however, is
merely to be the preliminary of still greater
progress. National headquarters are to be
established by the Association in Washington.
A grant of $30,000 covering three years, has
been made by the Laura Spelinan Rocke-
feller Foundation, conditional upon the rais-
ing of an additional $55,000 from museums
and their supporters. To broaden the field
of usefulness of the Association, the following
projects as stated by ils secretary. Ml'. Laur-
ence Vail Coleman, are to be undertaken:
"Through the printed and the spoken word
and through the screen, the museum idea is
to lie placed before I he public so t hat museums
wherever they may be, will find the tilling of
their soil more simple. A field secretary will
make continuous studies and will go in person
414
XATURAL HISTORY
to communities where suggestions and assist-
ance will be welcomed. Headquarters will be
a clearing house and a service center for mu-
seums. Publications will broadcast and give
permanency to new findings and new thoughts
and finally steps will be taken in cooperation
with universities to promote research in mu-
seum administration and technique and to
bring about the training of new museumists to
carry on the work which will open before the
movement."
A program of unusual interest was provided
for the Association gathering, and those who
attended were rarely impressed with the warm
hospitality accorded them in the old historic
homes of Charleston, around many of which
cluster memories of Colonial and Revolution-
ary i lays. A boat trip was made up t he Santee
River and a visit paid to the heron reserve
where the great blue heron and the night
heron, and above all the egret, were seen in
numbers. This is one of the few places in the
United States where the egret is still to be
v*v
^Sfcvi y£|
A detail of the heron reserve on the Santee River,
to which an excursion was made by those attending
the eighteenth annual meeting of the American
Association of Museums
found and is the locality from which was se-
cured the group in the American Museum.
On the evening of April 7 at one of the large
plantations there was singing of spirituals by
negroes around the fire out of doors. Repre-
sentatives of the American Museum who
attended the gathering of the Association were
Director F. A. Lucas. Dr. E. 0. Hovey, and
Dr. F. E. Lutz. Doctor Lucas also repre-
sented the Museums Association of Great
Britain and on its behalf extended greetings
to the American Association of Museums
and to the Charleston Museum.
FOREIGN MUSEUMS
The Port Elizabeth Museum of South
Africa reports an attendance of 136,984
visitors during the year L922, probably the
largest attendance of any museum in the
world when measured with relation to the
population of the place in which the museum
is located. In certain parts of the ample
grounds surrounding the museum interest-
ing species of South African Mora have been
planted, while other special features offered
by this scientific institution are its so-called
snake park, where live reptiles are exhibited,
its aquarium, aviaries, and cages containing
monkeys and other animals. A number of
museum specimens have been acquired dur-
ing the past year through donation, ex-
change, and purchase. Research work has
been conducted in several different fields
of science with gratifying results and the
publication of these results is in progress.
Among the lectures given at the museum were
several on astronomy, in which the museum
telescope proved of aid. It is a pleasure to be
able to refer in Natural Bistort: to an
institution which, while separated by so
many miles from the American Museum, is,
like the latter, widening scientific knowledge
in the community which it serves.
JOHN THOMAS GULICK
John Thomas Gulick died in April of this
year, in the Hawaiian Islands, which were the
scene of his birth and of certain of his scienti-
fic studies. Well-known as a missionary in
China and Japan, where he labored devotedly
for thirty-five years, his claim to recognition
is not less on the score of his contributions to
science. To a fuller conception of the ways in
which evolution works Doctor Gulick made
notable contributions, including his "Diver-
gent Evolution through Cumulative Segrega-
XOTES
415
The Charleston Museum, although incorporated under that name only in 1915, had its inception 150 years
ago and is therefore a patriarch among the museums of the country. Old in years, it is progressive in spirit, —
an institution of which Charleston is justly proud
tion," "Isolation and Selection in the
Evolution of Species," and Evolution, Racial
and Habitudinal. In the preface to the last-
mentioned work Doctor Gulick states: ''I
believe Prof. H. F. Osborn makes no mistake
when he suggests that the ruling method of
the next important advance in the interpreta-
tion of evolution must be one recognizing the
complex action of diverse principles, and
at the same time grasping the underlying
unity of the process." The underlying prin-
ciple sought. Doctor Gulick professed to find
in geographical segregation, with its control-
ling influence in the spheres of both racial and
habitudinal evolution. In addition to his
more genera! studies in evolution, Doctor
Gulick devoted himself to the special study
of snails and more than one of his contribu-
tions has dealt with members of the sub-
family Achat inellhne.
Doctor Gulick was graduated from Wil-
liams College in L859, having been in still
earlier years a miner in California. Subse-
quently lie studied in the Union Theological
Seminary. He received an honorary A.M.
from Williams in 1889, was awarded a Ph.D.
by Adelbert in the same year, and obtained
his Sc.D. from Oberlin in 1905.
INSECTS
Quarters for Boi Scot tr. The depart-
ment of entomology of t he American Museum
has recently set apart an enclosed area on the
third floor of the Museum to serve as a work
place for Boy Scouts interested in studying
insects. Provided with a large table and chairs
as well as working equipment, these quarters
offer Scouts the opportunity to mount insects
they have collected, to work out life histories,
to start formicaries, and, not the least, to
come into intimate touch with the Museum's
exhibition collection of insects. It is the
intention of the department of entomology to
give recognition to individual work of excel-
lence by displaying such work on a table
reserved for the purpose. Work so exhibited
may later be displaced by other work showing
still greater merit. There will thus always be
an incentive for the Scouts to put forth their
best efforts.
GEOLOGY
Geologic Relief Models. — The series of
fifteen geological relief models planned for
installation in the hall of geology and
invertebrate palaeontology is Dealing com-
pletion. These models give the existing
surface of the areas chosen in its varied
topographic development, with the hard-
rock or underlying geologic formations re-
presented by their natural colors and text-
ural characters. There are two exceptions-,
however: the Wat kins Glen-Seneca Lake
model, where the superficial Glacial deposits
air shown, and the Porto Pico model, where
the scale of tin- map is too small to permit
416
XATURAL HISTORY
such treatment. The painted background
of each model represents the present-day
scenery of the country surrounding its area,
and the sky depicts different meteorological
conditions as far as practicable.
The models selected for the west side of the
hall have been chosen with reference to the
exhibits of stratigraphical or historical geology
in the neighboring cases. They comprise the
"Grand Car on of the Colorado River,"
showing rocks of Pre-Cambrian, Cambrian,
and Carboniferous ages; " Niagara River and
Falls," illustrating Ordovician and Silurian
strata, with important phenomena of Glacial
age; "Pawpaw." West Virginia, showing
lulls of Devonian age and important moun-
tain-building upturns, folds, and erosion;
"Van Horn." Texas, exhibiting rocks of
Mississippian, Pennsylvania!!, and Permian
times, igneous intrusions, and the phenomena
of a desert region; "Yellowstone Park,"
representing Jurassic and Comanchian strata
with associated igneous rocks, hot springs,
and geysers; "Pikes Peak." illustrating
Ordovician, Pennsylvania!!, and Cretaceous
rocks lying against a greal massif of Per-
Cambrian granite; "Crater Lake" 'the
most recent to be completed and now on
exhibition) showing the crater of a vast ex-
tinct volcano which has been erupted through
rocks of Tertiary age; "Standingstone,"
Tennessee, representing sink-hole topography
in an unglaciated region of Carboniferous
rocks.
The models which have been chosen for the
east side of the hall illustrate varied geological
features. That of " Porto Rico and the Virgin
Islands" shows well the great Brownson Deep
of the Atlantic Ocean and the Virgin Deep and
the Caribbean Sea in relation to the islands.
The "New York City'' model illustrates the
drowned valley of the Hudson River, barrier
beaches, and other shore-line phenomena, the
intrusive trap ridge of the Palisades of New
Jersey, Triassic sedimentaries and Pre-Cam-
brian crystalline rocks. In contrast, the "San
Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate" model
presents the great harbor of the Pacific Coast,
with its elevated sea beaches and Tertiary
beds, showing its recent geologic age as com-
pared with New York, the great harbor of the
Atlantic coast. The "Yosemite Valley-'
model illustrates the extreme development of
recent atmospheric, stream, and glacier ero-
sion in a complex of massive granites and other
igneous rocks of the Sierra Nevada, Cali-
fornia. The results of early glacier action on a
complex of ancient granites and other igneous
rocks and mica schists are shown by the
"Mt. Washington-White Mountains" model.
The model of "Watkins Glen-Seneca Lake."
New York, indicates a stage in the retreat of
the continental glacier of the latest great Ice
age, with its accompanying mantle of till,
moraines, and glacial lakes, and shows some
effects of snl isequent stream erosion. The
model of "Mount Tom-Mount Holyoke,"
Massachusetts, brings out the development
of a great river, the Connecticut, in a region
of soft Triassic sandstones lying in a graben
between hard crystalline rocks and affected
by the Mount. Tom-Mount. Holyoke range
of intrusive diabase or trap rock.
With the exception of the "Yosemite Val-
ley" and the "Mount Washington" models
the subjects of these models and their loca-
tions in the hall were chosen by Associate
( 'urn tor ( '. A. Reeds. The construction of all
the models, however, has been done under
the direction of Curator E. O. Hovey, except
that the core of the "Grand Canon" model
was begun by Doctor Heeds. The core- of
tin' model- have been built in the department
and have been based on the topographic
sheets issued by the United States Geological
Survey and by the United States Coasl and
Geodetic Survey, except for "Porto Rico,"
which is based upon a compilation by O. A.
Reeds, and "Mount Washington," based
upon the maps prepared by the state of New
Hampshire and the Appalachian Mountain
Club. The modeling and painting have been
done by Mr. Lester Morgan of Morgan
Brothers, following published geological maps
of the regions and photographs.
PUBLIC EDUCATION
Making the Motion Picture Educa-
tional.— The motion picture, wisely chosen
as to subject matter, accurate in its details,
and appealing in its presentation, is an in-
valuable aid in visual education, and yet
countless films, intended to be informing,
have failed of their purpose because of the
distortion of fact or ignorance of the truth
which they showed. To try to erect a struc-
ture of knowledge on a foundation of half
truths or misinformation is building on quick-
sand. A wise step toward correcting this
evil, so that the educational film may be in a
position to fulfill its great mission, is the recent
appointment of a Viewing Committee of the
NOTES
417
National Educational Association, which will
cooperate with the Motion Picture Producers
and Distributors of America, Inc. The
function of this committee (of which Dr. G.
Clyde Fisher, associate curator of public-
education in the American Museum, is the
chairman) is to examine films presenting
nature study, biology, and geography and to
determine their importance as educational
media and their accuracy. It is within the
province of this committee to recommend the
rejection of films found wholly unsuitable or
to suggest the retention in whole or in part of
films that serve an educational purpose in a
worthy way.
A Statue for the School Service Build-
ing.— An interesting model, in miniature,
of the statue of Dr. William H. Maxwell.
former superintendent of public schools of
Greater New York, which it is proposed to
erect as a memorial in the new School
Service Building of the American Museum,
was recently on exhibition in memorial hall.
It is the work of the well-known sculptor Mr.
Charles Eugene Tefft.
In the center of the model is the dignified
figure of Doctor Maxwell seated in a chair,
the folds of his doctor's gown falling in
graceful lines to his feet.
The background is made by a pillared
wall, which divides the space into three
panels and is in keeping with the dignity and
simplicity of the whole design. Two of these
panels, one at the left and one at the right,
contain mural decorations illustrative of
ancient and modern education.
Mr. Tefft's striking figure representing
Lake Erie, made for the Buffalo Exhibition,
will be recalled; also his figures at the St.
Louis Exhibition representing Iowa and
Renaissance Art on the facade of the per-
manent art building; the Fort Lee Battle
Monument at Fort Lee, New Jersey, and the
fountain at the Botanic Gardens, Bronx
Park, New York City. The authorities
representing the city system of schools united
in their choice of Mr. Tefft for this impor-
tant Maxwell commission. The model is
a promise of .something very fine in the
finished work.
GIFTS TO THE LIBRARY
Gifts ry Mr. Ogden Mills.— Mr. Ogden
Mills, ever the good friend of the library of the
American Museum, has added to his previous
donations a number of volumes that are
prized not only for their rarity and interest
but because of their superb illustrations.
Among these books are F. Levaillant's His-
toire naturelle des Perroquets, including the
highly valued supplementary volume by Al.
Bourjot Saint-Hilaire, with its hand-tinted
lithographs. The binding, which bears the
stamp of Toovey, the well-known Piccadilly
bookseller, has the tooling and finish of Bed-
ford and is in all probability the work of that
craftsman. Levaillant's work was published
in the early years of the nineteenth century.
A work of still earlier date (1785-97) presented
by Mr. Mills is M. E. Bloch's Ichthyologu <>"
Histoire naturelle des Poissons, consisting of
twelve handsome volumes with colored illus-
trations. Finally the gift includes T. Mar-
tyn's Psi/che, the quaintly worded subtitle
of which reads "figures of nondescript lepi-
dopterous insects, or rare moths and butter-
flies from different parts of the world."
A Bequest ry Emily F. Southmayd. —
By the will of the late Emily F. Southmayd
there was bequeathed to the American Mu-
seum a set of Audubon's sumptuous Birds of
Aim rirn. which because of its historic impor-
tance in the literature of ornithology and its
superb illustrations, is an acquisition particu-
larly prized. President Henry Fairfield
Osborn in a letter directed to Messrs. Evarts,
Choate, Sherman & Leon, acting for the execu-
tors, conveyed the thanks of the Museum in
these words:
"The Trustees have received the superb
copy of Audubon's Birds, which was be-
queathed to the American Museum of Natural
History by the late Emily F. Southmayd.
This rare and valuable work is a much desired
addition to our Library of Natural History
and we trust that you will convey to the next
of kin our appreciation of the generous action
of Emily F. Southmayd."
Peale's Suppressed Volume. — Through
the generosity of Mr. James B. Ford the
library of the American Museum has been
enabled to purchase a work of unusual rarity
and interest, namely the suppressed volume
by Titian lb Peale dealing with the mammals
and birds collected by the United States
Exploring Expedition (1832-42) under the
command of Charles Wilkes, I'.S.N. This
volume was printed by ('. Sherman in Phila-
delphia in IMS. In addition to text illustra-
tions by Peale, it is accompanied by Ins trial
plate of ProceUaria nivea that differs some-
what from t he corresponding plate in Cassin's
4 IS
XATURAL HISTORY
edition of the same work, published ten years
later. It was chiefly because of Cassin's
criticisms that Peale's volume was suppressed,
yet Cassin constantly cites it in his own work.
( »nlv a few libraries other than the Museum
library possess a copy of this rare work, in
which 103 species of birds new to science are
described. The Museum is particularly rich
in published works, manuscripts, and paint-
ings by Peale, including a portrait of himself.
a
'/*j
/£ /7<^>
FISHES
The Bibliography of Fishes. — Dr. Bash-
ford Dean, honorary curator of the depart-
ment of ichthyology, American Museum, has
returned from another tour in the East and in
Europe and reports a number of very interest-
ing observations. The Bibliography of Fishes,
which is appearing under his direction, with
the cooperation of Dr. E. W. Gudger and
Mr. Arthur W. Henn, is approaching comple-
tion. Doctor Dean supplies the introduction
to Volume I. The taxonomic section will be
brief, for it was decided not to repeat the
taxonomic work of Jordan and others. The
entire bibliography is in print, including the
index of the material in the three volumes.
The summaries were very carefully pre-
pared, chiefly by Doctor Gudger and Mr.
Henn. When these volumes appear, which
have cost ten years' labor and monumental
industry on the part of all concerned,
namely, Doctor Dean, Doctor Eastman,
Doctor Gudger, Mr. Henn, and the no
less industrious secretaries who have been
engaged from time to time, new life will be
given to the whole subject of ichthyology, and
this branch of science, which has more or less
slumbered through neglect in the colleges and
universities, will arise in all its purely scien-
tific as well as economic and medical aspects.
for it is being recognized that among the
fishes and Protochordata we are to study the
beginnings of the principles which govern the
Dhysiology and pathology of man.
BIRDS
The Motmots. — In a Bulletin entitled
"The Distribution of the Motmots of the
Genus Momotus," Dr. Frank M. Chapman,
curator of ornithology in the American Mu-
seum, presents evidence that these sedentary,
tree-inhabiting birds originated in Central
America, where the motmots are more numer-
ously represented both in respect to genera
and species than they are in South America.
Their presence in the southern continent is
the result, he believes, of three separate
invasions, one of which, made by the genus
Baryphthengus, occurred possibly in pre-
Andean or early Tertiary times, and two of
which, made by the genus Momotus, took
place after the elevation of the Andes. The
first of the post-Andean invasions was made
possible by a Subtropical Zone bridge, that,
he believes, once extended over Panama and
that subsequently disappeared, probably
through subsidence. The second post- Andean
invasion originated in the Tropical Zone of
Panama. It extended thence through north-
ern Colombia and Venezuela, north of the
Andes, to Trinidad and Tobago at a time when
these islands were connected with each other
and with the mainland.
ANTHROPOLOGY
American Indian Day. — In our annual
cycle of memorial celebrations, we have dedi-
cated a day to the discoverer of America, to
the declaration of our independence, to each
of the two great presidents who guided the
nation during its times of gravest peril, and
to other individuals and events that have been
of dominating importance in our history.
American Indian Dav. May 11. is one of the
NOTES
419
recurring observances that deserves more
thoughtful attention than it has received.
Indebted to the Indian as we are for so much
that is picturesque in the past, it is our respon-
sibility to sec that his contribution to our
common life is not forgotten through ingrati-
tude or neglect. It is a pleasure to refer,
therefore, tothe ceremonies in commemoration
of American Indian Day that were held at
St. Mark's in-the-Bouwerie (William Norman
Guthrie, Rector). These included a congre-
gational service of worship, compiled from
American aboriginal rites ami ceremonies,
rendered with special remembrance of Alice
Cunningham Fletcher; an address by the
Hector on the personality and work of this
friend and interpreter of the Indian; the
reading of an Indian story by Ernest Thomp-
son Seton; and an address on "The Sym-
bology of Indian Dances'' by John Sloan.
After the offertory there was a ceremonial
planting of the seven varieties of corn, fol-
lowing the Zufi myth of the Rain Youth and
the Corn Maidens, as recorded in the Zuni
Folk Tales of F. H. dishing. This ceremony
took place in the east yard of the church.
In St. Mark's hall were exhibited specimens of
Sioux bead-work and paintings of Indian
dances by John Sloan and Edward Willard
Deming.
The Quipu of Peru and Its Function. —
The department of anthropology has just
issued a special publication entitled The
Ancient Quipu or Peruvian Knot Record. The
author, L. Leland Locke, clearly demon-
strates that the quipu was used for numerical
records only, for which it was well fitted, and
points out the utter impossibility of record-
ing history and folklore by this means as the
early historians would have us believe. Mr.
Locke succeeded in locating forty-nine quipus,
of which forty-two are in the collections of the
American Museum. Many of these are well
illustrated in the volume under consideration.
Dr. L. R. Sullivan, assistant curator of
physical anthropology, represented the Ameri-
'■;m Museum at the ceremonies attending the
inauguration of Doctor Marvin as presidenl
of the University of Arizona. April 23-4.
ARCHEOLOGY
Benjamin Harrison and His Memorial.
— Word comes from England that a committee
has been formed to establish a memorial to
tin- late Mr. Benjamin Harrison, the world-
known village geologist and prehistoric
anthropologist of Ighthani. Kent. At present
there are two suggestions under consideration,
namely, to found a scholarship for higher
education, open to natives of Ightham and
vicinity, or to establish a research fund. In
addition, it is proposed to place in Ightham
Parish Church a tablet subscribed for by local
residents.
Biographical details are iew. but in the
words of the committee's announcement,
"Mr. Harrison was one of Nature's Great
Men, who made such a name with such limited
facilities as he had." In American phrase-
ology this is equivalent to saying that Mr.
Harrison was a man of our own John Bur-
roughs and John Muir type — another, in
short, of those happy mortals who observe
and interpret nature as the spirit moves
them, unhampered by institutional routine
and regulations. Inspired in his youth by
the astonishing archaeological discoveries of
Boucher de Perthes, across the channel in
France, he devoted a long life chiefly to the
search for similar evidence of the antiquity of
man in his own Kentian section of England.
His collections of rude flints, found in the
depths as well as on the surface of his native
Weald, and in the Downs, in time became so
large that they compelled the attention of such
scientific men as Sir Joseph Prestwich, and
by degrees some of his ruder forms, known as
eoliths, have come to be acknowledged by
many prominent students as of human origin.
It is seldom indeed that any man. no matter
what his circumstances, has contributed so
much toward the enlargement of our notions
of human prehistory and has lived also to
gain recognition for his views. In the words of
Professor Arthur Keith, ''He made of the
picturesque village of Ightham . . . a Mecca
for all students of early man.''
Mr. Harrison died on September 30, 1921,
at the age of eighty-three, and is interred
in Ightham Churchyard, where his family
are erecting a tombstone bearing a carved
'"eolith " at its head.
The committee respectfully asks for dona-
tions to the memorial fund, which should 1"
miit to the Hon. Secret. mix' and Treasurer. Mr.
de Barri Crawshay, Rosefield, Sevenoaks,
Kent.
Prof. Louis Capitan, whose picture is
shown on page 120 is one of a number of distin-
guished foreign scientists who recently were
elected corresponding members of the Ameri-
420
X AT URAL HISTORY
can Museum. As clean of prehistoric archae-
ology in France, with nearly fifty year.- <>.(
service behind him, benefiting not only his
own country but the world at large, Professor
Capitan eminently deserves such recognition
as an American scientific institution can give.
A brief sketch of Capitan's career was
printed in another connection in the issue of
Natural History for March-April, 1923
(pp. 200-01). By way of supplement it may
In stated here that in addition to the pro-
longed activity of his labors Capitan's inter-
ests have been wider than those of most of his
contemporaries. He has been both investiga-
tor and teacher. In the former capacity,
besides acquainting himself with all the prob-
lems relating to prehistoric France by actual
research in the field, he has traveled and
PROF. LOUIS CAPITAN
studied not only in the neighboring countries
of Europe but also in the United States.
Mexico, and Central America. As a teacher
he has helped to train the younger generation
of workers, has been largely instrumental in
placing French archaeological investigation on
a truly scientific basis, and has written and
lectured on the whole wide field of prehistory.
In this way he has managed to preserve the
sane and unbiased viewpoint which is so
often lacking in the man who for one reason or
another has been obliged to over-specialize.
Professor Capitan is no longer quite the
robust man seen in the picture. The strenu-
ous years of war service have left their mark
upon him. But in spite of his sixty-nine
years he lectures regularly at the Ecole
d' Anthropologic on prehistoric anthropology
and at the Ecole de France on American antiq-
uities, in addition to giving devoted service
on various commissions for the preservation
of French antiquities. And his activities are
by iki means confined to the study, rostrum,
and committee room. Last summer the writer
had the privilege of traveling and working in
his company for nearly three weeks in various
parts of France, Belgium, Holland, and Eng-
land. Professor Capitan arrived at the exca-
vations with the first every morning and was
always the last to leave in the evening, even
though he usually devoted most of the lunch
hour to sketching or other work. As a col-
lector his equal is seldom met. At the end of
the day. when finally he had to tear himself
away from the "pay dirt." he usually brought
more specimens than he could well cany.
Lastly, this vigorous, indefatigable French-
man, so like the proverbial "hustling
Yankee." has other claims to sympathetic
American interest: he drinks — quantities of
water only, and never smokes. X. C. X.
CONSERVATION
Pi blic [nterest Aroused fob the Mam-
mals. Since the publication in Natural His-
tory of the article '■( 'an We Save the Mam-
mals?" by I 'resident Henry Fairfield Osborn
and Mr. H. F. Anthony and of the very
similar article by the same authors, '"The
Close of the Age of Mammals," in the Journal
of Mammalogy, hundreds of newspaper
clippings and press notices have been re-
ceived at the American Museum, showing the
very widespread and intense, popular inter-
est in this truly vital question. Xot only have
the newspapers printed accounts of the actual
conditions, but editorials in magazines and
periodicals far off the journalistic path of the
average associated press item have demon-
strated that the layman does not want to see
the mammals disappear. Most of these
accounts, when comment accompanied the
statements of fact, accepted the findings of
Osborn and Anthony; a few disagreed. In
not one instance did a writer believe that
we would be as well off without as with
mammals.
A statement sent out by the California
Biological Feature Service, written by W. E.
Allen, presented a resume of the views of the
American Museum as expressed in the ''Close
NOTES
421
of the Age of Mammals'" and was in perfect
sympathy with them.
Even the furriers themselves have taken
notice of the crisis facing the mammals and
some of them appear to appreciate the need
for action. An article in the Fur Track
Review of April, 1923. discusses statistics on
the number of mammals taken by the fur
trade, but arrives at rather misleading con-
clusions, because the writer of that article
assumes that the figures given by Osborn and
Anthony included domestic fin bearers. The
figures cited by these two authors were based
entirely upon wild mammals killed. However,
the article in the Fur Trade Review shows a
tendency on the part of the trade to make
much of domestic furs, anil in the use of
such fur bearers as Persian lamb and rabbit
lies the possibility of a partial relaxation of the
pressure against wild life. The general tone
of the article shows that the fur trade can see
the danger signals quite clearly itself and it is
to be hoped that realization will bring correc-
tive measures.
Other signs of response from the furriers
have been letters asking for an expression of
views and measures to be taken for relief of
the situation. At the request of the New
York Sun, a short account was written by Mr.
Anthony for the editorial page and published
May 15. Here it was urged that the greatest
chances for saving the mammals lay in
educating the people to an understanding of
the actual facts, in the passage of protective
legislation for mammals, and in calling to the
attention of the fur trade and other interests
exploiting mammal life the fact that it is
sound economic sense to conserve such a
valuable resource as our wild mammals.
Ax IXTERXATIOXAL COMMITTEE FOR BlRD
Protectiox. — Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson, presi-
dent of the National Association of Audubon
Societies, who only recently returned from a
nip to the Bahamas, where he has been in
consultation with the English authorities to
the end that more adequate protection may
lie accorded to the colonies of flamingos on
Andros Island, sailed for France on May 12
to further the organization and work of the
International Committee for Bird Protection,
of which he is one of the founders.
Birds, because of their migratory habits
are, with the possible exception of marine
mammals, the most fitting subjects for inter-
national conservation efforts. Flying, as
many of them do, from their winter homes in
one country to their summer homes in
another, they are citizens of the world, and the
protection that they enjoy in one of their
places of sojourn is inadequate if it is offset
by a spirit of destructiveness in the other.
Moreover, the dangers to which marine
birds are exposed through the oil that is
poured on the waters of the sea by ships are
not to be underestimated, for annually
thousands upon thousands of ducks, gulls,
and other water birds throughout the world
are killed through alighting upon water thus
tainted. Mr. Pearson aided in the passage of
a bill by the British Parliament last June,
which makes it illegal to pour oil into the
territorial waters of the British Isles. A bill
of similar application to our own territorial
waters, which has been pending in Congress,
has had his active support. The passage of an
international law is needed, however, to
remove this menace to sea birds and one of
Mr. Pearson's purposes in going abroad is to
advocate the adoption of such a measure.
Roosevelt's Ixterest ix the Coxserva-
tiox of Wild Life. — The Roosevelt Memorial
Association, Inc., is at work on a volume, the
purpose of which is to show what Colonel
Roosevelt thought and wrote regarding the
conservation of wild life. This volume is to
contain not only the various published essays
and addresses of the Colonel on the subject of
the preservation of wild game, but also his
letters on this subject to naturalists and other
lovers of the great out-of-doors. Will the
readers of Natural History who are in
possession of original letters, or copies of
original letters, from Colonel Roosevelt on the
subject of wild life conservation, kindly send
them to Mr. Hermann Hagedorn, secretary
and director of the Roosevelt Memorial
Association, Inc., One Madison Avenue,
New York City? In doing so, they will not
only help in paying this tribute to the memory
of Colonel Roosevelt but will also further
an interest he had at heart, — the conserva-
tion of wild life.
The bureau of research and information of
this association is collecting biographical
material and would appreciate receiving from
the friends and associates of the Colonel, in
addition to personal letters, matter that is not
yet in written form, t hat lives in the hearts anil
minds of individuals, incidents trivial from
one standpoint, but not trivial if they reveal
the personality of "T. R." Anything what-
ever that throws light on the character of this
422
XATURAL HISTORY
great American, — newspaper clippings, photo-
graphs, pamphlets, books, etc., will be wel-
come. All of the material collected by the
association will be carefully arranged and
catalogued for the use of future biographers.
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM'S
INFLUENCE UPON ART
The Exhibition of the Keramic Society
of Greater New York was held in the
American Museum April 17-27 and attracted
much well-merited attention. It is the first
exhibit of the society since the entry of our
country into the World War, for that event
greatly affected the well-being of the society.
Mrs. Nina Hatfield, the president of the so-
ciety, Miss Anna M. Walling, chairman of
the exhibition committee, and Mr. Albert H.
Heckman, critic and coworker for the past year,
are to be congratulated upon the success of
their extremely interesting exhibition.
Copies of antique furniture from Kensing-
ton Museum, London, served as background,
while the very latest ideas in china, pottery,
with the accompanying use of art linens and
other decorative features, appealed to
beauty-loving eyes. Painted lamps, ruses,
bowls, and boxes showed new conceptions of
old art motifs, many of them inspired or sug-
gested by exhibits of the American Museum.
On the walls hung a series of tiles in quaint
designs. These were entered in the competi-
tionfor the $25 prize offered by a friend of the
Society and awarded to Mrs. Hatfield. These
tiles are intended to lie used in a decorative
way on interior walls and fire places, showing
a modern adaptation of an old idea.
Mr. Fry had something unusual to exhibit:
on a beautiful circular table were placed
violet-colored squares crocheted of linen
thread by bis father, who is eighty-nine years
old. The artistic arrangement of the decora-
tionson this table, so as to secure harmonious
color effects, was most successful. Beneath
the table, on the floor, was a very large rug.
crocheted from dyed rags, 'he pale blues and
violets of which blended in color like the
bloom of heather.
Among those deserving special mention
were Adelaide Alsop Robineau and Albert
W. Heckman. Mr. Heckman's set of bowl
and plates showed a daringly successful use
of color. He combined red-violet, vermilion,
old Egyptian turquoise blue I colors you would
expect to war against each other' so skillfully
a- to produce a most pleasing color harmony.
A number of the works of art were sug-
gested by objects in the collections of the
American Museum. Miss Nelson found
inspiration for the design on her lamp in
the bead work of the North American Indians.
Miss Walling's beautiful Italian pottery, a
tea set and bowl with cactus motif, were
inspired by the cactus in the background of a
habitat group of birds. Mrs. Knorblock's
much-admired tile design was suggested by a
bird motif in Peruvian art. The quaint and
effective bowl of Mrs. F. A. Losse also had a
bird motif from the same source. A plaque
designed by Mrs. Hatfield successfully com-
bined two motifs, that of birds and of wave-.
Mis. Law's interesting design of deer beneath
a leafy tree was suggested by the cover of one
of the guide booklets prepared by Director
V. A. Lucas of the Museum. The light of the
sun streamed through a transparency hung at
a front window, showing with fine effect the
sweep and dip in flying of graceful sea gulls.
A charming design of a floweret on china
could be traced to a detail of a design on an
Indian garment.
Officers of the society expressed apprecia-
tion for the cooperation of the authorities of
the American Museum, especially of Dr. V. A.
Lucas, in their efforts to exist as a society
during the difficult years of the war, and for
the facilities placed at their disposal since,
enabling them to make use of Museum treas-
ures and to come closer to their ideal of the
beautiful in applied art.
Indian Pottery and the Student of
Design. — Although ostensibly and predom-
inantly the field of the American Museum
is natural history, its exhibits are being studied
increasingly by students of art, who find new
inspiration in the forms and color of nature so
faithfully reproduced in the Museum groups.
A division of the Museum that has for years
attracted students of design is that given over
to the arts of the Indian. The forms and
color schemes that the Indian produced have
in many cases been imitated or adapted by
visiting classes of art students. An example of
this kind was the exhibit, recently on view in
the Southwest Indian hall, of American Indian
pottery, made, under the supervision of Prof.
Charles B. Upjohn, by students of Teachers
College, Columbia University. Vessels, the
shapes and designs of which were suggested
by specimens in the American Museum col-
lections from the Southwest, from Mexico,
and from Peru, had been prepared by these
XOTES
423
students with rare deftness of touch and
appreciation of decorative values. The
pottery included ollas, food bowls, tripod
bowls, and vessels of different shape, while the
ornamentation ranged from variants of the
interlocked design to symbolic representations
of birds and other creatures.
MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES
In Memory of John Burroughs. — On
May 27 members of the John Burroughs
Memorial Association and other friends of
the naturalist gathered at Woodchuck Lodge,
near the boyhood home of the man whose
personality still lives in their hearts. In the
old cow pasture (now Memorial Field) where
as a child Burroughs loved to sit, perched on
the friendly rock that today shelters his grave,
these pilgrims gathered to express by their
presence and through words of reverent
regard spoken by Dr. Frank M. Chapman the
depth of their feeling for him. Several
pertinent poems were read, including Bur-
roughs' "In Blooming Orchards." It is the
fate of most men soon to be forgotten. The
individual life, like a pebble cast into a pool,
creates a few ripples, but a smooth oblivion-
like stillness soon succeeds. Once in a rare
while a man lives who without effort, perhaps
even despising fame, makes so deep an im-
pression on his fellows that the memory of
him, instead of diminishing, grows with the
passing years. John Burroughs was such a
man. The ever-increasing number of those
who have applied to Dr. G. Clyde Fisher of
the American Museum for the privilege of
membership in the John Burroughs Memorial
Association is proof that the circle of his
influence has not been narrowed through
death.
The British Association for the Ai>-
\ w< iement of Science will hold its ninety-
first annual meeting at Liverpool, from Sep-
tember 1- to September 19, under the presi-
dency of Professor Sir Ernest Rutherford,
F.R.S. Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn,
to whom an invitation was extended to be
present, expressed deep regret that lie was
unable to accept it .
WATSON B. DICKERMAN
The American Museum lias suffered a greal
loss m t he death of Mr. Watson B. Dickerina n.
one of its patrons. Mr. Dickerman was for
many years greatly interested in trotting
horses and was also a very successful breeder.
Among other famous horses, "Nedda," the
fastest trotting mare on record, was bred and
trained under his care at the Hillandale Farm
near Mamaroneck, Westchester County.
New York. But his interest was by no means
confined to his own farm and stable. After
the death of "Lee Axworthy." Mr. Dicker-
man, recognizing the value of a memorial to
the world's champion trotting stallion, gener-
ously presented to the Museum funds for the
preparation of the skeleton of the great
trotter. As the skeleton is to be mounted in
trotting action, a vast amount of preliminary
study was necessary The Hillendale stable
and private track were placed at the service
of Mr. S. H. Chubb, assistant curator of the
department of comparative anatomy, Ameri-
can Museum, who spent many days there
studying and photographing the horses and
who on the basis of those studies is at present
engaged in making a lifelike mount of the
skeleton of "Lee Axworthy" that will show
the position of every bone of the limbs and
body when the animal is in full trot.
A PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM A. HAIXES
As this issue goes to press, we learn of
the valued gift of a portrait of William A.
Haines, presented to the American Museum
by Miss Emily Somers Haines in fulfillment
of a bequest made by her brother. Further ac-
knowledgment of this important acquisition
will appear in the next issue of Xatural
History.
Since the last issue of Natural History the
following persons have been elected members
of the American Museum, making the total
membership 6904:
Patron: Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt.
Life Member*: Mrs. Elizabeth C. Marmon;
Messrs. H. F. Dunham, William J. Eakins,
J. Watson Webb, and Payne Whitney.
Sustaining Members: Mrs. Phelps Stokes
and Mr. Lawrence B. Van [ngen.
Annual Members: Mesdames Chas. Fleis* h-
mann, William X. Frew, Walter A. Hirsch,
Fritz Kaufmann, Alice A. Miller, E. .1. S:
Tanner, VY. K. Townsend, Albert
V \\i)i:k Veer, Jr., Augustus B.Wadsworth,
Royal Whitman, T. P. Williams, Timothi
S. Williams, \\t» Park M. Woolley; the
Misses Elisabeth S. Crafts, Florencj
Tanenbaum, and Marguerite F. Valen-
tine; Doctors Charles A. Whiting wo
Mi RB] RT 1'.. WlLCOX; MESSRS. WaRREN 1 ).
424
NATURAL HISTORY
Brown, Thomas M. E. Cleary, Bernard M.
Cone, Bernard Heineman, F. L. Higgin-
son, Robert John, S. Dana Kittredge,
Archibald R. Livingston, James F. Sax-
born, Leonard Sullivan, Bertrand L.
Taylor, Ronald Tree, William Pitt
Trimble, Ernest C. Wagner, Edward K.
Warren, Vanderbilt Webb, Warren B. P.
Weeks, and Reginald S. Willis.
Associate Members: Mesdames A. Avert
Bevin, William J. Comstock, B. H. Bris-
tow Draper, Wm. W. Farnam, Herbert
Fordham, Thomas B. Gannett, Wm. E.
Hinchliff, W. D. Hubbard, Elizabeth A.
Keith, Myra R. Knowlton, G. Y. Lansing,
Perctval Lowell, Francis P. Luce, Robert
L. McCarrell, Walter H. Merriam,
Charles W. Merrill, Enos Mills, Homer
Irvin Ostrom, H. K. Pomeroy, Frederick
Henry Prince, Edwin A. Quter, William
Renwick, Austen F. Riggs, Edward S.
Robinson, Morgan Rotch, J. F. Sartori,
John Vincent Singer, George C. Smith,
Joseph Southwick, Frederick Waeir
Stevens, Christian Swartz, F. A. Swezey,
Jack Symington, Henry A. Warner,
Samuel H. Wheeler, and Elsie Ahrens
Zinsmeister; the Misses Jean EL Ai.lke,
Mary J. Armstrong, Katherine Burden,
Elizabeth S. Edwards, Katherine W.
Lane, M. Louise Lane. Emily Lehman, M.
Elizabeth Lester, Elizabeth Oviatt,
Jessie B. Palmer, Harriet B. Pope,
Laura Sargent, C. Tessa Schmidt, A. Mar-
guerite Smith, and Marcta L. Taylor;
Rear-Admiral William A. Marshall;
Judge James A. Lowell; Doctors F. C.
Clark, E. L. Fish, H. A. Greenwood,
Oliver P. Jenkins, Wm. E. Keith, R. L.
Rigdon, W. A. Setchell, Charles P.
Steixmetz, Chas. E. Von Geldern, and
Charles K. Winne, Jr.; Professor John
X. Cobb; Honorable Wm. W. Morrow;
Messrs. Charles H. Adams, Ferrin H.
Alford, J. Burns Allen, Philip E. Angle,
R. C. Baird, H. Bartholomay, Warren T.
Berry, W. X. W. Blayney, W. S. Bliss,
Thomas H. Blocksidge, Robert H. Boh-
mansson, Harry H. Boyden, T. S. Brande-
gee, Daniel Breck, Glen Buck, Frank R.
Cole. C. T. Crocker, William O. Cullen,
Earl Dome, H. E. Duer, Ansel M. Easton,
Willard A. Fox, William H. Gannett, Wm.
W. Gilmore, W. Irving Glover, Robert
M. Griffith, P. C. Hale, J. P. Harris,
W. L. Hathaway, Charles Hein, E. S.
Heller, Wm. F. Herrin, E. L. Hoag, F. P.
Holland, R. C. Huntsberger, W. K.
Kellogg, Ralph King, Arthur S. Knight,
A. W. Koch, Chas. H. Koppelman, B. P.
Leister, W. B. Lewis, John J. Lichter,
Bernhard Liesching, H. S. Lockwood, Wm.
R. Lodge, J. E. E. Markley, Wm. G.
Mather, Byron Mauzy, Henry O. Mead,
George W. Mieth, W. H. Miner, Charles
D. Mitchell, Xoel Morss, N. E. Mullen,
Harry R. Noack, Benj. Olcovich, James L.
Ortega, Clemens Osk amp, BertOstrander,
Hervey Cushman Parke, Walter Peirson,
Jr., Fred S. Plant. F. G. Platt, Willard
Hall Porter, Jr., Ralph W. Potter,
Edward W. Putnam, Fred S. Pyfer,
Henry W. Redfield, Ervin E. Reed, Wm.
M. Regan, Samuel Hill Rhodes, H. H.
Richardson, Wallace H. Robb, Wm. R.
Sanborn, H. T. Scott. J. T. Scott, Edward
W. Shrigley, F. Dreyel Smith, James B.
Smith. Lansing F. Smith, Samuel W. Smith,
Jr., Charles E. Snyder, H. B. Spelman.
Henry Benning Spencer, Robert L.
Spencer, Harry H. Stone, Jr., Geo. H.
Stuart, 3d, Lloyd Tevis, Joseph G. Thorp,
E. E. Tolman, Wm. S. Townsend, Carlisle
B. Tuttle, Xels A. Tuveson, Samuel
Henry Vandergrift, Samuel Vaughan,
George Voigtlander, Lindsay H. Wal-
lace, F. C. W ampler. H. K. W. Welch,
William Henry Wetherill, F. B. Whit-
aker, Hendricks H. Whitman, Richard E.
Williams, Herbert J. Winn, Walter Wood,
and Clinton E. Worden.
NATURAL
Llf 1
D
THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM
DEVOTED TO NATURAL HISTORY,
EXPLORATION, AND THE DEVELOP-
MENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
THROUGH THE MUSEUM
-
"'■ 'mil ii • _.?".-■ - i3t ^^r iiPdk^
A
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1923
[Published October, 1923
Volume XXIII, Number 5
Copyright. 1923. by The Ameriian Museum of Natural History, New York, N V
ATURAL HISTORY
Volume XXIII CONTENTS FOR SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER Number 5
Gorillas — Real and Mythical Carl E. Akeley 428
Recent field observations that disprove the fantastic beliefs long held regarding this animal.
With the only photographs ever obtained of the live gorilla in the wild state, as well as other illustra-
tions in number
When Snakes Share Food, What is the Sequel? B. T. B. Hyde 448
An incident that occurred during feeding time at Kanohwahke Lakes. Palisades Interstate Park
With a picture of the progress of the banquet
Snow Worms E. W. Gudger 450
Enchytrseid worms that live on glaciers
With a photograph <>t the phenomenon
Earthquakes Edmund Otis Hovey 457
Great quakes of historic time, with an account of the causes of these phenomena
The Japanese Earthquake Explained Chester A. Reeds 462
The phenomenon of September 1 as an incident in the process of mountain building along the
coast of Asia
With maps of the locality affected and of the great earthquake belt.- of the world
Louisiana Herons and Reddish Egrets at Home . Alvix R. Cahn 470
A visit to Green Island, off the coast of Texas
With characteristic close-up photographs of the birds and their young, taken by the authoi
Navajo Land William Dory 186
In the hogansand along 'he trail with the Xavajos of our Southwest
Illustrated by portraits (if the Indians and scenes of the region, taken bj the author
Mary Cynthia Dickerson, 1866-192::! 506
Her Life and Personality Maud Slte
Her Unusual Gifts as an Editor . John Oliver LaGorce
Her Studies of Reptiles and Amphibians G. Kingslev Xoble
Her Achievements in Popularizing the Knowledge of Trees and Forestry . . . Barrinoton Moore
Illustrated by a portrait of Miss Dickerson and numerous examples of her unusual skill in nature
photography
Notes. . . 520
Published bimonthly, by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, N. Y.
Subscription price $3.00 a year.
Subscriptions should be addressed to George F. Baker, Jr., Treasurer, American Museum
of Natural History, 77th St. and Central Park West, New York City.
Natural History is sent to all members of the American Museum as one of the privileges of
membership.
Entered as second-class matter April 3, 1919, at the Post Office at New York, New York,
under the Act of August 24, 1912.
Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of
October 3, 1917, authorized on July 15, 1918.
AX OLD silvp:r-backed male
This gorilla, the first to be collected by Mr. Akeley, is mounted for the group that will
find place in the Roosevelt African Hall. He is advancing on all fours — the normal walking
position — with his feet flat on the ground and his hands doubled under so that only the
knuckles touch the trail. The posture and mild facial expression of this gorilla, the first
specimen ever mounted by a man who had actually seen a live gorilla in the wild are in marked
contrast to the erect body and the ferocious aspect of the traditional gorilla of story, of
taxidermy, and of sculpture.
428
Volume XXIII
SEPTEMBER-! )( T( )BER
Number .5
Gorillas — Real and Mythical
By CARL E. AKELEY
IT is ordained that the projected
Roosevelt African hall of the Ameri-
can Museum shall follow the ideals
and customs of modern museum exhibi-
tion. Into it shall go nothing but the
truth. Forty "roups of African mam-
mals and probably two or three times
forty species will be represented in their
natural environment, doing; normal and
natural things. And when we say that
in this great hall only truths aie to be
represented, we are committing our-
selves to an enormous task: for we
mean by such a statement that every
detail in relation to an animal, its
habits, and environment must be care-
fully studied at first hand by the men
who are to prepare and assemble these
groups. A vast amount of toil is
involved in physical preparation, but,
before that work is undertaken, labor
equally great and even more important
will be necessary to correct inaccurate
theories that have persisted about
little-known African animals.
Although, due to the fact that the
gorilla is recognized by many as man's
closest relative, the study of this ape
is perhaps more interesting and more
important than the study of any other
animal, there is no other African beast
that has been the center of so many
tables and superstitions. What Hux-
ley wrote about the world's knowledge
of the real gorilla is almost asapplicable
to the situation today as to that of L863.
In regard to the difficulty of obtaining
sound knowledge respecting the habits
and mode of life of the man-like apes,
he savs:
. . . to the ordinary explorer or collector,
the dense forests of equatorial Asia and Africa,
which constitute the favourite habitation of
the Orang, the Chimpanzee, and the Gorilla,
present difficulties of no ordinary magnitude;
and the man who risks his life by even a short
visit to the malarious shores of those regions
may well be excused if lie shrinks from facing
the dangers of the interior; if he contents
himself with stimulating the industry of the
1 letter seasoned natives, and collecting and
collating the more or less mythical reports and
traditions with which they are too ready to
supply him.
In such a manner most of the earlier ac-
counts of the habits of the man-like Apes
originated; and even now a good deal of what
passes current must be admitted to have no
very safe foundation. The best information
we possess is that, based almost wholly on
direct European testimony, respecting the
Gibbons; the next best evidence relates to
the Orangs; while our knowledge of the habits
of the Chimpanzee and the Gorilla stands
much in need of support and enlargement by
additional testimony from instructed Euro-
pean eye-witnesses.
Nor are the inaccessibility of the
gorilla forests and the persistence of the
myths of an imaginative and superstiti-
ous people the only obstacles to the
progress of the scientist who would
separate the t ruth from the fiction in our
natural history literature. When once
an interesting tale has been well told,
it is likely to become established
through constant reiteration by men
who are merely writers rather than
observers. The naturalist going into
the field to study an animal for the
first time usually has read such writ-
ings and is under the spell of the
erroneous impression that they convey.
When he observes an animal in the
42&
430
NATURAL HISTORY
distance and is unable to distinguish
clearly what it is doing, he naturally
interprets its actions in the light of
the tale he has read. I have known
naturalists who were convinced in this
way that they had observed something
A notable representation of the mythical
gorilla, the bronze by Fremiet. It was sug-
gested by the legend of the abduction of
native women by vicious old male gorillas
which they had not seen at all, and who
then confirmed such natural history
fiction as eyewitnesses. Early tales of
the gorilla, most of them based on
hearsay, have so much in common,
and the reports of more recent explor-
ers duplicate these early accounts in
so many respects, that one is inclined
to feel that writing gorilla stories has
been a game of follow the leader.
Had the American Museum under-
taken to prepare a gorilla group five
years ago, using skins which could be
purchased in the open market, and
planning the group as carefully as
possible in accordance with the accumu-
lated data of the past seventy-five
years, I have an idea that that group
would have had a much greater appeal
to a public thirsting for excitement and
sensation, than the group which will
result from the knowledge recently ac-
quired. Such an imaginary group
would of necessity have shown the
gorilla as a ferocious creature in a
setting of gloomy forest or mysterious
jungle1. There would have been one
specimen in a tree, another walking
erect with a staff or club in one hand,
and pei haps a third beating its breast
with its fists and opening its cavernous
mouth as though roaring with rage.
A house or nest, ingeniously con-
structed somewhere between earth and
sky, would have been required to make
the picture complete. Taking the
records literally, there would have been
justification for depicting an old male
in the act of crushing with his teeth
the barrel of a hunter's gun.
It is not necessary to rely on the
imagination altogether in visualizing
the gorilla as he has long been con-
ceived. The American Museum of
Natural History has been the tempo-
rary custodian of one of the old repre-
sentations so horrible and so realistic
that it would terrorize the very animal
it is supposed to portray. (Be it said to
the credit of the Museum that, when this
statue came into its possession, it was
put away in the basement.) I refer
to the bronze by E. Fremiet, the most
striking sculpture of a gorilla that we
have. It shows a beautifully modeled
animal in the act of bearing away on
his right arm a lovely native woman,
who, by the wa\r, has more of the ear-
marks of a Parisian model than of an
African savage. The gorilla, of course,
is walking erect, on his legs; one hand
clasps his captive, the other hand con-
tains a great rock, which presumably he
is about to throw at his pursuers. Al-
GORILLAS— REAL AND MYTHICAL
431
though they have already succeeded in
lodging a huge arrow in his heart, he
apparently has an abundance of
strength and energy to defy them and
to make away with his prize.
While the number of mounted
gorillas in the museums of the world is
not very great, still many of these mu-
seum specimens are almost as mislead-
ing as Fremiet's bronze.
The gorilla group in Roosevelt
African hall will be a great disappoint-
ment to that portion of the public
which has expected and would prefer
to see the gorilla made as human and as
horrible as the imagination has painted
him, for it will show the gorilla as a
great amiable creature in a setting of
extraordinary beauty. In the group
nothing but facts and truth will be
told — not all the facts nor all the truth,
for additional researches will un-
doubtedly widen our knowledge of this
animal — but the story of the gorilla as
I found him in November, 1921, near
Lake Kivu in the eastern Congo, on the
glorious, forested slopes of the extinct
volcanoes, Mikeno and Karisimbi.
Three weeks with the gorilla is indeed
a short time in which to learn his story.
I do not pretend that my record is
complete; but I was extremely fortu-
nate in my opportunities for observation
and in securing specimens and data.
And to the tale that is told by my group
there will ultimately be added, I hope,
the other ninety-rive per cent of the
gorilla's story.
During the time I spent in the gorilla
forest, I was constantly searching for a
setting to be reproduced for the gorilla
group. In the preparation of a habitat
group, it is always a difficult undertak-
ing to find a setting that is character-
istic and that in addition has those
qualities that contribute to an interest-
ing and attractive composition, one
Map showing the location of the gorilla
country and the route taken by Mr. Akeley
on his recent expedition. Entering Africa at
Cape Town, he traveled northward by rail,
by boat, and on foot into the mountainous
region just north of Lake Kivu, where he
found gorillas
that gives a comprehensive idea of the
country and at the same time requires
the minimum of expense in reproduc-
tion. Until the day that the last old
gorilla was shot I had only the vaguest
notion of what setting I should choose.
It seemed to me that I could find noth-
ing that was adequate. But when the
old male of Karisimbi rolled down a
steep incline, and came to rest against
the base of a great dead tree clothed in
mosses and in the rank growth of tropi-
cal vegetation, through the branches
of which one looked out across a
beautiful forested valley to the gorge-
ous pinnacle of Mikeno on the right and
to the smouldering craters of Nyam-
lagira and Chaninagongo in the dis-
tance, I realized that the old gorilla
had found the setting that 1 sought.
At no time has there been thought of
looking farther. It is a place much
frequented by the gorillas, where some
of their favorite foods grow in abund-
ance and where, their hunger satisfied,
432
XATCRAL HISTORY
The peaks of the gorilla country at sunrise Visoke summit just visible over the left
shoulder of Mikeno (center), and Kirisimbi at the right. The location of the proposed
gorilla sanctuary is marked by this triangle of mountains
they bask lazily in the sunshine of their
little empire.
The old male of Karisimbi will be
shown beating his chest. This attitude
should satisfy those who are loath to
give up the sensational tales of gorillas
until they learn that it does not indi-
cate1 rage or ferocity. It is merely an
expression of curiosity. The animal
has seen a movement in the bushes in
the valley below him and he rises up
and beats his chest and perhaps barks —
for the so-called roar of the gorilla of
the Kivu region, at least, is best
described as a long-drawn-out, throaty
bark. The other male, the first gorilla
that I ever saw alive, will be shown on
all fours in the normal walking attitude.
One hand will be poised, as he hesi-
tates in his advance and looks at the
observer with the expression that he
wore in life — an expression of passive
interest. One old female will be lying
lazily on her back against the base of
the tree. When I came in sight of a
troop that was unconscious of my
presence, some of them were sure to be
loafing about in some such attitude as
this. A second old female, feeding on
the vegetation, and a youngster of about
four years will complete the group.
Before I discuss further the experi-
ences which justify my belief that the
gorilla is a good-tempered beast, who
expresses himself by a bark rather
than a terrifying roar, who touches
the ground with his hands in walking,
and is non-arboreal in his habits, it may
GORILLAS REAL AM) MYTHICAL
433
The summit of Chaninagongo draped in smoke and clouds, viewed from the spot on the
slopes of Karisimbi where the last old male was killed. This silhouette of the extinct
volcano is to be a detail of the painted background for the gorilla group in Roosevelt
African Hall
be well to devote a little space to the
sources of the prevalent conception
which it is my purpose to controvert.
About the close of the sixteenth
century, the story of Andrew Battell,
an English captive of the Portuguese
of Angola, established the idea that
the ferocious beast walked erect,
slept in trees, and was the tenor of
the natives. After a description which
practically identifies his "pongo" as
the gorilla, Battell says:
He differeth not from a man but in his legs;
for they have no calfe. I lee goeth alwaies
upon his legs, and carrieth his hand.- clasped
in the nape of his necke when he goeth upon
the ground. They sleep in t he I rees, and build
shelters for the raine. They feed upon fruit
that they find in the woods, and upon nuts.
for they eate no kind of fiesh. They cannot
speake, and have no understanding more than
a beast. The people of the countrie. when they
travaile in the woods make fires where they
sleepe in the night and in the morning when
they are gone, the Pongees will come and sit
about the fire till it goeth out: for they have
no understanding to lay the wood together.
They goe many together and kill many negroes
that travaile in the woods. Many times they
fall upon thi' elephants that come to \'vv<\
where they be, and so U-ate them with their
clubbed fists, and pieces of wood, that the\
will run roaring away from them. Those
Pongoes are never taken alive because t hey arc
so strong, that ten men cannot hold one of
them; l>ut yet they take many of their young
ones with poison arrowes.
Battell's uncomplimentary opinion
of the gorilla was widely disseminated
through the exaggerated translation of
436
NATURAL HISTORY
it that appeared in 1748 in Buff on's
Histoire generate des Voyages. In view
of the fact that habits of the chimpanzee
have frequently been attributed to the
gorilla, it may be well to note that this
book regards pongoes, jockos (chim-
panzees), and orangs as a single species.
The account of an African mission-
ary, Dr. Thomas S. Savage, based on
skulls and information given him by
the natives of the Gaboon region,
appeared in the Boston Journal of
Natural History in December, 1847.
After giving a substantially accurate
description of the gorilla's mode of
progress on all fours, he adds that it is
"said to be much inclined " to the walk-
ing posture. He speaks of their '"dwell-
ings" made of a few sticks and Leafy
branches supported by the crotches
and limbs of trees, and of their exceed-
ing ferocity and their habit of always
taking the offensive. The native
testimony which he records in the fol-
lowing paragraph has probably in-
spired in part at least the mounting
of more than one ugly museum speci-
men.
It is said that when the male is first seen he
gives a terrific veil that resounds far and wide
through the forest, something like kh-ah!
kh-ah! prolonged and shrill. His enormous
jaws are widely opened at each expiration, his
under lip hangs over the chin, and the hairy
ridge and scalp i< contracted upon the brow,
presenting an aspect of indescribable fero-
city. The females and young at the first cry
quickly disappear; he then approaches the
enemy in great fury, pouring out his horrid
cries in quick succession. The hunter
awaits his approach with his gun extended; if
his aim is not sure he permits the animal to
grasp the barrel and as he carries it to his
mouth (which is his habit ) he fires; should the
gun fail to go off, the barrel (that of an ordi-
nary musket, which i< t bin I is crushed between
his teeth, and the encounter soon proves
fatal to the hunter.
It was Doctor Savage who first
gave the Enge-ena the name "gorilla,"
wisely avoiding the misused term
pongo.
There is a striking similarity between
the account of Doctor Savage and that
given five years later before the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila-
delphia by Mr. Ford, another visitor to
the Gaboon. Even the episode of the
animal's crushing the musket between
his teeth is repeated by Mr. Ford,
although he discredits the stories of
elephant-driving and house-building as
tales told to children by the natives.
He does not pretend to have seen a
gorilla's attack, but he describes the
animal in vivid terms as he makes his
onset, "with his crest erect and pro-
jected forward, his nostrils dilated, and
his under-lip thrown down, at the same
time uttering his characteristic yell,
designed, it would seem, to terrify his
antagonist."
The intrepid little French-American.
Paul Du Chaillu, was the first white
hunter to kill a gorilla. The account of
his adventures appeared in print at
that stage in the history of tales of
travel when publishers, like the motion
picture producers of today, feared to
rely upon the unadorned truth to hold
the public's interest. We have it on
good authority, that the narrative was
twice rewritten before his editors con-
sidered that it had sufficient popular
appeal. His stories are the type that
small boys carry away to the attic to
devour on rainy afternoons. They are
still occasionally read and they have
done much to perpetuate the first
erroneous reports of the gorilla.
Familiar with the gorillas's reputation
for evil, Du Chaillu naturally enough
ran the whole gamut of emotions as he
approached his first encounter. That
passage from his book which at first
reading is most damaging evidence
against the great ape. appears as a
< iORI L LA S—REA L A N I) MYTHK A L
437
harmless recital when all the words and
phrases that apply to the hunter's
state of mind are dropped out. In
spite of their fame as offensive war-
riors, the first gorillas surprised by Du
Chaillu fled into the deep forest. The
hunters pursued until they were ex-
hausted but. "the alert beasts made
good their escape." And the ''charge"
of his old male was proceeding hesitat-
ingly, step by step, when Du Chaillu 's
gun interrupted it.
Although most of the reports of
gorillas have been from the west coast,
there had come to me considerable cor-
roboration of the rumors that there
were also gorillas in the Lake Kiwi
country of Central Africa. Before I
left Africa in 1911, a report reached me
that a man named Grauer had come
out of the Kivu region with eight
gorilla skins. Before my departure for
the Kivu country in 1921, I received a
letter from Mr. C. D. Foster, who had
killed a male and a female and taken
a baby on Mt. Mikeno. Prince Vil-
helm of Sweden had hunted here, also,
and Mr. T. Alexander Barnes was in
the Kivu country hunting gorillas for
the British Museum when we entered
it.
At the time of my departure I had
heard little of what these present-day
hunters had to say of the Kivu gorilla,
but I had never accepted the accounts
of the Gaboon gorilla's ferocity. Hav-
ing seen the "follow the leader" game
played in the ease of other animal
stories by fellow naturalists in my own
time, it was not difficult for me to dis-
regard early accounts and enter upon
my study of the gorilla with an open
mind. If I was prejudiced at all when
I entered the Kivu country in the fall
of 1921, that prejudice was decidedly
in favor of the gorilla. Basing my
theory upon my observations of the
habits of the other apes and upon
my general belief in the good temper
of unmolested wild animals, I was pre-
pared to find in him a decent and ami-
able creature. I was not disappointed.
I saw no indication that the gorilla
is in the least aggressive or that he
would fight even on just provocation.
I have trailed him through his jungles,
come on him at very close quarters,
and shot him without seeing the slight-
est intimation on his part of an inten-
tion to start a fight. The first gorilla
that I ever saw alive was a lone old
male, who might have been expected
to show some war-like spirit if that had
been a characteristic of his tribe. I
saw his face — ugly and wrinkled, but
mild and gentle — across the valley
and caught a glimpse of his gray back
as he went over a log and up the slope
through dense vegetation. When 1
finally overtook him, I was first aware
of his presence by his guttural bark.
He was crouching motionless thirty
feet away in the death-like silence of
the sun-lit morning. There was no
"devil's tattoo" of chest beating; no
threat of a charge — although, had he
been inclined to charge, he had merely
to drop down on us. He barked four
times. My shot cut his fourth bark
short. So ended my first gorilla hunt .
It had been a thrilling experience, but
thrilling because of tradition rather
than because of fact.
Those who have maligned the1 goril-
la's good name have cited his "strange,
discordant, half-human, devilish cry"
and his beating of his chest "with his
huge fists till it resounded like an im-
mense bass drum," as his modi's of
offering defiance. In my opinion both
of these habits have been misinter-
preted. The only way I can describe
the utterance of a gorilla is as a
hoarse, gutteral, prolonged bark. It
438
X ATI' HAL HISTORY
_ ^
Enlargements from Mr. Akeley"s motion
pictures, the first pictures of any kind ever
taken of live, wild gorillas. Although the
animals were aware of Mr. Akeley's pres-
ence, they paid little attention to him, the
old female even settling herself comfortably
in the crotch of the tree as if to go to sleep.
The bottom picture shows two of the goril-
las with clasped hands, as the old one helps
the youngster to descend. The gently slop-
ing trunk on which the gorillas were perched
when Mr. Akeley photographed them, was
no more than ten feet from the ground
has no resemblance whatever to a roar
and there is no resonance in the sound.
T doubt if on a perfectly still day it
could be heard for more than half a
mile. In some cases it is a warning
signal to the rest of the band; in others,
it is an inquiring challenge addressed to
the invader of his domain and has some
such implication as the words, "Who
are you? What are you doing here?''
I was keen to sec1 a gorilla beat his
chest ami was fortunate not only in
witnessing this action, but also in
making a motion picture record of it.
In this motion picture the female is
shown in the crotch of a leaning tree,
to which she had ascended with her
two youngsters to get a better view of
me. At a time when they were all but
indifferent to my presence (although I
was in plain sight), she suddenly rose
up and beat her chest; then immedi-
ately dropped down again. A moment
later she was making herself com-
fortable with the apparent intention of
going to sleep if her youngsters would
let her. One of the youngsters rose up
on his legs two or three times, each time
striking his chest once and, as he went
down again, hitting the log once or
twice with his hands. They made no
vocal sounds and I could not hear the
beating of the chest from where I
stood operating the motion-picture
camera, at a distance of perhaps two
hundred feet. There was no wind to
carry sound either to or from me. The
beating of the chest is a nervous ex-
pression of curiosity, the equivalent
of which we find in the actions of many
of the smaller apes and monkeys, such
as their habit of beating the ground or
their perch with their hands or feet,
while they are perhaps making vocal
sounds.
The natives of this region have no
fear of the gorilla. They wander
(iORILLAS—REAL AND MYTHICAL
439
through the gorilla country to collect
firewood and, during the dry season,
pasture their cattle on the open places
in the gorilla forest. We found fresh
gorilla tracks on the fresh trail of a herd
of cattle. Some of my guides and my
gun bearer were trappers and hunters in
the gorilla forests and were thoroughly
familiar with them. At no time did
the guides or gun boys show any indica-
tion of anything more than casual
interest even when we approached very
close to gorillas. In direct contrast to
the behavior of natives on the elephant
trail where they are terrified when un-
protected by the rifle of the bwana, the
gun boy who went with me on the
gorilla hunt would hand me the gun as
we were getting near a band and would
go in front of me unarmed, cutting the
nettles out of the way or clearing a
path. Then, when he thought I might
want to shoot, he would lie down on
the ground in front of me. With dan-
gerous game you can depend on your
boys' dropping behind you, where they
are ready to lead the retreat, if retreat
becomes necessary. At no time did I
see a gorilla move with a rapidity that
would suggest the possibility of his
overtaking a man in a fair race. The
lumbering creatures with their com-
paratively short legs are not built for
speed.
While I am certain that normally the
gorilla is a perfectly amiable, good-
natured creature who would not look
for trouble, yet I am willing to concede
that in regions where he is more or less
in competition with the natives for
food, and where he is constantly har-
rassed in his efforts to fight hunger,
an old male might occasionally become
what may be called a "bad gorilla."
No doubt from his standpoint a raid on
the native gardens is justified, for so far
as he knows the food in these gardens is
just as much his as the natives'. Now
and then under such conditions a gorilla
becomes conscious of his superior
strength and may naturally enough
grow bold and aggressive. And it is
hard to imagine a more formidable
opponent than an enraged gorilla.
The strength of his arms, as one may
judge from the measurements, is
tremendous. This strength, backed by
the great weight of his short coupled
body, would make it useless for an
antagonist to struggle against him in
a hand-to-hand encounter.
Very few gorillas have been weighed.
Mr. T. Alexander Barnes, a thoroughly
dependable and thoroughly honest ob-
M'Gulu, a guide of the gorilla country,
with one of the knives used by the natives
in clearing away the nettles or cutting a
path through the dense undergrowth of
the gorilla forests. Progress is slow where
such paths must be made
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GORILLAS— REAL AND MYTHICAL
441
server in describing a large male from
the Kivu which has been mounted by
Rowland Ward and Company, states
that its weight was approximately 450
pounds. The weight is frankly esti-
mated. As a matter of fact, the mea-
surements of Mr. Barnes' gorilla are
somewhat smaller than those of the
old male of Karisimbi. which actually
weighed 360 pounds. In another case,
700 pounds was alleged to be the weight
of a gorilla, the skeleton of which was a
little smaller than our Karisimbi male.
At least we have a standard now to go
by — the measurements of the skeleton
of the Karisimbi male and its actual
weight. They are given below:
Height
5 feet, 7)4 inche*
Weight
360 pounds
Chest
62 inches
Upper arm
IS inches
Reach
97 inches
Calf
XoYa inches
We are in the habit of speaking of
the gorilla's long arms, but it is more
accurate to say that his spinal column
and his legs are short. Certainly, be-
cause of the greater correlation in the
development of arms and chest, the
length of the arm should be considered
in relation to the thorax rather than to
the spinal column. From the arm and
chest measurements of man and of the
gorilla, it appears that the gorilla's arm
is relatively shorter than man's.
Fables of the capture of women by
old males who carry them off to their
fastnesses in the forest have long been
circulated as evidence of the gorilla's
strength and ferocity. Those tales are
as legendary as the fable of the ostrich
that hides its head in the sand and be-
lieves that it has concealed its entire
body, or of the elephant thai fears the
mouse because it might rim up his
nose. There is about as much induce-
ment for a mouse to run up an ele-
phant's trunk as to make his way up a
fire hose when the stream is turned on
with full force. "The silly stories
about their [the gorillas] carrying off
women from the native towns," wrote
Doctor Savage, ". . . have origin in the
marvelous accounts, given by the
natives to credulous traders." Eduard
Reichenow thinks this fiction may have
had its origin in an attack on a planta-
tion, where food is competed for and
where women do the agricultural work.
Contrary to popular theory, the
gorilla is not a tree-living animal.
Those already described as beating
their chests before the motion-picture
camera, were the only ones that any
member of our party saw off the ground .
On that occasion, one of the two young-
sters climbed a nearly upright tree to a
height of about ten feet. (As I write,
there are three small boys at an equally
great height in an upright locust tree
just outside my window.) A few
seconds later this first gorilla youngster
joined the old female and the other
baby in a second tree, the trunk of
which slanted so that a dog could easily
have run up it. Most of the tree trunks
were so covered by moss and other
vegetation that they would surely carry
the marks if gorillas were in the habit of
climbing them, but I saw no indication
anywhere of trees having been climbed
by gorillas. It is difficult to convince
oneself that these heavy, rather slug-
gish creatures are any more arboreal
than man, and I do not believe that they
are. Mr. T. Alexander Barnes bears
me out in this belief. In the Wonder-
land of the Eastern Congo, he writes,
. . . they never sleep in trees but pre-
fer to make a nest or shelter on the
ground. . . Judging from my observa-
tion it may be said that they scarcely
ever climb trees and moreover are not
partial to fruits and nuts, preferring to
442
NATURAL HISTORY
feed on grass herbage and bamboo
leaves." Reichenow admits that the
gorilla to a greater extent than the
chimpanzee is a stranger to tree-living ;
that he nests always on the level of the
ground; that, if he climbs for food or
at the approach of danger, ho must
come down the trunk he ascends, inas-
much as he cannot swing from one tree
to another.
I cannot corroborate the evidence of
these two hunters that nests are occa-
sionally built by bending over young
bamboos or other branches and weav-
ing them together to form a springy
platform. In no case did I see such a
bed. There were many nests, sonic-
times as many as eight or ten in a
group, some of them protected by the
overhanging vegetation of a great tree
trunk, while others were scattered
about in the open. However, the}- con-
sisted merely of a hollowed-out spot
where the gorilla had lain. The beds
were constructed in the simplest pos-
sible manner wherever the gorilla de-
cided to spend the night by drawing
together whatever of leaves or debris
happened to be within his arm's reach.
Apparently none of the nests had been
used more than once, as they almost
invariably contained droppings that
had not been trampled on or lain on.
Perhaps the fact that the gorillas
always sleep in fresh, clean beds is one
of the reasons that they are so splen-
didly healthy and absolutely free from
parasites, external or internal.
There has been a fairly general
agreement among naturalists as to the
fact that the gorilla progresses on all
tours, but the three-and-a-half-centurv
A gorilla bed on the floor of the forest, made by drawing together the grasses, leaves.
and debris that lay easily within arm's reach. Mr. Akeley observed many of these rude
beds, frequently at the bases of trees from the mossy trunks of which trailed hanging vege-
tation sometimes screened the sleeping place
GORILLAS— REAL AND MYTHICAL
443
old fiction that he is much inclined to
the erect posture1 is still popularly
accepted. In spite of the fact that he
seems to be evolving toward a two-
legged animal, his body leans forward
at an angle of less than 45 degrees and
his hands touch the ground as he walks.
His feet are placed squarely on the heel,
bearing most of his great weight, but
his fingers are doubled back so that
only the knuckles touch the trail.
As a matter of fact, the gorilla cannot
straighten the fingers unless the wrist
sufficient to loosen their grasp. This
peculiar characteristic, a legacy of his
arboreal lite, is probably a great aid to
him as he grasps roots and branches in
the tortuous ascent of a steep hillside.
I saw all told from twenty-five to
thirty gorillas and got no hint that they
ever progress except on all fours. Even
when in going away from me they
stopped to look back, they remained on
all fours. The only occasion on which
we saw gorillas in any other attitude
was that recorded in my motion pic-
Plaster easts of gorilla hands and foot, made in the field when the speeimens were taken.
To the left are the hand and foot of a female. Note especially the development of the heel
and the position of the big toe. The clenched fist to the right is that of the larger male
is bent. When the wrist is straight, as
in the act of walking, the fingers auto-
matically close like the claw of a bird
when it settles on a perch. The pre-
served carcass of a young gorilla was
brought back to the studio for refer-
ence and study. As a result of treat-
ment, the whole muscular system of
this preserved specimen is now more
relaxed than it was when freshly killed.
but even in its present condition, the
weight of the body as it hangs with the
fingers hooked over ;i support is not
tures. when the female and the young-
ster rose for an instant and beat their
chests. It is difficult to imagine one of
these bulky animals making progress in
an upright position on his compara-
tively weak legs. and. if he ever doe- so,
it must be with no more ease or grace
than a heavily built trained dog would
exhibit in making a similar attempt.
One could scarcely expect to find an
animal adapted for walking erect in
that mountainous region: indeed, in
that country of precipitous ascent-
444
NATURAL HISTORY
The lone male of Karisimbi, the gorilla shot by Mr. H. E. Bradley, one of Mr. Akeley's
companions. In spite of the animal's great strength and his 360 pounds, he offered no de-
fiance when attacked
through dense underbrush, man him-
self is frequently forced to drop on all
fours in order to make any progress on
the gorilla trail.
It is not strange that the average in-
dividual pictures the gorilla walking
jauntily on two feet. The earliest
wood-cuts showed him standing erect
and cyclopedias and natural histories
have continued to represent him in
that way. One of the worst and most
recent offenses is to be found in J. A.
Thomson's Outline of Science, where a
colored plate shows a gorilla with a
horribly ferocious face walking freely
erect. Hseckel in his Anthropogenic
published a plate of a gorilla skeleton
side by side with that of a man and in
the same posture. Museums have
mounted skeletons in similar fashion
up to the present day. This practice is
justified inasmuch as the unnatural
pose is for purposes of comparison, but
unfortunately the visual image of such
skeletons remains in the popular mind
long after the explanation accompany-
ing them is forgotten.
The death masks of my five gorillas
are a priceless record. The first old
male, one female, and the youngster
were killed on a ridge of Mt. Mikeno and
they bear unmistakable resemblances
to one another. The other male and
female, killed on the slopes of Kari-
GORILLAS— REAL AND MYTHICAL
445
simbi, likewise resemble each other,
but their physiognomies are totally
different from those of the Mikeno
specimens. The feeding grounds of
these two ridges were separated by :i
valley, which the gorillas were con-
stantly crossing back and forth. The
suggestion therefore is obvious even
from this slight amount of material
that the gorillas live in family groups
with a tendency to interbreed.
Both of the males in the group were
lone males at the time we came up
with them. There was a considerable
band — how many I do not know — on
the occasion of the photographing of
the female and the two youngsters.
All the others remained out of sight in
the vegetation beneath the slanting
tree and, although, after completing
the picture, I followed them for a
considerable distance, catching occa-
Death masks of the five gorillas. Although a great part of their interest lies in the indi-
viduality of each countenance, there is marked ''family" resemblance in the faces of the
Mikeno gorillas (upper left and two lower left), and also in the faces of the Kirisimbi speci-
mens (upper and lower right)
A tangle of tropical vegetation of low growth and splendid trees on the western slope of
Mount Mikeno, a typical view of the dense and beautiful forests of the gorilla country
Mr. Akeley's gorilla camp, — the skins in th? foreground, the skeletons on the rack, and
the preserved body of the young gorilla suspended from the ridge pole of the tent
GOEILL AS—REAL AND MYTHICAL
44;
sional glimpses of them. I saw no male.
On the last day in the forest, I set out
with the idea of securing one more
specimen. Doubting whether it would
be legitimate to use the two males
already secured in a single group, I
wanted to obtain another female in
order to have a pair in excess. We
found the fresh track of a single old
male, which we followed up the slope
through the bamboos, and when we
finally came up with him, there were in
addition to a number of females and
youngsters at least two, and I believe
three, other old gray-backed males in
the troop. There were three in sight at
one time and I am fairly certain that I
saw a fourth disappear. I realized on
the instant that it was perfectly legiti-
mate to use two old males in my group.
There was no valid excuse for killing
another gorilla. And so. instead of
firing my gun. I took the final shot with
the motion-picture camera as the troop
disappeared over the top of a ridge.
Altogether I saw six or seven males at
distances varying from ten to three
hundred yards and no one of them
stood erect and beat his breast.
After my first expedition into the
gorilla country. I am more convinced
than ever not only that the gorilla is
one of the most fascinating and im-
portant objects of study in the realm
of natural history, but also that his
disposition is such as to permit the
most intimate observation of his habits.
A few days in the gorilla country and
one instinctively falls into the way of
referring to this amiable giant as "he"
in the human sense. A few weeks of
casual acquaintance and one is fired
with a desire to ferret out the answers
to a hundred questions about this little-
known relative of man — questions of
increasing importance to scientists and
physicians in their efforts to under-
stand and aid man himself. Probably
no other project of so moderate a size
is likely to lead to such immediate
and valuable scientific results as that
which will make of the Kivu region a
sanctuary, where the gorillas under
the protection of man may grow
more and more accustomed to human
beings and where through a series
of years they may be observed and
studied.
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When Snakes Share Food, What is the Sequel?
By B. T. B. HYDE
Educational Dire tor, Kanohwahke Scout Camps, Palisades Interstate Park
AN unusual exhibition of an odd trait in snakes occurred the summer of
I \ 1922 at the Boy Scout Camp Museum, Kanohwahke Lakes, in the
Palisades Interstate Park. One day when toads were being fed to a
number of garter snakes, it was observed that one of the smaller snakes
seized a toad by its right hind leg, about the same time that a much larger
snake decided to begin upon the head of the toad; and not to be left out (as it
proved) another small garter snake took possession of the left hind leg.
All three were thus feeding from different directions toward a common center,
and presently the largest snake had the original meal and its attendant ban-
queters well down inside him for a distance of about ten inches. At that
juncture I was able to secure the photograph that is reproduced on the
opposing page. A few moments after the picture was taken, for some reason —
perhaps too much action inside the devourer-in-chief — the two disappearing
members of the triumvirate emerged again, the original claimant still attached
to the toad and as intent as ever upon securing his well-earned repast.
Although it is unusual to find as many as two snakes passing simultane-
ously into another, it is an observation cited by many that when two snakes
are engaged in feeding upon the same creature, one of them often swallows
the rival claimant as well as the prey. Mr. F. W. Fitzsimmons, for instance,
in his exhaustive study of the snakes of South Africa, reports several experi-
ences with captive snakes in the snake park attached to the Port Elizabeth
Museum and tells how at feeding time when two snakes attack the same live
animal, the one whose jaws work the more rapidly, keeps on drawing in both
the original food and ultimately the other snake. Snake number two seems
not to realize the situation and makes no attempt to disgorge; it maintains
its hold on the prey and passes into its rival, even though it be the more aggres-
sive of the two, and through its struggles causes the larger snake to be folded back
and forth. At times, however, the victimized snake, when part way down its
captor, makes its presence felt so forcibly that it is ejected.
The fact that a snake will maintain its hold on its prey and pass with it
literally into the jaws of death, is explainable on the ground that when
the swallowing process has commenced, a mechanical continuation of it appar-
ently follows. The muscular action once started may be beyond the control
of the snake, unless some physical hurt or distraction results in an act of
disgorging. A snake that shares a feast with another and in the course of the
banquet devours its fellow, passes from frog skin, or in more extreme cases
from hair or fur, to snake skin without giving evidence of any interruption of
the swallowing process. Perhaps it is unaware of the change of substance or
does not permit such distinctions to interfere with its preoccupation, or
again it may be thai it cannot check the action that has been started.
149
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SNOW WORMS ON THE SNOW
The surface of snow shown is only a small patch in a continuous white stretch more than
a quarter of a mile in extent over which the worms were thickly strewn. This photograph was
made about June 1. 1907. in a pass on the slopes of Mount Olympus, Washington, and is re-
produced herein through the kindness of Mr. Asahel Curtis of Seattle
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ENCHYTRJBID WORMS FOUND IN THE SNOW AND OX THE GLACIERS OF
HIGH MOUNTAINS
By E. W. GUDGER
Associate in Ichthyology, American Museum
IN the spring of 1922, a lecture on the
scenic grandeur of our Pacific
Northwest was given at the Ameri-
can Museum. I had heard that the
picture which forms the frontispiece of
this article was to be shown under the
designation "snow eels." At that time
I was collecting data for an article1 on
"Rains of Fishes," and from what I
had heard about this picture, I thought
that these "eels" must have been
rained down. I attended the lecture
and met the speaker. Although this
gentleman could give me no first-hand
information, he told me that he had
secured the slide from Mr. Asahel
( hirtis of Seattle, and that he under-
stood that the phenomenon it re-
corded was not of uncommon occur-
rence on the snows of the mountains of
Oregon and Washington. I at once
got into communication with Mr.
Curtis, who in answering my letter sent
me a copy of the photograph, with
permission to reproduce it in an article.
He also authorized me to make use of
the data which he gave me. He wrote
as follows:
I made this photograph in 1907 on Dodwell-
Rixon Pass, elevation 5200 feet. This pass is
;it the headwaters of the Elwha and the
Queets [rivers] near Mount Olympus. It was
taken about June 1, hut there was still a
greal deal of snow in the mountains. We
had traveled fur a distance of at least two
miles over the snow in coming up to the pass
and on the Queets side there were miles of
snow fields. We had no way of knowing the
exact depth of snow on the pass, but from my
later experiences I should judge thai it was
aliout t went v or t hirt y feel dec]).
Sec Natch w. Bistori , November-Deci mber, 1921,
pp. 607- 1!'.
On first going through the pass, we either
did not notice the eels or they were not there,
but on returning, something like an hour and a
half later, we threaded our way through them
for more than a quarter of a mile, and prac-
tically all of the way they were strewn as
thickly as they are shown in the photo-
graph. I had been walking along for several
minutes before it occurred to me that I should
take a picture of them. We had been having
a hard day's trip and we were all very anx-
ious to make camp as we were quite tired.
Therefore, we did not relish the thought of
unpacking the camera, but the incident was
such that I thought I would do so neverthe-
less. The next time I saw the eels was in
the same valley on Humes Glacier, which
comes down from the eastern crags of
Mount Olympus. This was in August, 1907,
and they were swimming in the pools of ice
water on top of the glacier. There was a
report in one of the Seattle papers that a man
from Alaska brought some down with him
and he seemed to think that they were
peculiar to Alaska, but they have been re-
ported to me from various parts of the state
of Washington.
I then wrote Mr. Curtis, pointing-
out that eels have fins and are fish and
that they could have reached the snow
fields only by the aid of whirlwinds and
storms. He thereupon sent a second
letter explaining that these were not
true "eels" but were small worms
somewhat resembling angle worms.
He suggested that I write1 Mi-. Grant
W. Humes at Harrisville, New York,
who had been his companion on the
trip referred to. Mr. Humes, in reply
to my letter, gave me the following
very clear-cut accounl :
The creature in question IS doubtless :i
worm. It is of tiny dimensions, only aboul
five-eighths of an inch long and perhaps one-
sixtv-fourth of an inch in diameter and is
452
NATURAL HISTORY
shaped much like an eel, which is quite likely
the reason that it has been called so by one or
more persons who have photographed these
creatures. The worms are always jet black
in color and have been observed many times
by the writer in a certain pass 5400 feet in
altitude — always upon the snow and in count-
less thousands, perhaps millions. ... As
to where they come from or their purpose on
that vast snow field, I have no substantial
idea.
The name of Mr. W. Montelius
Price of Seattle, another companion
of this trip, was also given me by Mr.
Curtis. A letter to him brought the
kind reply that from the point at which
the photograph was taken the snow
field, probably varying from twenty-
five to one hundred feet in depth,
extended out about one-half mile,
there to meet the earth and rocks of
the mountain-side. This snow field
was covered with the small black
worms and several birds were flying
about and regaling themselves by
feeding on them.
This matter struck me as being most
extraordinary and I thought that I
had chanced upon a brand new thing,
a phenomenon absolutely unknown
hitherto — but I was soon undeceived.
On looking into the literature I found
that this bizarre thing had been known
for many years. The best account of it
is that given in 1899 by Dr. J. Percy
Moore of the University of Pennsyl-
vania from specimens studied in 1897. 1
His materia] had been collected by Mr.
Henry G. Bryant upon the snow fields
of the Malaspina Glacier, Alaska, in
1897. Doctor Moore quotes from Mr.
Bryant's notes as follows:
The snow-worms were first observed a few
hundred yards from our first camp, on the
edge of the snow mantle of the glacier, which
at this time (June 17) extended to within a
1Moore, J. Percy, "A Snow-Inhabiting Enchytrseid
{Mesenchytreeus solifugus Emery) Collected by Mr.
Henry G. Bryant on the Malaspina Glacier, Alaska."
Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Science/:, Phila-
delphia. 1899, Vol. LI, pp. 125-44.
few miles of the terminal face of the glacier.
By the first of August this snow mantle, which
in places was six or seven feet in depth, had
entirely disappeared, exposing the hard, com-
pact ice of the glacier. The elevation of the
first snow-camp referred to was 520 feet above
sea level. Here but few specimens of the
worms were noted. At our second camp on
the snow (elevation 1,260 feet), they were
quite abundant in places, as also at our next
camp (elevation 1,580 feet), where their
presence in large numbers irregularly dis-
persed presented the appearance of blotches of
coarse dust on the snow. Our base-camp was
on a small expanse of snow-free ground on
the south slope of a range of foothills abutting
on the main range at an altitude of 1,750
feet. A few worms were observed on the
adjacent snow of the main glacier, at a some-
what lower elevation; but I do not recall
seeing any representatives of this species on
any of our excursions in the upper snow
fields of the region.
During the month of June and early part
of July, while the snow is comparatively dry,
they appear about four o'clock in the after-
noon on the surface and move sluggishly
about, their dark color being quite conspicu-
ous against the white background. They
remain on the surface during the night; but
when the sun appears in the morning they
again burrow into the snow. They were
widely distributed over the entire snow-field
of the glacier, diminishing in numbers toward
the edges. There was no uniformity in their
dispersion. We did most of our sledging at
night, and frequently passed stretches of
snow several hundred yards in extent without
noticing any specimens, and then would come
to irregularly defined areas which seemed to
support colonies of them, where the snow
showed shadowy, dustlike patches caused by
their presence in considerable numbers. As
showing their sensitiveness to heat, I fre-
quently observed their active wriggling as
soon as a piece of snow containing them was
taken in the hand. Later in the season, when
the melting is further advanced and the snow
saturated with moisture, the worms appear to
become more active, and can be observed
moving about in the shallow pools and lakelets
which form on the surface of the glacier.
When the snow entirely disappeared and
the hard ice surface of the glacier appeared,
the snow-worms were observed in the wrater
which formed in the narrow crevasses. In
SNOW WORMS
453
my notes of August 2, I find the following:
''Collected some black worms to-day in a
crack of the glacier — found them in the
water of a high, narrow crevasse. Observed
them on the edge of the submerged snow at a
depth of five feet below the surface."
However, the publication of Mr.
Bryant's notes and Doctor Moore's
careful study of the worms had been
antedated by Mr. Carlo Emery,1 who
had briefly described material collected
on the Malaspina by Dr. Filippo De
Filippi of the party of the Duke of the
Abruzzi during the same summer. But
his account of the habitat of the worms
is merely incidental and is wholly
lacking in the fullness of data found in
the accounts of Mr. Bryant and Mr.
Curtis.
Two years later Mr. Emery pub-
lished a fuller account2 of these worms,
based on Filippi's notes. Filippi
found that they appeared in the morn-
ings and afternoons, on foggy days
staying later in the mornings and ap-
pearing earlier in the afternoons, but
were never seen near midday. On bright
sunny days Filippi dug as low as fifty
centimeters (about twenty inches) in
the snow without finding any.
But Emery's account of snow worms
on the Malaspina is, in its turn, ante-
dated by a description published in
1893 by Dr. Israel C. Russell,3 who
had conducted an expedition to that
glacier in 1891. Doctor Russell's
brief note is as follows:
In the early morning before the sunlight
touched the snow its surface was literally
covered with small, slim black worms, about
an inch long, and having a remarkably snake-
'Emery, Carlo. "Diagnosi di un nuoyo genere o
auovaspe iedi Annellidi della f amiglia degli Enchytrasi-
dse." Atti Reale Accademia Lincei, Serie Quinta. Roma,
L898. Rendiconti, Vol. VII (1st. sem ), pp. 110-11. —
" Sur un Oligoehete noir <!<■* glaciers de 1' Alaska."
Bull. Soc. Zool. Suisse, Geneve, 1898.
'-'Emery, Carlo. "On Melanenchytra us solifugus"
(In Filippo De Filippi: The Ascent of Mount St. Bliaa
ij //. R. If. Prince Luigi Ami deo di Savoia, Duke of (hi
Abruzzi. London, 1900, p. 224).
'Russell, Israel C. "Second Expedition to Ml. Saint
Eliasin 1891." IS. Ann. Rcpt. I. S. (i,;,l. Sun; a IVH
'•_', Washington, 1893, Pt. II. Geology, p. 33.
like appearance. These creatures were
wiggling over the snow in thousands, but as
soon as the sun rose and made its warmth
felt they disappeared beneath the surface.
They are not seen when the temperature is
above freezing.
Doctor Russell further stated in a
personal letter to Doctor Moore that
he had seen similar worms on the snow
fields of Mt. Ranier. Washington,
thus antedating Mr. Curtis' interesting
observation near Mount Olympus,
Washington. Doctor Russell's note
is the earliest record for the Malaspina,
but is not the first record for a glacier.
Dr. G. F. Wright1 in describing the
Muir Glacier in 1887, notes the inter-
esting phenomenon that "In the
shallower enclosures on the surface [of
the ice of the glacier] containing water
and a little dirt, worms about as large
around as a small knitting needle and
an inch long are abundant."
All this is apparently very novel,
but it turns out that an essentially
identical habit of a worm of the same
group had been recorded still earlier.
These accounts, dating back to 1884.
may be briefly summarized.
In 1884, there was submitted to the
celebrated naturalist, Joseph Leidy, a
small vial filled with water obtained by
melting some natural ice which had
been gathered for domestic use from a
mill pond in Delaware County, Penn-
sylvania, and in the minute debris at
the bottom of the vial were some small
worms alive. Next year another
sample of water from melted ice was
sent him from Morristown, Xew Jersey,
but the worms wore dead. However,
on Leidy 's request, his correspondent
sent him a basket of this natural ice.
When this ice, which contained a
number of air bubbles and water
drops, was melted, there were found
•Wright, (!. Frederick. "The Muir Glacier." Amer
Journ. .Set'., 1887. 3. Ser., Vol. XXXIII, p. 5.
454
NATURAL HISTORY
in the water quite a number of small,
living, actively moving worms. These
were earth-inhabiting oligochaete
worms, which had probably been
caught and imprisoned in the air
bubbles when freezing took place.
Leicly comments significantly upon the
fact that in the ice they were alive and
active, but that they died, presumably
of warmth, when the ice was converted
into water.1
In the summer of 1893, at Woods
Hole, Massachusetts, there were
brought to Professor Moore fragments
of ice cut from a neighboring pond the
previous winter, and this ice contained
enchytraeid worms and air bubbles like
those in the ice examined by Leidy,
When the ice melted, the worms
thawed out and for a time were very
lively, but when the water attained
the temperature of the room, they all
died — it became too warm for them.
It is known that worms of other
kinds, as well as the larvae of certain
insects, have occurred in connection
with snow and ice. but the accounts
arc infrequent and the occurrences
arc probably accidental. The first of
these instances that has come to no-
tice is found in the Scientific American
for 1850.2 A correspondent, writing
from Sangerfield, New York, says that
on November 18 during a moderate
snowfall, the snow being about four
inches deep and the mercury register-
ing 34° Fahrenheit, he noticed numer-
ous ordinary earth worms crawling
about on the snow and seemingly per-
fectly at home. This was in a pasture,
and there had recently been a heavy
rain, so the writer judged (and probably
correctly) that the flooding of their holes
had driven the worms to the surface.
'Leidv, Joseph. "Organisms in Ice."' Proc. Acad.
Xat. Sci. Philadelphia, 1SS4. Vol. XXXVI. p. 260.—
-Worms in Ice." Ibid, 1885. Vol. XXXVII, p. 40S.
2W., P. B. "Worms in Snow." Scientific American,
1S50. Vol. VI, p. 96.
In 1886, Warren Knaus3 recorded
the finding at Salina, Kansas, in a
block of natural ice of small earth-
worms, which Professor Verrill identi-
fied as belonging to an undescribed
oligochsete species, probably an enchy-
traeid. These worms seemed very com-
fortable in the ice but promptly died
when the water from the melted ice
reached 60° Fahrenheit. They were
about an inch long and light in color.
They normally inhabit the mud at the
bottom of shallow ponds and when the
ponds freeze to the bottom, they are
caught up in the ice.
An anonymous writer in the Scien-
tific American4 lor 1891 relates that two
or three times during the winter of
1890-91, in Randolph County, Vir-
ginia, the crust of the snow had been
found covered with numerous " worms "
resembling ordinary cutworms, or
larvae of certain noctuid moths. The
mystery was deepened by the fact that
on the occasions mentioned the snow
had a good strong crust, seemingly
forbidding ascent from below. Later,
similar observations were recorded
from points in northern New York.
Specimens from the latter region
wen1 submitted to the distinguished
entomologist, Prof. C. V. Riley, who
reported that they were the larvae of
two species, — the one a cutworm, the
other the common Pennsylvania
soldier-beetle (Chauliognathus pennsyU
vanicus). He added that it is no new
thing to find these larvae on the surface
of the snow, and quoted Dr. J. A. Linter
in the Forty-first Report of the State Mu-
seum, Albany, New York, to the effect
that larvae of Nephelodes vidians, the
cutworm in question, have been found
on the snow in Sullivan County, New
York, and at Rockville, Ontario.
Knaus. Warren. "Note on an Ice Worm." Bull.
Washburn. Coll. Laby. Nat. Hist., Topeka, Kansas,
1886. Vol. I. p. 186.
* Scientific American. 1891, Vol. LXIV, pp. 116 and 147.
SNOW \V(U{ MS
455
Two more records, and these miscel-
laneous accounts will be brought to a
close. H. Reecker,1 in July, 1895.
found an earthworm, identified as a
Lumbricus, in a block of natural ice
put up in Westphalia, Germany, the
previous March. This worm had
apparently become occluded in a
crevice in the ice when it was packed
away and had there remained until
released some months later. Alive and
active in the ice. it successfully sur-
vived the melting process.
In 1896, Emil Sekera2 found several
dozens of specimens of a common
meadow-inhabiting earthworm, a Den-
drobsena (AUolobophora) , in a fairly
thick fragment of ice formed by snow
melting and refreezing on a meadow in
eastern Bohemia. Mr. Sekera be-
lieved that these worms had come up
out of their holes on sunny winter
days when the snow was melting and
were subsequently caught when the
melted snow froze. A number of them
were found in a cavity of the ice. and
seemed not to have suffered from their
enforced captivity.
Two questions have already sug-
gested themselves to the thoughtful
reader: (1) On what do the enchy-
traeid snow worms feed, and (2) how
do they withstand these low tempera-
tures? As to the first, the Arctic
explorer, Nordenskiold,3 in 1886 prob-
ably gave the correct answer. He
writes of the Greenland ice cap:
"With the exception of a few birds
[seen] on the return trip, the only
animal observed was a worm living
on the different species of ice algae
and therefore probably belonging to
the fauna of the inland ice." This
worm, so far as is known, has never
'Reecker, H. "Kin lebendiger Regenwurm aus dem
Eiee " tool. .1/-:. L896, Bd. XIX, p I
2Sekera, Emil. "Noch einmal fiber lebendige Regen5
wurmer iin Eise." /■»//. Am . L896, Bd. XIX, p. 159.
'Nordenskiold, A. E Grdnland Leipzig, 1886, p. 193.
been identified but it is probably an
enchytraeid.
Further. Mr. Bryant notes that
though he found no lichens nor alga3
associated with the worms on the
Malaspina, yet he saw near them
patches of the "red snow" so common
in high latitudes. As is well known,
this "red snow" is due to the presence
of the red or resting stage of the
microscopic unicellular alga. Protococ-
cus nivalis. There is little doubt that
it is upon such minute plants that these
snow worms feed. Likewise Filippi, on
page 107 of his book (see page 453 of
this article) notes that this alga was
found in parallel grooves in the snow,
at one point forming reddish stripes.
This, however, was a long distance
from the spot where he collected the
worms (see page 91 of his book).
Now let us take up the second ques-
tion as to how the worms withstand
the low temperatures, first consider-
ing the geographical distribution of
the enchytraeid worms. According to
Professor Moore, they have been
described from Asia, Europe. Green-
land, North and South America, and
New Zealand. They are, however.
must abundant in northern Eurasia,
in Siberia, Nova Zembla. Spitzbergen,
Norway, and Denmark: in a word, in
northern and colder regions. It is
true some have been found even within
tin1 tropics, but they are comparatively
tew, and the above general statement
holds. In short, the particular worms
under consideration are animals which
have habituated themselves to and
flourish in low temperatures, especially
in the snow and ice of Alpine or sub-
arctic glaciers.
It is known that many of the lower
invertebrates have a large capacity
to resist extinction at low tempera-
tures. Numerous experiments might
456
NATURAL HISTORY
be quoted, but the following from Pro-
fessor Moore performed on a not very
remote form of worm is more to our
purpose. He says:
During the fall and winter of 1892-3, I
kept a large number of living annelids in
my bedroom. Among these was an unde-
termined species of Limnodrilus, about thirty
specimens of which lived in a tumbler of
water. During some of the coldest nights
of the winter, when the temperature outside
descended nearly to zero, this tumbler re-
mained standing on the sill of a window which
was opened for ventilation. In the morning
the contents would be a solid lump of ice
with a tangled mass of the worms embedded
in its center. During the day the ice would
thaw and by evening the worms would be
actively waving their posterior ends. This
alternate freezing and thawing was repeated
many times and on one occasion the tumbler
was placed in the open air and its contents
kept frozen for a week. At the close of the
winter all of the worms except three or four
were still alive and normal.
Not only do the lower invertebrates
comfortably withstand freezing tem-
peratures, but this is true of the lower
vertebrates as well. There is a fairly
extensive literature recounting the
alternate freezings and thawings
of fishes which apparently suffer no
hurt by the process. This is true also
of the Amphibia. The following un-
published incident in my own ex-
perience seems to illustrate the point.
In preparing for the next day's dis-
sections by a class of students, I ether-
ized a batch of frogs for about two
hours. At the end of that period there
were no external signs of life. The
frogs were then placed in a little water
in a large iron pan and this was set
out on a fire escape leading from the
laboratory. Next morning, when I
reached the laboratory at about 8.15.
I found the water frozen and the frogs
hard and stiff. In order to thaw them
out, I placed them in a sink of luke-
warm water and went about my other
work. Coming back later (as nearly
as I can recall, after an hour or more)
I found a very lively company of
frogs, apparently none the worse for
their experience. Some of them had
so far recovered that they were able
to leap out of the sink and go hopping
around the laboratory. All of the
frogs had to be etherized afresh.
And so it is with these worms that
inhabit the snow fields — they are
"just made that way."
Earthquakes
By EDMUND OTIS HOVEY
Curator of Geology and Invertebrate Palaeontology, American Museum
GREAT earthquakes rank with
severe volcanic eruptions as the
most terrifying of all natural
phenomena. Usually occurring with-
out recognized warning, not infre-
quently happening in the night, ex-
tremely indefinite as to source, extent,
and duration, they fill the mind of
one experiencing their destructiveness
with the horror of utter helpless-
ness. He feels the ''solid ground" in
violent motion beneath his feet, but
perceives no cause for such motion.
He sees massive walls and towers
sway to and fro and fall to pieces, but
. he cannot discern the force which is at
work. Danger and destruction are all
about him and he knows not where to
turn or whither to flee for safety. The
magnitude and suddenness of the
disaster overwhelm him, and he is
foolish in his panic.
Earthquakes have been far more
destructive to human life and property
than volcanic eruptions have been,1
although it is difficult to calculate
accurately the loss of life involved, and
the estimates of the destructiveness of a
particular earthquake vary widely.
Among the more disastrous shocks
have been the following: Sicily, 1693,
with possibly 60,000 victims; Peking,
( 'liina, 1731, (100,000); Lisbon, Portu-
gal, 1 755, (from 40,000 to 60,000) ; Cala-
bria, Italy, 1783, (from 30,000 to 60,-
000) ; and Messina-Reggio, Italy, 1908,
in which according to the official re-
(Since this article was written and while the author
is absent in Australia representing not only the Amer-
ican Museum but the Geological Society of America
and the New York Academy of Sciences at the Sec-
ond Pan Pacific Scientific Congress, the disastrous
earthquake of Japan has occurred, supplying new evi-
dence of the terrible destructiveness that from tunc to
time accompanies shocks of major importance Editor.
turns the total loss of life was 77,283.
Contrasted with these calamities is the
loss of life involved in the great vol-
canic outbursts of Krakatoa, Dutch
East Indies, 1883, which destroyed
more than 36,000 lives; Vesuvius.
Italy, 1631, (18,000); Mt, Pele, Mar-
tinique, 1902, (29,000) and the Souf-
riere of St. Vincent, 1902, (1400):
and other historic eruptions which took
a smaller toll of humanity.
No considerable area on the surface
of the globe seems to be entirely
stable, but certain regions or zones are
much more subject than others to the
occurrence of earthquakes. If we
examine a map of the world upon which
their location has been plotted, we
note in the Eastern Hemisphere a
broad belt of seismic (earthquake)
activity extending from west to east
through the Mediterranean Sea, Per-
sia, the southern Himalayas, and the
Sumatra-Java group of islands, with a
branch zone extending from the south-
ern end of the Caspian Sea northeast-
ward half way across Asia. This zone
has furnished more than 53 per cenl
of the recorded shocks. A seismic
belt practically encircles the Pacific
Ocean, the principal points in it being
the Japanese Archipelago, Alaska.
California, Southern Mexico, Central
America, and the northern and south-
ern Andes. This "circum-Pacific" or
"Andes-Japan-Malay" zone has giveD
rise to 41 per cent of the recorded
quakes. In the Western Hemisphere,
in addition to a part of the circum-
Pacific belt, the West Indies and the
mountains of Venezuela have been the
location of important earthquakes; for
458
NATURAL HISTORY
instance Jamaica was visited by a great
earthquake destroying the city of Port
Royal in 1692 and another shock in
1907 laid waste the city of Kingston.
We are in the habit of thinking of
eastern North America as being a
region free from earthquake shocks,
but this is incorrect. New England
has experienced about 250 recorded
shocks since the Pilgrims landed at
Plymouth, and there have been at
least four great earthquakes in the
eastern half of the continent during
the past two and one-half centuries.
One of these, which occurred on
February 5, 1663, affected the St.
Lawrence Valley over an area more
than 600 miles long and 300 miles
wide according to the Jesuit Rela-
tions, and the same region was re-
visited by a disturbance in the second
decade of the present century (1914).
In 1811-12 heavy quakes occurred in
the central portion of the Mississippi
Valley, accompanied by considerable
subsidence of the earth's crust and t In-
formation of new lakes fifty miles
south of the junction of the Ohio and
Mississippi Rivers. In 1909 Illinois
was shaken so that the inhabitants
were much alarmed. The southeastern
part of the United States was the cen-
ter of a heavy earthquake shock on
January 4, 1843, the tremors of which
were felt at points at least 800 miles
apart. On August 31, 1886. occurred
the disastrous earthquake at Charles-
ton, South Carolina — a shock which
was distinctly felt from New Orleans to
Boston and as far west as La Crosse.
Wisconsin. Not a building in Charles-
ton wholly escaped injury in this quake
and the pecuniary damage was esti-
mated at between $5,000,000 and
$6,000,000, but fewer than 100 peo-
ple lost their lives as a result of the
disturbance.
New York City, on the other hand,
seems to be a very safe place in which
to live, so far as earthquakes are con-
cerned, for no shocks other than a
slight tremor in connection with the
( 'harleston earthquake have been felt
there dming historic time and no
evidence exists of any earth distur-
bance in the region since the great Hud-
son River fault was made, the last
movement along which seems to have
occurred in Mesozoic time millions of
years ago.
Within the United States, Cali-
fornia is the region of the greatest
seismic activity, 514 shocks having
been catalogued as occurring there
between 1850 and 1886, but the number
of quakes that actually took place was
probably much greater, since the
region was sparsely peopled during
the early portion of the period and
many minor shocks doubtless passed
unnoticed. San Francisco alone
suffered from 254 quakes in this
period. The catalogue in all likeli-
hood has at least twice as many
entries now. Since the middle of the
nineteenth century there have been
eleven severe quakes in California.
That of 1868, known as the Mare
Island quake, had such a disastrous
effect upon San Francisco that serious
doubts were entertained as to the
advisability of rebuilding the city on
the same site, but these fears were
soon forgotten and the city rapidly
rose again. Building was resumed
without much regard to the lessons
that might have been learned from
the unfortunate experience and later
construction apparently failed to take
any adequate precautions. On April
18, 1906, four square miles of San
Francisco, now grown to a community
of 400,000 inhabitants, was devastated
by a quake which originated in the
EARTHQUAKES
459
San Andreas fault zone lying only
eight miles southwest of the main
portion of the city. In San Francisco
alone about 400 people are known to
have lost their lives in the catastrophe,
and buildings and other property to the
value of at least $350,000,000 were
ruined by the shock or consumed in the
fire which followed.
The peninsula upon a part of which
San Francisco is built is traversed
from southeast to northwest by not
less than five known zones along
which movement, technically known
as "faulting," has occurred again and
again. The chief of these zones is the
San Andreas, which takes its name
from an important lake through which
it runs, and it was horizontal move-
ment varying from nine to twenty feet
that was the principal cause of the
quake. Vertical movement did not
exceed two feet at any one place and
usually was absent. These five zones
all lie in the coastal ranges of moun-
tains, which are composed of a granitic
core against which rest extensive beds
of Mesozoic and Cenozoic age, upon
which in turn lie thick marine Pleis-
tocene and recent strata. The latter
are full of the fossil remains of many
forms of life that still are to be found
in the neighboring ocean.
Mountain building is going on today
in ( 'alifornia, a fact evidenced not only
by the earthquake activities but estab-
lished by careful instrumental obser-
vations. The strains in the earth's
crust which are set up by the mountain-
building forces slowly accumulate until
they finally overcome the resistance of
the rock material making up the earth's
crust, and rupture results. The sudden
freeing of the pent-up forces and the
rubbing of the rock on one side of the
fracture against that on the oilier.
with all the attendant starting, slip-
ping, and stopping, cause the earth
waves which we know as an earthquake.
Initial movement may be very slight
and the resulting waves are always very
small, but the effects produced on
buildings may be very serious, just as
the light blow of a mallet on a table
may cause a ball lying upon it to jump
several feet into the air.
In the Sierra Nevada, forming the
eastern half of California, earthquakes
are likewise frequent. In 1872 there
occurred the great Owens Valley quake,
which was one of the most severe on
record. This was the result of move-
ments in an old fault zone producing
cliffs from ten to twenty feet high
along a line more than one hundred
miles long. Alaska has been the scene
of many great earthquakes, one of
which near Yakutat Bay in 1899 re-
sulted, it is reported, in the formation
of cliffs from twenty-five to forty feet
high along its zone of faulting. Similar
displacements of the earth's surface
have be?n noted in connection with
earthquakes in many other parts of
the globe, notably in Japan and in
Italy.
All the foregoing earthquakes belong
to the great class known as tectonic
earthquakes, or those which are a
resultant of the action of mountain-
building forces. The second great
class of shocks are those attending upon
volcanic eruptions. A third class
consists of those which have been
caused by the falling in of the roof of a
buried cavity in the rocks. Quakes of
the third class have been reported
from Switzerland and the Tyrol, but
they are always slight in intensity and
local in character.
Earthquakes arising from volcanic
explosions or associated with eruptions
form a much more important sub-
division second in importance only to
460
NATURAL HISTORY
the tectonic earth shocks. Whereas
the most violent and destructive
earthquakes have centered in non-
volcanic regions, the most severe
volcanic eruptions of historic times
have been unattended by severe earth-
shaking shocks and have given rise to
quakes of merely local significance.
The islands of Martinique and St.
Vincent lie within a markedly seismic
zone, but the great eruptions of Mt.
Pele and the Soufriere in 1902-03 were
free from earthquake shocks, beyond
the trembling of the mountains them-
selves. Vesuvius has been under close
observation as a volcano for more than
1800 years, but the earthquakes attend-
ing its most severe outbreaks have
been local in extent and comparatively
light in degree. Casamicciola on the
island of Ischia, near Naples, suffered
a disastrous volcanic earthquake in
1883, which destroyed much property
and between 1700 and 1900 lives.
The history of Mt. Etna has been
similar; the disturbances which its
heaviest eruptions have produced have
rarely been felt on the mainland of
Calabria across the narrow Strait of
Messina. In 1888 the Japanese vol-
cano Bandai-san burst into violent
eruption after a thousand years of
slumber. Its awakening was attended
by a number of moderately severe
shocks, none of which was felt, how-
ever, beyond a limited area. The
famous volcanoes of Mauna Loa and
Kilauea on the island of Hawaii have
frequent eruptions of the "quiet class."
sometimes accompanied by local earth-
quakes, but the most violent of these
quakes, that of April 2, 1868, was
scarcely felt at Honolulu, 210 miles
distant. The most violent of all
recorded volcanic explosions is that
which took place in the Strait of Sunda,
August 26-7, 1883, when Krakatoa
was blown to pieces. This outburst
destroyed half of the mountain and
left soundings of 160 fathoms where
part of the cone had stood. It produced
sea waves that affected tide gauges
half way round the world; it gave rise
to air waves that traveled three times
around the globe before they ceased to
be distinguishable: and it threw dust
into the air to such a height that it re-
mained suspended for months, — but
the earthquake shocks produced were
strictly local in character and were
scarcely felt at Rata via, ninety miles
from the crater.
It has not been possible as yet to
predict with any degree of accuracy the
time when an earthquake will occur.
Some regions are subject to frequent
shocks while1 others experience them
only at long intervals of time. The
frequency of earthquakes, taking into
account those of all degrees of severity.
is not generally realized. The globe
indeed maj' be said hardly ever to be
free from seismic disturbance of some
kind somewhere, since the average of
all recorded shocks, according to
de Montessus de Balloreis more than
fifteen per day, and there are between
fifty and sixty heavy shocks per year.
The bare enumeration by this author
of those occurring in 1903 alone fills a
book of 600 pages of tabular matter
and he has compiled the data pertain-
ing to, and tabulated the position of.
159,781 earthquakes that had been
recorded up to the end of 1903.
In addition to the fact that impor-
tant quakes are the result of mountain-
building (tectonic) movements in the
earth's crust, they may themselves be
the causes of more or less important
changes in the surface of the earth.
Sharp waves passing through mountain
regions have been known to produce
landslides, shatter rocks, displace seg-
EARTHQUAKES
461
ments of precipices, open fissures in the
soil, or cause subsidence in alluvial
regions. Springs, brooks, rivers, and
lakes have been formed, altered, or
obliterated as a result of earthquake
action. Great earthquakes occurring
near the borders of the ocean have
produced important sea waves, in-
correctly called "tidal waves," caus-
ing much destruction along the coast
and sometimes permanent changes due
to erosion and transportation of ma-
terial. In 1868 a great earthquake
sea wave came in at Arica, Chile, and
carried the United States warship
"Wateree" inland and left her high
and dry in the town. A few years
later another such wave carried the
vessel still farther inland and for many
years she was an object of interest to
tourists. The great earthquake of
November, 1922, off the coast of
( 'hile, was characterized by disastrous
sea waves. In February, 1923, a
"tidal" wave arrived at Hilo on the
coast of Hawaii in seven crests each
said to be fifteen feet high, which
caused ten deaths and did much
damage, but the wave was scarcely
felt at Honolulu on the island of Oahu,
210 miles away. The magnitude of
these waves in the open ocean is
probably to be measured in inches, —
they attain destructive size only when
they enter the shallow waters near the
coast. The recent report of the cap-
tain of a steamer that he met a "tidal"
wave 1 15 feet high (the height < >f a t welvc
story building) rising from a calm sea
hundreds of miles from land may be se1
down as inaccurate, to say the least.
During the past twenty years the
study of earthquakes by means of
instruments has spread widely, and
observing stations have been estab-
lished in many parts of the world.
The instruments used are called seis-
mographs and all work upon the
principle that a heavy mass of iron or
other material properly suspended
above the earth will tend to remain
stationary when earth waves pass
beneath it. The apparatus at the
American Museum consists of two
such heavy masses of iron so arranged
that one is sensitive to waves arriving
from the east or the west and the other
to those coming from the north or the
south. The earth waves are very-
minute and each part of the machine
is provided with a system of levers
which amplify their effect and with a
needle for recording it. A sheet of
smoked paper is drawn by clockwork
under the needle, which makes a
straight white line when no earth wave
is passing. When an earthquake wave
arrives, the needle begins to swing
to right and left and to make a wavy-
line, from the study of which the ol>
server can calculate the severity of the'
quake and its distance from the station.
Time is accurately7 recorded on the
same sheet of paper by means of a
marking device operated by a clock of
special design. Most seismograph sta-
tions are equipped with apparatus like
that at the Museum or a modification
of it, but the exact location of the cen-
ter of an earth disturbance cannot be
determined from a single station. Ob-
servations from at least three stations
situated at the points of a great tri-
angle must be obtained and carefully-
compared. Apparatus for determining
the location of the point of origin of an
earthquake from a single station has
been devised by Prince ( eilitzin of Rus-
sia, but the method is too complicated
for ordinary use and it has not been
adopted to any extent, if at all. by
seismologists.
Davison's seismic map of Japan, based on Milne's list of 8331 earthquakes for the eight
years 1885-92 inclusive, shows that the number of earthquakes recorded in the Tokio district
during this period was less than ten; also that the 88 volcanoes are distributed throughout
the mid-western portion of the islands, except the Fuji chain to the southwest of Tokio
The Japanese Earthquake Explained
By CHESTER A. REEDS
Associate Curator of Invert ebrate PaLcontology, and Observer, in Charge of the Seismograph, American Museum
AT noon on Saturday, September
J-\ 1, 1923, Tokio time, the Em-
pire of the Rising Sun was
stricken by a power beyond human
control. A violent earthquake shook
Tokio, Yokohama, Yokosuka, Oda-
wara, Hakone, Chiba, and other points
about the Bay of Tokio. Shortly
thereafter fires arose in Tokio and
Yokohama and almost entirely de-
stroyed those cities. Seismic sea waves
were also reported in some dispatches
and contradicted in others. At any
rate, the devastated region was com-
pletely isolated from the rest of the
world for days. There were more than
3,000,000 people in the stricken zone
at the time of the catastrophe and the
THE JAPANESE EARTHQUAKE EXPLAINED
463
loss of life and property was so great
that even a week or more after its
occurrence, reports were still far from
being complete.
This great earthquake was registered
on seismograph instruments on the
opposite side of the earth and at inter-
mediate stations. The arrival of the
first set of earth waves in the eastern
part of the United States was regis-
tered at 10:12 p.m., Friday evening.
August 31, the main waves shortly
before 11 o'clock, and the last waves a1
3 a.m., September 1. It may bo stated
here that due to the recognition of the
international date line along the iSOth
meridian, the corresponding time in
New York and Washington was Friday,
and due to the difference in longitude of
ten hours the time here was 10 p.m.,
August 31, 1923. Some dispatches
state that in Tokio the initial heavy-
shock lasted not more than six minutes.
Whatever may have been the brief
duration, the waves which arose from
this shock were spread out for five
hours on the seismographs in the east-
ern part of the United States. Accord-
ing to dispatches from the Imperial
Meteorological Station more than a
thousand "after-shocks." which were
not recorded on distant seismographs,
accompanied this quake.
The earthquake map' of Japan
prepared by Dr. Charles Davison in
1921 , and reproduced on p. 462. exhibits
in a striking manner the earthquake
and non-earthquake regions as well
as the location of the eighty-eighl
volcanoes on or near the principal
islands of Japan. This map indicates
that the centra] portions of Japan,
where active volcanoes are numerous,
are singularly free from earthquakes,
the earthquake areas being represented
by the more darkly shaded districts.
'Davison, C. .1 Manual of Seismology, 1921, Cam-
bridge University Press
A perusal of Prof. John Milne's
catalogue of Japanese earthquakes, in
which 8331 are listed between the
years L885 and 1892, shows that to
every quake that was volcanic there
were five that were non-volcanic.
The Japanese Islands form an arc or
festoon with the convex side facing the
Map after Omori, showing by broken line
ovals and numbers the location of 257 strong
earthquakes from 1885-1905; also the depth
of theseain meters about Japan -dotted lines
Pacific Ocean. Furthermore, the sub-
marine features are of special interest.
From the contour lines for each thou-
sand meters in depth (the dotted lines
on the map shown on this page) it
may be observed that the Japanes<
Sea i> shallow, with its greatest depth
a little over 3000 meters. The Pacific
( )cean. on t he ol her hand, is very deep.
The extraordinary basin called the
Tuscarora Deep reaches a depth of
8000 meters at distances of from 110
to 240 miles from the coasts. The
gradient is unusually stoop, being 1 in
27 off the coast of Xemuro. a mari-
time village on the island of Yezo, i in
30 off the northeast coast of Hondo.
464
NATURAL HISTORY
or the main island, and 1 in 16 (to a
depth of 3000 meters) off the southeast
coast of Kazusa and Awa, near Tokio.
Prof. F. Omori, the Japanese earth-
quake specialist, has listed 221 destruc-
tive earthquakes in Japan occurring
from the fifth century to the present.
Of the total number, 114 originated
inland, 47 under the Pacific Ocean, 17
under the sea of Japan, 2 under the
inland seas, while the epicenters of 41
earthquakes are unknown. Of these
earthquakes 10 were very violent: 3
of them occurred in central Japan, and
7 originated off the southeast coast,
each of the latter being accompanied
by seismic sea waves. During the
same period there were 23 great sea
waves on the Pacific coast and only 5
on the Japan Sea.
Similar results followed from Onion's
examination of recent strong Japanese
earthquakes. From 1885, when the
systematic observation of earthquakes
was begun, to 1905 there originated in
or around Japan 257 earthquakes,
some of which were destructive while
the rest, although not involving great
loss, were nevertheless strong or mod-
crate shocks each having disturbed
land areas of more than 25.000 square
miles. The principal regions of these
strong shocks are represented by the
broken line ovals on the map on p. 463.
During the twenty-one years referred
to, 138 earthquakes originated in the
region A, 7 in the region B, 2 in F, 4
in G, 3 in H, 12 in K. 16 in M, 12 in X,
and 23 in P, the references being to
the above-mentioned map. The most
active region at present is thus that
marked A. stretching off the east coast
of Yezo and Hondo, the number of
earthquakes which occurred in it being
rather more than half the total
number in Japan. It is no great sur-
prise, therefore, to find that the violent
earthquake of September 1, 1923, took
place in the Tokio district near the
steep Pacific side.
An earthquake has been explained as
the result of any sudden displacement
within the earth's crust. It may have
a tectonic or a volcanic origin. Tec-
tonic earthquakes are due as a rule to
the displacements which effect the
growth of faults or fractures in the
earth's surface. Volcanic earthquakes
may be considered as those which are
caused by volcanic eruptions or dis-
placements along fractures of the vol-
canic mass, whether the volcano be
active, dormant, or extinct. Thus
volcanic earthquakes are of two kinds:
first, those which are purely volcanic in
their origin, and second, those which
are somewhat tectonic in character.
From seismograms taken on certain
active volcanoes of Japan, Omori
divides the volcanic earthquakes into
two groups: (1) those due to earth-
quakes which were not accompanied
by any outburst of the volcano, and
(2) those due to earthquakes which
were invariably coincident with the
explosions. The first group consisted
only of simple quake1 vibrations; the
second group began with slow tremors
on which, after a few seconds, quick
vibrations were superimposed. The
earthquakes without explosions were
distinctly the stronger, for of the
14,085 shocks of this character recorded
from 1911-16, 21% were sensible, while
of the 8847 earthquakes with explo-
sions only 0.3% were sensible.
Tectonic earthquakes, the greatest
of all, occur in regions somewhat dis-
tant from volcanoes or far removed
from present or past volcanic action.
They are due either to displacements
along faults or to the warping of
surface beds of rock in the earth's
crust. As might be expected, faulting
THE JAPANESE EARTHQUAKE EXPLAINED
465
the slipping of adjacent blocks of the
earth's crust on one another along a
fault-plane or fracture) predominates
over warping in producing earthquakes.
The connection between the crustal
deformations and the earthquakes is
shown by the coincidence between their
times of occurrence and the areas
affected by them. It is important,
however, to notice that the deforma-
tions are not consequences of the
earthquakes but rather the primary
causes of the earthquakes. The
number of earthquakes accompanied
by crustal deformation is consider-
able. In many cases, however, the
observations recorded add little to our
knowledge beyond the fact that some
movement usually of elevation has
taken place. The principal reasons for
connecting earthquakes with fault slips
are the following: (1) with every step
in the growth of the fault it is evident
that an earthquake must occur; (2)
in some great earthquakes the fault
displacements are manifest; (3) in
all but the weakest earthquakes the
areas of greatest disturbance arc
elongated in form, their longer axes
being parallel to the fault lines of the
district; (4) the number of earthquakes
in any region far exceeds the number of
the faults; (5) in a series of associated
earthquakes the center of the disturb-
ance migrates to and fro in the direct ion
of t lie fault ; and (6) owing to the varia-
tions in the volume and displacement
of the rock mass, fault slips are capable
of producing the weakest tremor as
well as the most violent shock.
The displacements along a fault
may be almost entirely horizontal or
almost entirely vertical, but in most
cases they are both horizontal and
vertical. Horizontal displacements are
usually manifested by the relative
shift ing of objects previously in contact
or in line; vertical displacements by
the formation of fault scarps.
The great earthquakes which re-
move over-strained conditions in the
earth's crusts occur after short lapses
of time at different places in the seismic
belt or related earthquake zones. They
seldom, if ever, recur at one or the same
spot, for the earth's stresses, having
been temporarily adjusted at that
place, accumulate in the adjacent
seismic regions. Thus the Japanese
earthquake of December 23, 1854, took
place off the coast of Tokaido, while
the equally extensive shock on the
next day originated from the same
earthquake zone 200 miles to the west,
off the coast of Nankaido. Similarly
sympathetic stresses accumulating in
widely separated parts of the Pacific
seismic zone have been noted as fol-
lows:
(1) Off the northwest coast of Alaska in
1899.
(2) Mexico and Central America, 1900 and
1902.
(3) Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador, Feb-
ruary 1, 1906.
(4) San Francisco, April 18, 1906.
(5) Aleutian Archipelago, August 16, 1900.
(6) Valparaiso, August 16, 1906.
(Note that Nos. 5 and 6 occurred on the
same date, No. ■"> occurring half an hour
earlier than No. 6.)
(7) Chile, November 11, 1922.
(8) Six hundred miles northwest of San
Francisco on the line of the San Andreas
fault, January 31, 1923.
(9) South Pacific Ocean. February 3, 1923.
In this connection it is interesting to
note that after the great Japanese
earthquake of September 1. 1923, a
sympathetic quake occurred in Cal-
cutta. India, on September 10. and
another one in Paotingfu, China.
September 14, L923.
A larger view of the problem is neces-
sary in order to understand some of the
underlying causes of the recent Japanese
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THE JAPANESE EARTHQUAKE EXPLAINED
W,
earthquake and of other earthquakes.
In the distribution of earthquakes are to
be found the loci of the most pronounced
earth movements today, that is, the
zones of present maximum change in
the strained figure of the lithosphere, or
solid part of the earth. In the case of
the continental areas we have long
known the position of the earthquake
districts. The earth's crust trembles
predominantly along two narrow zones
which lie along two great circles of
the earth known as the Mediterranean.
or Alpine-Caucasian-Himalaya:) circle,
and the circum-Pacific, or Andean-
Japanese-Malayan circle. As to parts
of the ocean floor which have been
affected by these movements, it is
only during the present generation
that methods have been perfected for
locating the sites of earthquakes be-
neath the seas. Modern seismographs,
or earthquake-registering instruments,
now record the sudden major move-
ments of the earth's surface quite
independent of whether they occur at
the bottom of the sea, upon distant
islands, or upon the continents. The
centers of large earthquakes, deter-
mined by the late Prof. John Milne for
some fifty odd stations of the British
Association for the years 1S99 to 1911,
have been entered as heavy dots on the
map on p. 466. It will be noted that
the continental earthquake districts
are extended outward for a distance
on the floor of the neighboring ocean
and that the disturbances are greater
in number for the undersea areas and
belts of festooned archipelagoes east
and southeast of Asia.
It. may be noted further that the
two main seismic belts are closely re-
lated to the geosynclines, or areas of
sedimentation, dominant folding, and
uplift during Cenozoic time, thai is,
during the last era into which geologists
divide geologic time. This area may
represent a period starting 3,000,000
years or more ago and continuing
down to the present. The areas of
dominant folding and uplift during
Cenozoic time, as outlined by Prof.
Charles Schuchert in 1915, have been
superimposed as shaded zones, on the ac-
companying map of the world. From a
careful examination of this map along-
side that of a modern atlas, it may be
observed that these two major circles
of earthquake disturbance include
within their limits the arcuate moun-
tain folds known as the Pyrenees, Alps,
( Carpathians, Caucasians, and Hima-
layas of Eurasia and the Cascadian and
Andean mountain systems of North
and South America. These great moun-
tain masses stand before us today as
the most lofty mountains of the world.
They began their existence in the early
part of the Cenozoic era and from their
grandeur we might judge that they arc
almost completed, but from the rather
frequent earthquakes that occur in and
about them we must conclude that the
earth forces which built them are still
active although in their relative ma-
turity. The mountains themselves are
young and although not all of them
are in the same stage of development,
they are in their prime. The festooned
island groups, however, such as the
Japanese archipelagoes and similar arc-
uate forms off the southeast coast of
.Asia, as well as the Aleutian and West
Indian arcs, represent younger moun-
tain chains of late Cenozoic age which
are not yet fully exposed but arc1 rising
from the floor of the ocean.
A modern atlas with the depths of
the sea indicated, such as Andre's or
Stieler's, shows that these festooned
archipelagoes of the Pacific arc char-
acterized by generally narrow deep
troughlike depressions on the ocean
468
NATURAL HISTORY
side. For instance, just east of the
Philippines one of these troughs is
9788 meters deep, that is, a little more
than six miles of depth. The figure on
this page represents an east-west verti-
cal section of the Japanese area in the
latitude of Tokio, Japan. The section
extends eastward from the coast of
China across the Yellow Sea, the tip of
Korea, the Japan Sea, the main island
of Japan, the great Tuscarora trough.
large sheet of paper firmly in position ;
then by pressing laterally on the oppo-
site margin the anticlinal and synclinal
folds will appear. This hidden geologic
force which produced the folds still con-
tinues to act. It arises no doubt from
the downward movement or sinking of
certain portions of the lithosphere
beneath the Pacific Ocean.
According to Prof. W. H. Hobbs, the
development of such folds is responsible
Z760 30pp MILES
DIAGRAMMATIC EAST- WEST CROSS SECTION OF THE EARTHS CRUST
IN THE LATITUDE OF TOKIO, JAPAN
and some 2000 miles of the Pacific
Ocean. The most striking features of
this cross section are the folds that
have been developed in the earth's
crust. In geologic terms the elongated
Tuscarora "fore-deep" represents a
syncline, while the rising mountain
range represents the associated anti-
cline. These folds have been developed
by a compressive force coming from
the more central areas of the Pacific
and applied laterally to the competent
stratum, which abuts against the older
and more settled land of Asia. This
idea of folding may be simply demon-
strated by holding; one margin of a
for the formation of pockets of molten
magma from shale beds lying beneath
the competent strata in the vicinity of
the anticlines as noted in the cross
section. Magma pockets situated in
this position give rise to the lava of the
volcanoes scattered through the west-
ern portion of the principal islands of
Japan, the chains of volcanic islands to
the north and southward, as well as
those of other mountain belts situated
in the seismic zones of the earth. The
volcanoes seem to arise from the back
of the anticlinal folds throughout their
arc-shaped extent, while the majority
of the earthquakes are developed on
THE JAPANESE EARTHQUAKE EXPLAIXE1)
461)
the steeply sloping or trough side of the
fold, for it is on this side that the rocks
are under the greater tensional and
compressive1 stresses. In this belt move-
ments in the earth's surface do not take
place uniformly, for stresses which tend
to produce such movements are resist ed
until they have accumulated suffi-
ciently to overcome the resistance
offered by the stiff rocks. Thereupon
partial relief is obtained suddenly by
initial faulting or subsequent slipping
of earth blocks on previously developed
faults, causing earthquakes. Minor
adjustments following shortly after
are referred to as after-shocks.
Thus it may be noted that Japan,
the land of ''cherry blossoms," is an
island empire rising out of the sea.
To most Americans Japan presents
a detached group of mountainous is-
lands beset with numerous volcanoes
and frequented by earthquakes. The
oceanic waters which surround these
islands hide from view the stupendous
mountain topography and the structure
which powerful earth forces have
already built up and which they are
still erecting off the coast of Asia. To
the writer the young mountain piles
which have reared their crests miles
above the sea and which are ad-
mired in all their grandeur, such as
the Himalayas and the Andes, stand
as mute guide posts pointing toward
the younger generation of mountains
which, although for the most part
still submerged, are rising along the
margin of the Pacific Ocean. Volca-
noes* and earthquakes are associated
with the forces that build mountains,
for they perform very much the same
function that safety valves do on a
steam locomotive. For centuries Ja-
pan has had destructive earthquakes.
Omori, who has studied many of them,
concludes that the maximum epochs of
destructive activity recur on an aver-
age every 13 or 14 years. From the
nature of the case we may thus con-
clude that earthquakes will occur in
Japan at rather frequent intervals for
centuries to come. This prophecy,
however, should not dishearten the
Japanese nation, for, besides its own
progressive development, it can take
courage from the fact that the Baby-
lonian, Egyptian. Grecian, and Roman
civilizations, developed about the
Mediterranean, despite the fact that
this region lies in one of the active
seismic belts of the world.
The Japanese nation is fully aware
of its acute situation, for in accordance
with an Imperial Ordinance dated June
25, 1892, the famous Earthquake In-
vestigation Committee of Japan was
organized. Its objects were stated to
be: "In the first place to investigate
whether there are any means of predict-
ing earthquakes; and in the second
place to investigate what can be done
to reduce the disastrous effects of
earthquake shocks to a minimum, by
the choice of proper structures, ma-
terials, positions, etc." The Commit-
tee has included some of the most
brilliant men of Japan and other lands
and has now worked enthusiastically
and tirelessly for a period of thirty
years; but it is necessary to admit that
no method of forecasting earthquakes
has been discovered and that the
second endeavor is the only one which
had been crowned with some measure
of success.
A REDDISH EGRET
The graceful postures assumed by these birds and the beautiful curvatures that result
from their ever-changing attitudes may well kindle the admiration of the beholder
Louisiana Herons and Reddish Egrets at Home
A VISIT TO GREEX ISLAND, OFF THE COAST OF TEXAS
By ALVIN R. CAHX
University of Illinois
PICTURE, if you will, a long nar-
row expanse of wind-blown sand
piled in great undulating wavy
hills, fading into the horizon to the
north and south. Here and there,
black against the moonlit background,
clustered groups of mesquite trees
throw blacker shadows on the sand.
On the top of one of these sand hills
stands a lone figure, silhouetted against
a rising moon: a booted figure, with a
large hat, belted waist, and a cutlass
catching the moonbeams. From his
vantage point he looks to the east over
the waters of the Gulf of Mexico; to
the west over the sands of Padre Island
to the placid Laguna de la Madre. A
massive ship in full rigging, sails
furled, rides at anchor in the Gulf. A
small boat, propelled by massive
figures at the oars, plies between the
ship and the island. Half-naked figures
leap from the boat as it grinds on the
beach and lift from it caskets bound in
metal, which they shoulder and carry
to land and across the few hundred
yards of sand to the water on the west.
Here the caskets are deposited in a
smaller boat, manned by the lone
sentinel from the hill and a single oars-
man who pulls out toward a small
black spot lying between them and the
mainland of the Texas coast. Hours
later the boat returns, but with a single
occupant, the watcher from the hill,
who crosses the island and is hurriedly
rowed to the ship. With the moon de-
clining in the west the great ship un-
furls sail and slowly heads eastward.
to disappear in the gray mist- of
morning, never to be heard from again.
Years pass over the scene of the
buried treasure. Romantic adven-
turers, hearing the tradition of the
buried riches, visit the island, which is
now covered with a tangled mass of
vegetation, making it conspicuous
among the islands in the Laguna
Madre and entitling it to the name of
Isla Verde, and lives and fortunes are
spent in frantic endeavor to recover
the pirate captain's buried gold. But
Green Island or Isla Verde guards well
its secret — if indeed it has one — and the
treasure still remains hidden, ram-
parted now by an almost impenetrable
entanglement of Yucca, Condalia, and
prickly-pear cactus, and sentineled by
an ever-active host of graceful birds on
the wing.
Such is the tradition of Green Island.
which lies in the Laguna Madre, off the
coast of Texas, about thirty miles north
of Point Isabel, and about an equal
distance south of Bird Island, the
wonderful breeding ground of the
brown pelican, which I visited in 1921.'
With the coming of spring in 1922
came also much interesting and tanta-
lizing information regarding a great
heron and egret colony on this roman-
tic island. With the memory of the
previous trip still fresh in our minds,
it was not a difficult task to reorganize
my little party of the preceding spring
and hie away to further photographic
efforts in a new field.
We were met at Brownsville, Texas,
by Mr. R. I). Camp, the warden of the
region and the guardian angel of the
■The reader is referred to the article entitled "Brown
Pelicans at Home." by Ahin Ft. Cahn, Natural
Uistoky, September-October, 1!1L'L\ pp. 416 25)
472
NATURAL HISTORY
breeding birds on Isla Verde. During
the entire breeding season and until the
greater number of the young are well
out of the nest, Mr. Camp lives in a
houseboat anchored just off the island,
and his presence, backed by a great
sign erected by the National Associa-
tion of Audubon Societies, throws a
charmed circle about this newly desig-
nated bird sanctuary. It was only the
hospitality of Mr. Camp that made my
trip possible, as Green Island is very
inaccessible and if its shores be reached,
very inhospitable.
By auto — a rickety Ford that was
suffering from asthma in at least two
cylinders, driven by a Mexican who
knew as much about machinery as a
native Hottentot — we rattled across
the great dusty waste country lying
between Brownsville and Point Isabel
on the coast. Timid sparrows flitted
occasionally between the scattered
tussocks of grass; wandering burros
watched us suspiciously; a lone coyote
crossed our path and trotted leisurely
away. The rest of the picture was an
unending horizon that stretched, an
unbroken line, through 360 degrees of
space. Once, near noon, a mirage ap-
peared for a few moments, revealing a
series of hills overgrown with trees,
and water about the foot of the hills.
Then the horizon closed in once more.
A stiff breeze was blowing off the gulf,
and the salt air filled our lungs. After
three hours of driving and detouring to
avoid bottomless mud puddles left
over from the heavy rains of the
previous week, we reached the Point,
rattled up to the wharf and unloaded.
We were at once surrounded by the
greater part of the population — about
an equal proportion of burros and
pigs and an occasional Mexican. The
Mexicans and burros were satisfied
to watch us passively, but the razor-
backs announced their presence by
attacking en masse and carrying off our
food stuffs in every possible direction.
We finally reassembled our belongings
and loaded them into a fishing boat
which was engaged to take us to the
island. Up went the sail, and we were
soon dancing merrily over the waves
before a favorable wind.
During the five hours that passed
before we reached Green Island we
watched the slowly changing panorama
of distant land unfold and drank
luxuriously of the salt air. The Laguna
Madre is quite wide in this region, and
during most of the trip Padre Island
was either entirely below the horizon
or appeared as widely separated golden
points, hazy in the distance. There
was very little life in evidence; mixed
flocks of sandpipers hunted along the
shores; an occasional laughing gull
passed by; black skimmers cut the
water about us and were away again
to their prospective breeding grounds
,-it some place along the sandy beaches:
a thin line of white foam, piled up on
the shore of a distant island, proved
under the scrutiny of my binoculars to
be a colony of white pelicans resting
at the water's edge. Ward herons
flapped slowly by, heading for the
mainland, and still others could be seen
through the glasses, standing knee-deep
in the shallow water fully half a mile
from shore. Once a porpoise undulated
across our path and was seen for a few
moments as it sought the deeper water
of the main channel to the east. In-
numerable mullets broke water, shoot-
ing straight up into the air eighteen
inches or more, apparitions of glisten-
ing silver, to fall back again with a
splash that sent the spray dancing in
the sunlight. It was very hot. The
blinding glitter of the water, the merci-
less glare that enfolded us from all
LOUISIANA HERONS AND REDDISH EGRETS AT HOME 473
sides made the constantly shifting
patch of shade cast by the sail the near-
est thing to comfort we possessed in our
crowded quarters. In fact, it soon
became so excessively hot that it was
necessary for us to shift our positions
repeatedly in order to avoid painful
blistering of exposed skin. The hours
slipped dreamily past until finally; at
about four o'clock. Green Island was
sighted, a mere speck on the horizon.
Because of the gradual dying down of
the wind, it was nearly two hours
before we were able at last to tie our
skiff to the stake from which our house-
boat drifted at the end of a heavy rope.
As twilight was nearly upon us, I
did not visit the island that night, but
contented myself with sitting on the
roof of the houseboat and scanning the
island through my binoculars. The
island rises from a great mud flat,
which disappears completely during
times of high water, leaving only a
narrow sand beach, beyond which
begins the vegetation. To the north-
east the island rises at a gentle incline
to a height of about fifteen feet, to
drop off again as an almost perpendic-
ular cliff to the sand beach and mud
flat. Much of this flat was out of
water, and hundreds of reddish egrets,
together with Louisiana and Ward
herons, were wading in the shallow
water. Here and there among the
green tangles of the island I could pick
out momentarily the site where a nest
must be, as egret or heron appeared
for a few seconds outlined against the
dark background. Overhead a con-
stant stream of reddish egrets and
Louisiana herons winged their way to
and from the island in their customary
twilight activity. Dozens of great-
tailed grackles mixed witli the general
migration, clucking in familial' black-
bird fashion. A few least terns were
busy along the beach, where they had
their shallow nests on top of the sandy
windrow, and a pair of skimmers
dipped past me, calling hoarsely.
From high above a black vulture
circled slowly down and settled on the
only dead tree upon the island. From
my perch on the roof I could see that
there were a good many birds on the
island, but I thought Mr. Camp a little
optimistic when he said that there were
thousands of breeding birds awaiting
my visit on the morrow. However, I
was soon to be convinced that he was
not exaggerating things in the least'
The next morning was spent in a
general survey of the island and in the
enjoyment of a truly astonishing sight.
Wherever we went, we were preceded
by a wild activity on the part of
hundreds of egrets and herons, which
rose in great clouds before us and
settled near by upon the tops of the
shrubs, surveying us uncertainly.
As far as the eye could reach the bush
tops were alive with graceful forms.
Reddish egrets and Louisiana herons
were everywhere, the marvelous grace
of their ever-changing postures exciting
constant wonderment. In a far corner
a few pair of black-crowned night herons
had their nests hidden in a particularly
dense thicket, and appeared for a
moment only as they hurriedly escaped
at our least approach. Ward herons
sprang from their nests with a great
squawk as we advanced, and dis-
appeared on heavy wings over our
limited horizon. Here and there in the
heart of the tangle we could get a
glimpse of a secretive form of wondrous
white as some snowy egret or red-
dish egret in the immaculate plumage
of the white phase slipped silently from
a hidden nest. Through the under-
brush we could see also the Mack sleek
forms of the grackles as they slipped
474
NATURAL HISTORY
silently from nest to nest, making the
most of the absence of incubating
egrets and herons to ply their nefarious
trade of egg-eating. Frequently, too,
one of these large blackbirds would
come to the top of some conspicuous
perch and there, with much ado, in-
flate and deflate himself, producing
thereby not only a grotesque appear-
ance but also a most peculiar song.
From a near-by shrub a gray-tailed
cardinal burst into a song of great
richness, as if to ridicule the pathetic
attempt of the grackle at vocal gym-
nastics. Everywhere there was life,
and everywhere there was beauty and
grace and a symphony of sound and
color.
On the morning in question our in-
vestigations were confined to the out-
skirts of the vegetation, with excursions
along the two paths which Mr. Camp
had cut through the brush. It was
during this time that I learned the
exact nature of the island to which I
had come. I had been warned that the
vegetation was thick, that there were
cacti and "other things" with prick-
ers; that I ought to wear leather
trousers, leather gloves, and a leather
coat — which would have been utterly
impossible because of the heat. I was
prepared, therefore, to find a tangled
growth on the island, but down in the
bottom of my heart I had doubted
whether the brush could be as bad as
reported. I had not been on the island
five minutes, however, before I realized
that the great problem in photograph-
ing the birds would be to get near them,
for this mass of brush in which the
birds nest is nothing but a huge pin-
cushion armed with a million needle
points, projecting in every direction, at
every angle, and at every height. The
bushes, some eight or ten feet high, are
mostly a vicious species of Condalia,
exceedingly branched and covered with
short, ver}' stiff, very sharp thorns that
tear the skin painfully and cling to the
clothing in a most annoying fashion.
Among the Condalia are scattered
luxuriant examples of the famous
Yucca, or Spanish dagger, which grows
about breast high, appearing as a great
sheath of long, firm dagger-like leaves
tipped with a thorny substance sharper
than a Victrola needle. It was one of
these villainous thorns that gently
pierced my knee cap and made me a
very stiff, sick, and unhappy mortal
for three days. Beneath the Yucca
lies a substratum of Opuntia, the
prickly-pear cactus, running vinelike
over the ground, bristling like an angry
porcupine, and, porcupine-like, ready
to shed hundreds of needles into any-
thing that comes in contact with it.
Under the cactus I believe was the
ground, though I do not recall ever hav-
ing seen it! Therefore, before any
photographing could be done, it was
necessary to bring the machete into
play, and slowly, carefully, and very
painfully cut paths and by-paths into
the thickets and thus clear spaces in
which the great ten-foot ladder we had
brought along for photographic pur-
poses could be erected near suitable
nests. It was from this stepladder that
the photographs that accompany this
article were taken; without it there
could have been no photographs.
Reddish egrets and Louisiana herons
predominated, the former being the
more abundant. Areas were easily
found in which every stage of nest
construction and all stages in the
development of eggs and young were in
progress. Some nests were found in the
very first stages of construction ; others
showed eggs or young, while still
others gave evidence that the young
had already outgrown the nest and had
The Louisiana heron is a study in grace and poise
A foundation of
>ticks and twigs
would seem to pro-
vide rather rough
bedding for the nest-
lings that hatch from
the eggs of the Lou-
isiana heron. Much
effort is expended in
the building of the
nest, for it is no easy
task to manipulate
the long sticks. The
iiuiiiImt of eggs to :i
nest averages three.
but nests containing
as many as four eggs
are not unusual
476
NATURAL HISTORY
left it for a more adventurous life
among the bushes. An explanation of
the fact that some nests were just
being started was found in the activi-
ties of the grackles, which destroy
hundreds of eggs of both of these
species each year. This havoc is, of
course, wrought during the absence of
the old birds, and the grackles show an
astonishing ability to single out un-
incubated eggs. During my visit I
saw dozens of eggs that were being
eaten, but in no case had incubation
been in progress more than a few days.
The great-tailed grackle destroys the eggs
of both the Louisiana heron and the reddish
egret. Three eggs of the former species,
drained of their contents by one of these
pillagers, are shown in the picture
Yet I seriously doubt whether this is a
conscious selection by the grackles of
unincubated eggs: I believe that the
truth lies in the fact that it is during the
the time that the egg complement is
being laid that the greatest part of the
destruction occurs, for it is then that
the eggs are left entirely unprotected
and the grackles are able to feast long
and heartily without interruption.
Yet this destruction of the nest causes
very little worry to the old birds:
indeed, I once watched a grackle break
up an egret nest while the parent bird
stood not fifteen feet away, intermit-
tently watching the performance and
preening its feathers! Soon after the
destruction of the old nest, a new one
is begun near by, the sticks being
taken from deserted nests or from the
ground. The nest-building is rather a
slow process, because of the awkward-
ness of handling long sticks in the
tangled brush. Often the birds will
work for an hour, poking and fussing
with one small twig before it is finally
placed in just the proper position.
These nests may be built at any eleva-
tion from the ground to the top of the
brush stratum, although only a mi-
nority are constructed upon the ground.
The average number of eggs to a set is
three; many nests were found, how-
ever, that contained four eggs.
The life of the young birds is any-
thing but exciting. Day after day they
lie on their shallow platform of sticks
under the sweltering rays of a June sun,
and the monotony of their lives is
broken only by the coming and going
of the old birds and, as the nestlings
grow older, by innocent sparring
matches among themselves. Long
before they are able to fly. they leave
the nest at the approach of danger
and, using beak and wings and legs,
climb unsteadily about in the brush,
returning to the nest when the excite-
ment is over. Before they are able to
climb out of the nest, the babies make a
valiant defense against an intruder by
hissing and jabbing vigorously with
their bills. They are so unsteady,
however, that they very seldom hit
what they are aiming at. They are a
comical sight sitting on their heels,
their great feet sprawling before them
as they vainly endeavor to keep then-
balance during the violent exercise of
defense. Once they become used to
climbing about in bushes, they are
LOUISIANA HERONS AND REDDISH EGRETS AT HOME 477
safe, as then it is nearly impossible to
capture them: they can go through the
tangle much faster than you can.
The old birds took very complacently
to the terrifying presence of the great
ladder with the camera attached to it
and in most cases returned to the nest
within the hour. The clicking of the
shutter was a source of worry for some
time, but once the birds grew accus-
tomed to the sound, it became necessary
to throw sticks at them or to clap the
hands in order to make them leave the
nest. At that, they often returned to
their incubating while I was still en-
gaged in changing the plate holder less
than six feet from the nest. In re-
turning the birds ordinarily alight on a
near-by bush, and from it survey the
situation leisurely. Then, by a series
of hops they slowly approach the nest,
usually (in the case of the reddish
egret, at least) with the feathers all
erect. They will stand at the very edge
of the nest sometimes by the hour,
simply for the purpose of warding off
the supposed attacks of neighboring
egrets that are likewise amusing them-
selves by repelling imagined intrusions.
Bristling, with every feather erect, they
jab viciously at the object of their
attack, or simply endeavor, by a full
display of plumage, to overawe the
innocent offender. Thus they pass the
time defending their nests against
entirely theoretical attacks of their
neighbors, whose one idea often is
simply to slip back to their eggs as
unobtrusively as possible. This erect-
ing of the feathers also plays a pari
during the mating season, the court-
ship consisting of much twisting and
stretching of the neck, accompanied
by much bowing and a complete dis-
play of feathers. Both the egrets and
Louisiana herons are wonderful sights
when thev fluff themselves to the utmost.
Because of the fact that the heat is
so intense, incubation consists of two
types. During the late afternoon and
early morning and throughout the
night the birds sit upon the nest in
ordinaiy fashion. It is during the heat
of the day, however, that the problem
becomes not one of giving heat to the
eggs or young, but of giving shade and
air circulation. During the heat of the
day, therefore, it was a common sight
to see the old birds standing in the
center of the nest with the wings ex-
tended and drooping like a canopy
over the hatching eggs or squirming
young. Strange as it may seem, these
youngsters are hardier than the young
of the brown pelican, which often die
apparently of sunstroke if they happen
to hatch during the absence of the old
birds. The chief source of mortality
among the young egrets and herons
seems to be falling out of the nest, and
a young bird is permitted to die of
starvation or to be consumed by the
red ants or a stray coyote that may
reach the island during low water,
right under the nest, without the old
birds showing any sign of comprehend-
ing what is going on.
In view of the sticky, prickly char-
acter of the vegetation one naturally
wonders what effect the thorns and
daggers have on the birds. The answer
is very simple: no effect at all. The
birds slide through the tangled under-
growth and promenade over the top of
the thorny mass as if there were nothing
at all annoying in the character of the
vegetation. Nests were found under
and in the Yucca clumps, where it was
impossible for a hand to reach un-
scratched, nestled in the heart of the
Condalia bushes, under great twisted
groups of cacti bristling like pin-
cushions. On this inhospitable tangle
the herons and egrets alight, and over
478
NATURAL HISTORY
A reddish egret Incubating on a nest that is bastioned by forbidding prickly growths
its uneven surface they hop and flutter
without the slightest apparent incon-
venience. Their ability to balance
themselves is remarkable, and one of
the favorite observation posts of the
egret is the pinnacle of the fruiting
body of the Yucca. On this unsteady
perch the birds balance themselves
even on windy days, and with half-
spread wings maintain their equilibrium
under the most adverse conditions.
Just where the old birds went for
food is a question. On a quiet evening
hundreds of them would be seen stand-
ing in the shallow water that surrounds
their island, but the birds remained
almost motionless in the red glow of
the setting sun, and there was little
evidence that they caught their food
so near home. On the contrary, with
the approach of evening and the lessen-
ing of the intensity of the sun, the birds
usually took wing and disappeared in
small groups to the southwest, in which
direction undoubtedly lay their feeding
ground. The food consists of small
fish and frogs, tadpoles and an occa-
sional crustacean, which are probably
caught in the marshes of the mainland
coast. Before dark the birds were all
back and at the nest, and there was
relatively little night activity. With
the daylight the birds would fly away
once more to the feeding grounds,
returning again before the heat of the
sun was sufficiently intense to endanger
their precious eggs or babies. Then
followed another period of inactivity
during which the birds remained close
to the nest, preening their wonder-
ful feathers or playing at repelling
intruders.
LOUISIANA HERONS AXD REDDISH EGRETS A T HOME 479
For nearly two weeks we worked on
the island, carrying the great ladder
from one end of the place to the other
when nests suitable for photographic
purposes were located, training the
cyclopic eye of the camera now on this
nest and now on that, as series after
series of pictures were taken. For nearly
two weeks the wind blew out of the
south, a heavy gusty wind that kept
the bushes and birds in nearly constant
motion and added untold difficulties
to the natural obstacles that already
existed upon the island. Rain squalls
blew up from the gulf without warning,
and drifting cloud masses obscured the
sun at unexpected and often critical
moments, making the task of photo-
graphing the birds as difficult as pos-
sible. Torn by Condalia, stiff and sore
from the Yucca jabs, our legs bristling
with cactus thorns even as a cactus,
bathed in sweat and burned into a
nearly unsleepable condition by the
merciless sun, we shot picture after
picture in this wonderful natural studio.
It was my desire to bring back with me
life-history studies telling the story of
the home life of these two most inter-
esting species, the reddish egret and
the Louisiana heron. As it wras impos-
sible in the cramped quarters of the
houseboat to do any developing, day
after day mjr pack of exposed nega-
tives increased in size as the unex-
posed diminished, while each night
as I changed plates under a blanket.
I asked myself wonderingly : "Am I
getting what I came for?"
The last evening at Isla Verde I sat
once more upon the roof of the house-
boat and through my glasses watched
for the last time the enchanting activity
on the island. Even as I sat, I was
rewarded b}r two never-to-be-forgotten
sights.
From the west came in slow ma-
jestic flight seven of the great Amer-
ican egrets, which circled the island
and alighted amid its green shad-
ows. No sooner had they disappeared
than, turning my glasses to the mud
flat to the south, I beheld there
a flock of fourteen roseate spoonbills,
their gorgeous plumage in bold relief
against the dark background. The
finding of a roseate spoonbill is always
an exciting event, and this glorious
flock furnished a fitting climax to my
visit.
Early the next morning we set sail
again for the Point. The wind was un-
favorable, and the return trip took
nearly eight hours. In the bottom of
the boat, wrapped in a rubber coat and
protected from the sun as well as from
the dancing spray, lay a package con-
taining the photographic results of my
little expedition. My mind drifted
back to the time when, almost a year
before to a dajT, we were returning
from our trip to the pelicans on Bird
Island, bearing a similar unknown
quantity in the way of pictures, simi-
larly protected against possible injury.
Some months ago I asked you to
judge those pictures; may I ask you
now to judge these?
THE LOUISIANA HERON APPROACHES HER NEST CAUTIOUSLY
A portrait study of two young Louisiana herons
In this picture
of a Louisiana
heron the plum-
age is shown in
all its delicate
detail. Although
clothed in such
soft finery, these
birds live in the
midst of thorny
and prickly
growths through
which they
move without
injury and even
without appar-
ent disarray of
their feathers.
This display of
plumage plays
an important
part in the de-
fence of the nest
and in the nup-
tial perform-
ances. It is of
interest to com-
pare this picture
with that of the
egret on p. 485
tsi
Young reddish egrets in the white phase
S*3
The young reddish egret is a comical little chap
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG EGRET JEST AFTER LEAVING THE NEST EOR THE FIRST TIME
iv.;
EGRETS HAVE A WONDERFUL SENSE OF BALANCE
Although on a very insecure perch, the bird is able to keep its equilibrium as it thrusts its
head downward to examine the nest
484
A SHOW OF DEFIANCE
An egret, resentful of the presence of the camera near its nest, is trying to frighten away
the operator by a full display ot plumage
.-, **»
•«*'
THE WALL-LIKE ROCKS OF NAVAJO LAND
In the canons the rocks frequently suggest walls of masonry on the face of which rectan-
gular blocks are clearly defined as though carved by some stonecutter's tool. Occasional trees
cast a bit of grateful shade, and here the horses, their girths loosened, willingly linger for an
interval before the march is resumed
Navajo Land
By WILLIAM DORY
IT is a land of distance and color. In
some regions the rocks and soil
are themselves bright, in others the
glory is chiefly atmospheric. From
Carriso Mountain may be seen brown
or greenish plains, and brown or green-
ish mesas beyond mesas, and then,
finally, pale blue mountains fifty or
even a hundred miles away. There to
the north is the southern end of the
Rockies. Other mountains stand apart
from these and from one another.
Between some of them the world ends
in a level blue rim that seems to be the
sea until a second look shows that
obvious desert melts into it without a
shore.
In the Navajo summer in the
morning the far-distant mountains and
even the far-distant plains glow with
colors like those of flowers with the sun
behind them or of pale stained glass.
One of the colors is a beautiful blue-
green, not due to vegetation.
At noon on the plains the sun usually
shines with fierce glare out of the un-
broken vault of intense blue down upon
a yellow world. At sunset ridges may
be a brilliant flame, shadows deepest
purple, even though there be not a
cloud. Dry as the land is, banks of
cumulous clouds are not unusual in
August, and very often orange sun-
beams break through these and spread
t'anwise over the heavens.
When the sun's disk has sunk be-
low the horizon, there comes the famed
afterglow; a long, clear, pink twilight
over all things. As the pink fades, the
air becomes suddenly chill and man
finds a blanket round his shoulders a
comfort. When deep night has covered
the earth, and the stranger, like the
native, has rolled himself chrysalis-wise
in his blanket and has lain down con-
tented on the wrarm dewless sand, with
the silent unfenced dark stretching
awaj- on every side, should there be no
moon, he looks up at the broad over-
arching sky now filled with stars bril-
liant almost beyond belief. Then the
cool clean air after the burning heat
brings "sweet sleep down from the
blissful skies." Such is Navajo land in
summer. The winters are cold.
It is a vast desert high above the
sea, with unsocial mountains standing
alone, crowned with forests, and flat-
topped hills (mesas), bordered by high
perpendicular cliffs, and broad plains
below, the whole cut by deep rock-
walled canons. Some of the cliff
sides are fluted, as it were, and some,
especially in the canons, resemble walls
of solid masonry, the rectangular
blocks showing.
In some places may be seen piles of
wind-blown sand, like the dunes of the
seashore; in others a floor of rock
strewn with a thin layer of sand; or,
again, a floor of rock absolutely bare,
its form kept broadly smooth by a
myriad sand-grain chisels, driven by
the wind. Of course where there is so
much wind and dry sand, there are at
times sand storms from which both
man and beast are glad to find shelter.
The Navajo Reservation is three
times as large as the state of Con-
necticut, but not large enough for the
needs of its people,- a country where the
small tufts of grass, where there is
grass, are of scattered growth, and there
is no water for more than a little irriga-
488
NATURAL HISTORY
A glimpse into the wooded pari of the mountains. In this land of little rain even a
stream so feeble and trickling as the one shown has its value
tion. The San Juan River on the north
Mows past the country the year round,
but the Little Colorado River in the
south is dry for several months in much
of its course. The amount of rainfall,
needless to say, depends chiefly on alti-
tude. The lofty heights are too cold for
agriculture, and most of the brooks
from these heights, as soon as they
reach the plains, quickly lose them-
selves in thirsty sand. It is not that
all the ground is infertile in itself, but
that water is rarely found. Over most
of the country rain falls so seldom
that it is longed for and prayed for by
the Indians as the greatest blessing
the Powers above can bestow. The
traveler often meets Navajos herding
their sheep and goats to distant pastures
or to the water holes they know.
April, May, and June are exceedingly,
dry, July and August are the months of
most rain, and each rain is brief even
then. After a summer shower flowers
of great beauty appear out of what was
a mere moment before nothing but
parched sand, each situation producing
in a surprising degree a flora of its
own. Then in a little while all is dry
and barren as before.
There are open woods of yellow pine
on the high mountains, pifions and
junipers lower, and below that the
open levels. Grass grows best in the
high mountains, where it has most rain,
and ceases altogether at the lowest
plains. Down in the canons large
separate trees now and then appear.
"A dry and thirsty land where no
water is." A beautiful land. A bare,
grim, and desolate land. There is a
saying that no one but a Navajo
could make a living from so forbidding
a country; yet it is an old story that
NAVAJO LAXD
489
when an Indian shows by improvement
that his land is good, the white man
immediately wants to take possession
of it.
The Navajo Indian fought the white
man long. Navajo attacks upon white
settlers in their part of the world were
persistent and formidable. The United
States sent one military expedition
after another against these Indians
without permanent results. At length,
in 1863, their sheep (also their carefully
nurtured orchards) having been de-
stroyed as a military measure, they
were starving and a large part of the
tribe surrendered. They were carried
prisoners to Fort Sumner, New Mexico,
where they were kept in captivity four
years, during which time a few escaped
and about a third of their number died.
They said that if free to return to their
native place, they would make war on
the United States no more. At length,
in 1867, they were set at lib< rty and
allowed some sheep and goats with
which to begin new flocks. They have
been at peace ever since, though still
hostile in sentiment to white encroach-
ment on their domain, which now,
with established limits, is a "Reserva-
tion."
The Xavajos are a vigorous, indus-
trious people, who do not share the
opinion that work (other than war
and hunting) is beneath a man's
dignity. They have known something
for generations of both dry farming and
irrigating on a small scale, and in-
dividuals may be seen at present
patiently leading water from whatever
sources obtainable over little corn-
fields— if fields they can be called —
patiently building and rebuilding small
dams and conduits from sand and
sagebrush. These efforts produce some
corn, squash, and melons at the least.
The Navajo plants corn with a stick,
without general digging. If the soil
were much lightened and stirred, the
wind storms would blow it away.
Xavajo faces are alert and intelligent.
The people retain much of their old.
proud independence of spirit not-
withstanding the presence of several
white superintendents within then-
borders. The government has broken
up the old tribal systems of discipline
among Indians generally, without fur-
nishing an effective substitute in remote
places. Thus the Indians sometimes
get a moral discredit which, taken as
a whole, they do not deserve. The
government, however, appoints Indians
from year to year to an office among
themselves somewhat resembling our
justices of the peace, and these men
are said to be useful where their in-
fluence reaches.
Unlike their neighbors, the Hopi,
who appear always to have been by
their own rules monogamists, the
Xavajo native standard allows a man
to have several wives although the
practice seems not to have been uni-
versal. Today no direct resistance is
made to the government's effort to
break up polygamy, but it still exists
to some extent.
Although the bride's parents are
presented with horses by the bride-
groom, it is denied that this is a
purchase. The native marriage cere-
mony takes place before witnesses in a
dwelling. It consists in seating bride
and groom facing each other with a
basket of corn meal between them.
Across the basket are drawn lines to
the four cardinal points, these direc-
tions being regarded as sacred, espe-
cially the east. Then, after pouring
water over each other's hands, the
man and woman eat a little meal from
each sacred side of the basket and from
the middle, beginning with the eastern
490
NATURAL HISTORY
across the forehead slightly confines the
hair and is the only protection of the
head from the sun. Though not dis-
daining civilized "overalls," they gen-
ally wear very loose trousers, slit to
the knee and often made of cotton
print. Strange to say, Dame Fashion,
capricious always, decrees that the
women shall leave the head bare
though she allows them to carry a sun
umbrella if they can procure one. A
velveteen shirt is so much worn by
both sexes as to be almost a distinctive
tribal costume in place of the ancient
buckskin or other native dress. The
women pull the shirt (or more properly
blouse or frock) down over a skirt
which reaches to the ankles and is full
A colored headband not infrequently en-
ircles the black glossy hair of the Navajo
side. After this, food is served to the
guests.
In common with some other Indian
tribes the Navajos have the queer
notion, for which they cannot them-
selves account, that a man must not
speak to his wife's mother. A married
woman will freely visit her mother.
but the mother will not visit her
daughter unless she knows that the
son-in-law is absent.
The wife holds property entirely
separate from the husband. The
woman often owns flocks of sheep,
and the money she gets from her
weaving is her own.
Even at this late day the Navajo
Indians in general appearance retain
some elements of the picturesque. In
figure they are straight and light.
Many of the men still wear the hair
long, twisted into a knot at the back.
When not adopting the white man's
broad soft hat, bought at a trading-
post on the Reservation, a folded band
When in the full glare of the intense sun-
light, an Indian half-closes his eves without
screwing up the whole face as a white man does
NAVAJO LAND
491
enough to fall freely on both sides of a
horse as they ride astride. The blanket
is still worn by Navajos of both sexes
as a cloak, but those of their own weave
being heavy, are now frequently sold
for rugs, while they use for cloaks
lighter and cheaper ones, factory-made
with gay angular designs to suit the
Indian taste.
Navajo dwellings are as inconspicu-
ous in the landscape as ant hills or the
nests of birds, and seem as much a part
of nature. In summer the chahao
(shade) is much used; built of brush
with the leaves on or of brush and
weeds, it is open to every breeze, yet a
shelter from the fierce sun. Their
more substantial dwelling, the hogan,
is built of logs leaning inward, care-
fully supported, and plastered on the
outside with adobe, a natural plaster
found on the ground and hardening in
the sun. The smoke hole in the roof is
a ventilator never shut, and the door
opening is closed only with a loose
blanket. For building, the logs are
first laid out on the ground in a pattern
prescribed by tradition according to
the type of hogan required, and then
raised in a prescribed order. The door
is always to the east.
I shall ever remember with pleas-
ure my first sight of the interior of a
hogan at night. At the request of Mr.
Hunt, a trader at Tisnaspas, a N; vajo
youth consented for a small considera-
tion to conduct me to "a sing." He
led me to the top of a cliff crowned
with pinons and dwarf cedars, where a
cool breeze blew and where a newly
built hogan stood among the little
trees. Near by, a number of Indians
were gathered round a camp fire, some
watching, others sleeping, all under
the open sky, protected from the wind
by a semicircular fence of cedars put
together for the purpose. On the open
side of this fence the firelight showed
the nearest of a flock of sheep and goats.
A lamb came bleating out of the dark-
ness, was petted by the Indians, and
lay down to sleep among them. Two
boys, with hands painted white, came
forward to greet us as we approached.
As I listened to the music floating-
out from the hogan, a young man said
in English, "You may go in." and
Expert as blanket-weavers, the Navajos
excel also as silversmiths, and necklaces made
oi silver are a common form of adornment
stepped over to lift the curtain. This
hogan was rather larger than is usual,
new and clean, its interior atmosphere
still fresh even to lungs coming from
the keen air outside although there
were some twenty Indians within. The
fragrance of the small fire of cedar in
the middle of the floor was pleasant,
and the firelight gave a soft glow to t he
brown faces of the Indians; figures,
raiment, and all making a "luminist "
picture in the glancing firelight against
the excellent architectural background
492
XATURAL HISTORY
of the slanting hogan poles. When the
fire sank low, stars could be seen
through the smoke hole in the roof.
The Indians seemed not at all dis-
turbed by the presence of the white
man, who had been courteously bidden
to enter. It was the occasion of a
ceremonial singing by a medicine
sat at the patient's right, and some
ten men, three women, and three boys
completed the fire-lit circle. Accord-
ing to custom the women took no part
in the singing.
The singing was continued until
dawn, with short rests between songs,
a longer rest at midnight for a late
r\
mi
V i
^•S
THE EARTH-COVERED LODGE OF THE NAVAJO
This hogan, the roof of which is rather flatter than is usual in the house of the Navajo,
nsts. as is always the ease, upon a conical framework of logs. In the construction of the
hogan horizontal logs have been laid across the slanting ones to hold a flatter thatch. In the
center of the roof is a hole for ventilation and for the escape of smoke. The doorway faces
the east in accordance with prescribed custom, a blanket being drawn accross the opening
man, — I never found out exactly what
for, receiving a scornful negative when
I asked afterwards outside whether
anyone were ill. Possibly it was to
bless a new hogan, but it seemed more
personal.
The patient, if such he was, sat with
his wife at the back of the hogan. The
medicine man, who led the singing,
supper of bread and coffee and roast
ribs of mutton — of course eaten with
the fingers — prepared by women on
the camp fire outside. There was also
a pause for prayers, which were
solemnly spoken by the medicine man
and repeated by the patient, clause by
clause. At one time the medicine
man touched the patient on various
NAVAJO LAXD
493
parts of his body and put something
in his mouth.
Navajo singing rises at times to a
harsh falsetto, but it is musical and has
much weird charm to unaccustomed
ears. The weirdness is due partly to
Indian rhythms, which are more com-
plex than ours and hard for a white
man to learn, — not easy for an Indian.
The Navajos have a superstition
that the original primal animals were
rational beings, able to talk with
humanity and still existing as spirits
who may be asked for aid. Mrs.
Wetherill also furnishes this less
poetic conception — "Oh, big black
bear, with your shoes like a knife,
stand between me and danger," an
It is hard to ini:iy,i n<- the Navajo without a horse, yet in pre-Columbian days neither
this animal nor the sheep, both of which today play so important a part in the life of these
Indians, were known to them
Whatever may be said of the medi-
cine-man in other respects, it must be
admitted that he is a conserver of art,
music, and poetry, — and there is real
poetry in Navajo prayers and songs.
Take for example this prayer to the
dawn, which Mrs. Wetherill has kindly
allowed me to borrow:
Oh, Dawn, Dawn, beautiful Dawn, chief of
the beautiful!
Let it be well before me as I go,
Let it be well behind me as I go,
Let it lie well beneath me as I go,
Let it l>c well above me as I go,
Lei all I sec lie well as I <>. i.
appeal to the primal, abstract bear, ;t
spirit. The "shoes" of an actual bear
arc in reality formidable weapons.
The Navajos, like various other
Indians, have a ceremony of thanks-
giving for the corn at the time that the
green ears are ready to cat. One
night, as I slept out of doors on a low
mesa, I was wakened by strange music
and saw a group of men dancing in the
light of a half moon, — young men prac-
tising for the coin dance, I afterwards
learned. Now and then one of them
would separate himself from the resl
494
NATURAL HISTORY
f¥ 1¥
A pack train outlined against the sky, moving in rather ragged Indian file across the desert
and dance with admirable lightness
and grace far out into the shadow of a
higher mesa and back again, — a scout
to ward off evil spirits, according to
white testimony. Ere long the dancers
disappeared over the rim of our mesa,
the music coming faintly back to me.
At another time, in another part of
the Reservation, this time in brilliant
moonlight, a small number of men were
dancing to a sort of chanting song,
punctuated at long intervals by a drum,
the men standing in one place, keeping
time with their feet and swaying their
bodies. As I stood up at a little dis-
tance, wearing my blanket, for the
night was cool, I saw the shadow of an
Indian thrown before him on the sand
as he approached from behind. I
refrained from turning my head; he
came round in front to see who the
blanketed figure might be and laughed
to behold a white man in a blanket ;
then in a jocose manner, as if to say,
" If you want to play Indian, come on,"
took my hand and led me among the
dancers, where I tried in vain to keep
time to the complex rhythm.
Kayenta, or Tyende, as the name is
variously spelled, the trading post of
Messrs. Wetherill and Colville, is 165
miles from a railroad, the farthest of
any post office in the United States
proper to receive a regular mail. It
enjoys an excellent spring — an all-
important matter in this dry country.
The dwelling house of adobe brick and
plaster is pleasantly cool within, as the
southwestern adobe buildings are in
summer, yet warm in winter. First
seen after days of desert travel, the
interior calls to mind some far-away
palace of a fairy tale that a traveler
through a wilderness comes to unexpec-
tedly: the floors covered with beautiful
Navajo rugs, the walls adorned with
friezes from Navajo sand-painting
designs, and a library of good books,
and the luxury of a bathroom.
Mrs. Wetherill speaks Navajo
fluently. She has made a sympathetic
study of these Indians and has been
ceremonially adopted into one of their
clans. She has become an authority on
Navajo matters.
When I first saw Kaventa, Indians
XAVA.IO LAXD
495
I
■
Now and then an animal would stray out of line, only to lie headed off by a rider
had been encouraged to gather near it
for games among themselves. Men
and women on horseback, arrayed in
their most festive garments for a large
social occasion unconsciously fell into
pictures a painter would like to study.
One of the games, called by the un-
pleasant name of "the chicken pull."
was played thus — A fowl, previously
killed, was buried in the sand up to its
neck; the Indian men. putting their
horses at full speed, stooped from the
saddle and tried to pull the fowl up
from the ground in passing without
checking their horses. Whoever suc-
ceeded in doing this won the game.
The same game may be played with a
leather strap instead of the fowl. After
this game came a foot race for boys.
Some time later I went to Sagie, or
Laguna Canon, with a trustworthy
Navajo who spoke no English, to see
Bet at akin and Kitsiel, t he largest groups
of cliff dwellings in the canon that is still
called by its Spanish name. Laguna,
although there is no lake there now.
Setting out in the afternoon we rode
southwestward over the plain- for
about four miles, stopped at a water
hole, went through an opening in a
fantastically indented leaning ridge of
yellow rock, and west of it. entered the
mouth of our red walled canon in the
great perpendicular face of a mesa.
The Tyende seems a tiny stream to
have carved out for itself so great a
hall. The canon has so many branches,
deep and steep-sided, that they call to
little human creatures to wander, lost
in those vast winding halls with appar-
ently unscalable walls, all the rest of
their natural lives. Here, of old, the
cliff dwellers may have played hide
and seek with marauding enemies in
grim earnest.
We rode on till dark: then the Indian
stopped, unsaddled, led, hobbled, and
turned loose the horses, using a handful
of lighted weeds as a torch so deftly
that no lantern could have served
better. Then he mad'' a fire of sage-
brush, pointed inquiringly to the cof-
fee pot on the pack saddle, and find-
ing I did not want coffee, refused any
supper at all for himself. We sat a few
moments by the fire before sleeping, the
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NATURAL HISTORY
Indian rather haughty. It seemed
wonderful to be there between those
rocky walls with one of the only real
Americans, who spoke only his own
tongue. I wished I could speak his
language. In the course of our trip I
was able, now and then, to make a
remark or ask a question, partly by
signs and partly by using a Navajo
vocabulary published by missionaries,
and was always understood in spite of
my total neglect of grammatical in-
flections. At first he seemed surprised
when I did not fully understand his
answers, but I managed to tell him
that the book spoke Navajo and I did
not, which seemed to amuse him, and
after that he used signs more than
words.
At dawn he arose and went for our
animals, which had drifted out of sight
down the cafion in their grazing. Re-
turning, he "saddled up" quickly,
with our sleeping blankets neatly
rolled. The morning was warm and
we were glad to ride on for an hour or
two in the cool shadow of the rock be-
fore breakfast. The sunlight gleamed
on one bit of the rim high above us and
crept slowly down until it made on a
gigantic scale those triangles and
trapezoids of light and shade that sun-
loving artists like to depict in scenes
from city streets.
Toward noon we were ascending a
side canon and traversing a growth of
small trees that shut in our vision. As
we emerged from these, the man
waved his arm with a large dramatic
flourish and smiled, as though he
would say: "Behold the wonder my
country has to show!" There above
us, in a great, evenly arched niche in
the cafion wall, was Bet at akin, the
substantial remnant of an ancient
village, under the protecting arch of
solid rock, — the dwellings of a forgotten
people, too high for enemies to ap-
proach below unseen, and sheltered
from the possibility of attack from
above.
We had dinner under the little trees
that grew at the foot of the cliff, then a
long rest during the heat. When it was
time to go, I made signs suggesting
that we spend the night at the old
dwellings. I did so purposely to hear
him refuse, as Navajos are said to be
afraid of ghosts at night near a dwelling
in which any one has died, even a cliff
dweller of long ago. Among themselves
they either carry the dying person out-
of-doors or burn down the hogan after
the burial. My guide now sternly
refused in Navajo to stay and pointed
to the horses. I asked "Chindi
hogan?" (haunted house); he an-
swered "Okh" (yes i.
In the afternoon of the following day
we halted between small patches of
scrub oak, and the man indicated by
laving his cheek on his hand and closing
his eyes that we would sleep there.
Anxious to know whether we were near
Kitsiel, I looked up some words in the
vocabulary and asked "House of the
upright rock far?" He replied in
Navajo "not far." As soon, then, as
we had "made camp," which we did by
merely unsaddling our beasts of bur-
den, and he had driven them up a
steep side where there was grass, we
walked on to see this old, old town.
Presently the man paused in front of
the canon wall and pointed high up.
He waited to let the stupid white man's
eyes search the top for dwellings in
vain, then touched my arm lightly and
laughed, pointing lower. There, in
such another niche as the one that
holds Betatakin, was Kitsiel, the
second largest group of crumbling
buildings, another home of vanished
cliff dwellers.
NAVAJO LAND
501
Xext day while I was near the cliff
dwellings alone, I heard from far up on
the rocks above, from a place where no
one could climb, a wild weird call,
neither human nor animal, certainly
not that of any animal I knew. I
paused to listen; another and different
eerie cry came from another lofty
point. Some half-human creature of
fable might give such a cry as that.
Presently the Indian rose out of the
bushes and laughed. I suppose he
had been using a whispering gallery in
the rocks. Later, while I was absorbed
in my work, he slipped near, unheard
in his noiseless moccasined feet, and
startled me by a sudden exclamation.
He gently teased me for lying flat on
the ground to pant after mounting the
steep side of an arroyo in the heat of
the day and for mislaying camera
material in plain sight to his sharp
eyes. These boyish pleasantries were
the more striking in a middle-aged man
because his face in repose was grave,
even sad, if not glum, the mouth
slightly curved down at the corners.
Several observers have said that the
Xavajo is a more ready laugher than
most Indians. Is he gayer by nature,
or merely more at ease in the presence
of the white man because he has been
less interfered with and is living his
own life, beholden to no man, in his
own country, wherein the white man,
not the Indian, is the curiosity?
Xow here in Sagie Canon the guide
and I began our return from Kitsiel
in deep darkness. The sky was clouded
over and there was a sprinkle of rain.
It was rather thrilling to find oneself
skirting the rims of black depths on
horseback or suddenly plunging down
into them, following someone unseen in
the dark. Western ponies are wonderful
for picking their way likegoatsand even
sliding; on steep locks without falling.
In the morning, as we made our usual
halt for breakfast, two pretty little
boys came up, leading a white donkey,
their black locks hanging wild. The
man seemed very glad to see them,
taking them in his arms and embracing
their heads, much in the manner some-
times shown on the stage, supposedly
representing a custom of ancient Rome.
I tried to ask, not from the book but
from careless hearsay Xavajo, "Are
these your sons?" — but ignorant ly
said, as I learned afterwards, his sons
for your sons. He replied, gravely
accepting my queer Xavajo for my
better understanding, ''Yes, these are
my his sons." Indian politeness as
shown by this incident makes it more
difficult to get the language correctly.
I prepared to photograph the boys,
when the man immediately held a
blanket before them and asked me
twenty-five cents for the privilege,
which, indeed, it was well worth.
As we went onward farther down the
canon, a mounted Indian rode up
carrying a shovel and spoke to the man
with me, who asked permission to go
with the other to bury some one. The
Navajos get some person outside the
family to bury their dead, if they can,
and do not hesitate to ask a fellow
tribesman they may meet.
I rode on, the pack mule trotting
docilely on ahead. The guide rejoined
me before I reached Kayenta. There
we parted, with regret on my part that
I should see him no more.
From Kayenta back to Tisnasbas I
had a four days' journey in the open
with an Indian, traveling as we did
in a wagon, with a light load of hides,
lie was a pleasant fellow and we had
an entertaining time exchanging Eng-
lish and Navajo names for plants and
animals we passed on the way. As
the season was August, we met showers
502
NATURAL HISTORY
In Navajo lain! water is rarely found and rain is prayed for as the greatest of blessings.
This stony basin, filled with refreshing water that has poured into it slowly from a little
natural tunnel in the wall, is a spot where the traveler, be he Indian or white, feels tempted
to linger after a long ride. The overhanging roof of rock offers shelter from the hot sun
to cool for the moment the pitiless
desert heat. A long way off we could
see their beautiful approach across the
plain, walls of rain coming toward us,
"standing rain" the Indians call such.
The showers were brief, and wet gar-
ments in the desert air are dry again
in no time.
The driver's nephew, a boy of about
twelve or thirteen years, rode alongside
on his pony, herding several horses
before him. When rain fell heavily at
night, we all three slept under the
wagon. It was an opportunity for ob-
servation at close quarters. They were
courteous and these two at least had
not the odor of the unwashed, for they
had the advantage of living near a
small stream of some permanence.
By day the boy's sparkling gayety
was delightful. He went off into
rippling peals of fresh soft laughter at
my repeated efforts to get the correct
pronunciation of Navajo words. His
XAVAJO LAXD
503
gayety and that of another boy I had
observed on another trip was a bub-
bling joy that seemed different from
the mirth of most lively white boys,
and very different from the subdued
ways of Navajo boys at school.
What is to be the future of the
Navajos, this vigorous, upstanding,
industrious, intelligent people? They
have not been pauperized by annuities
in exchange for lands ; they are numer-
ous enough to avoid consanguineous
marriages, against which the}' have
strict rules; they are nearly all of full
Indian blood; moreover, they have
struck out for themselves new ways to
meet the changed conditions of their
world, by which they support them-
selves beholden to no man.
The question is sometimes asked,
why does the government do this or
that for the Indians? Because after
the}- were dispossessed the United
States made them its wards to give
them a standing although they wore
not citizens.
The American ideal of free education
for all men did not early include red
men, who were considered for many
purposes as separate nations. Now all
tribes in a tribal condition are given
day or boarding schools as wards of the
government, — in some cases directly
as an act of reparation for lands taken
away. The boarding school, including
food, clothing, and care, is a govern-
ment specialty for Indians. Besides
those schools on reservations, there are
several boarding schools entirely out-
side, to which selected Indian children
are sent with the consent of their
parents to their remaining for a term
of years. Commonly they cannot
return home from these schools in
vacations because the schools are dis-
tant and the parents are too poor to
pay the traveling expenses.
Obviously the Indian can no longer
live by hunting; the white man presses
him on every side; for mere self-
preservation he must learn how to meet
the white man's world. The calls of
industry, when all impediments are
removed, will doubtless draw Indians
out into the general world as it has now
drawn only a few. Let us hope, not-
withstanding, that this race, naturally
very distinct, will not everywhere
obliterate itself by intermarriage, and
lose all power to make further contribu-
tions of its own to our national life and
thought, and all ambition for high
service to its own people.
The civilized man's first idea in
teaching the uncivilized has been to
obliterate his racial past, the good with
the bad, as all parts of one system to
be forgotten. There is more willing-
ness today than formerly to accept the
good and build upon it. Why take
from Indian youth in our schools that
help in the battle of life that comes
from respecting the best ideals of their
own race? To regard a virtue as a trust
from one's ancestors is one strong
incentive to practice it. Now and
then an Indian makes the large claim
that Christian morals are such as his
people taught of old. Then, too, the
Indian sees the beautiful in nature.
The unschooled Navajo knows his
birds and quadrupeds, and calls the
thousand plants of his desert by name,
while many a white man goes through
the world deaf to such things and blind.
Many Indian songs are noble expres-
sions of race thought, and, apart from
historic interest, worth keeping for
their beauty. The art istic sense shown
in the crafts of the tribes, their out -
door Life, their sense of social obliga-
tion, their love of ordered liberty, their
dignity of manner, their reverence for
the unseen are precious things, not
504
XATURAL HISTORY
lightly to be thrown away, nor in-
compatible with the best of civilization.
We should bear in mind that what
we call civilization exposes primitive
peoples to new evils as well as bringing
them new benefits.
What has been the red man's own
thought of the white man's schools
thrust upon him? We hear of an early
instance on a Blackfoot Reservation,
A Navajo woman, seated mi ;i sheepskin,
weaving one of the rugs for which her people
are justly famous
where the mothers rode around the
boarding school building singing dirges
over the loss of their children as if they
were dead. More recently part of the
Hopi tribe made tragic protest against
the attempt to make their children
over into white men. Notwithstanding
such instances, red people surprisingly
soon came to recognize in the school an
advantage offered to their deeply loved
children of learning how to "walk
the white man's road." At this day,
many Indians desire more schooling
and better for their children, more
opportunity to enter the public schools
where they have the advantage of
competition with white children. Some
of them, again, who have themselves
gone on to our secondary schools and
colleges, long to see more of their
number stimulated to lead and instruct
thQir own people. A Winnebago, the
Rev. Henry Roe Cloud, a graduate of
Yale University, and his wife, an
educated Chippewa, have a number of
Indian young men under their charge
at Wichita, Kansas, who are working
their way toward a higher education.
This is a good illustration in point. The
government schools do not attempt to
take pupils beyond the work of the
eighth grade, with the addition of some
industrial training.
Uncle Sam has provided several
boarding schools on the Navajo Reser-
vation, placed in various parts of the
field, so that parents can visit their
children and can take them home for
the vacation, which is short. Day
schools could not well be generally
maintained here, because families wan-
der about with their sheep. There
are not enough schools for all the
Navajo children although schools for
all were promised this tribe in a treaty.
The Navajos, with whose primitive
mode of life we have interfered com-
paratively little, have the best health
of any of our Indian tribes. Tuber-
culosis and trachoma, those diseases
that make havoc in other tribes, both
acquired from the whites, are present
among the Navajos but less frequent
with them. At the government school
at Shiprock, Navajo land, there was
a short row of tents for tubercular
boys, so far a return to the primitive
from necessity. Trachoma is a very
contagious disease of the eye, produe-
NAVAJO LAXD
505
ing blindness if neglected, but curable
under scientific and persevering treat-
ment. Reservation schools among the
tribes have not succeeded in extermi-
nating it within their own walls, where
because of the close contact special care
is required to overcome it. Notwith-
standing certain hygienic advantages.
the confinement of school life seems to
be more or less a strain on the vitality of
primitive children, especially when com-
bined with homesickness. The pastoral
customs of the Navajos scatter them in
separate families or small groups; and
the hogans, though, at times of a con-
trary wind, oppressive with smoke, are,
if not overcrowded, pretty well ven-
tilated through the smoke hole in the
roof. Important as good schooling is.
health is fundamental; therefore, until
schools recognize the necessity of con-
stant fresh air, even of sleeping porch
dormitories, may it not be as well
that not all Navajo children are in
school?
There is crying need on reservations
generally for more physicians, nurses,
and hospitals. Wide Navajo land has
but few. Mr. and Mrs. Wetherill
have built a "big hogan" as an in-
firmary, and also as an example of
what a hogan might be, where Navajos
could cook over an open fire, as usual,
yet have more room to keep their be-
longings neatly and a chimney to
prevent injury to the eyes from smoke.
Mrs. Wetherill said they liked it very
much.
A boast is often made of the number
of Indians of other tribes who have
been induced to live in houses and wear
the clothing of civilization. The only
house they can afford is rarely any-
thing more than a one-room cabin with
an earth floor and one small window.
Having no knowledge of sanitation, the
Indian keeps windows tightly shut in
cold weather, while he invites all his
poor relations to share his fireside.
This is one cause of tuberculosis.
Other causes are insufficient food,
hopelessness, idleness, degeneracy from
primitive vigor. The Navajos are a
busy people; they are not drunkards.
Their sheep supply a meat ration in
place of the game now extinct.
The Navajo Reservation has been
hitherto protected from the white
man's greed by its desert character.
When the cry conies to "open to settle-
ment" these lands, shall we allow it to
be done? Someone asks, " Exactly what
is meant by 'opening' Indian lands'?"
"Opening" means allotting portions to
individual Indians, according to the
judgment of a commission appointed
by the government, and selling what is
left over, the so-called "surplus," to
white men, the proceeds to be devoted
supposedly to the benefit of the Indians.
What does experience show happens
then? \\ 'hitc men rush in to get pos-
session not only of the "surplus" but
by hook or by crook of the allotments
themselves, taking advantage of the
business ignorance of the Indians.
In the case of the Navajos there is no
shadow of reason for calling any of the
land surplus, for the country, though
extensive, is already overstocked by
the Navajos themselves. The Navajos
understand their own land system and
prosper under it. Why should they
not continue to hold their lands in
common? Some land corporations
composed of white men are doing like-
wise. With liberty in this matter and
given a helping hand in sanitation,
and protection against criminals, white
or red, the Navajos will make some-
thing worth while of themselves in
their own way, by their own initiative.
MARY CYNTHIA DICKERSOX
1866-1923
506
Mary Cynthia Dickerson
1866-1923
Her Life and Personality
By MAUD SLYE
( >f the Otto S. A. Sprague Memorial Institute, University of Chicago
THERE was born at Hastings,
Michigan, on March 7, I860,
a little girl that was to look upon
her surroundings with strange eyes.
Heredity, that little-known but cer-
tain force, selecting widely among her
forebears, had brought to her diverse
qualities that made her almost alien
in her environment. Picture to your-
self this child, with a great generous
heart, an alert observing mind, an
intense love of beauty, and an innate
craving for the exquisite, trying to
find her way and puzzled in a sphere
of life that seemed to have little use for
any of these qualities except the gener-
ous heart.
If I were to select one phrase that
would mirror Mary Cynthia Dicker-
son's heart and soul all her life, I
would select the phrase — she tried to
find her way. She spent her early life
serving the constant needs of three
small brothers. From a household
where learning was not the tradition,
she went through school, never failing
in her duties there or in the home. It
is easy to see that she must needs have
found the beauty she craved in the
sunshine, the flowers, and the small
living things that she could discover in
her intervals for play.
She put herself through college at a
time when it was not easy for a girl to
do this, teaching for a while until she
could save money enough to pursue
her studies, then going back to college
All through her undergraduate days
that same generous heait made her
give almost worshipful admiration to
the intellect of others, while she was
always humble regarding her own.
She attended the University of
Michigan intermittently from 1886
to 1891, then taught for four years,
after which she went to the University
of Chicago, graduating in 1897.
After her graduation she taught in
the Rhode Island State Normal School,
botany, zoology, and nature study.
Here, in the trips afield which she took
with her students, she learned more
and more of the minutiae of nature,
which she afterward embodied in the
beautiful groups constructed by her at
the American Museum of Natural
History. These groups are as truly
works of art as any paintings, and
equally truly works of science. At the
Normal School, also, she taught hun-
dreds of students to see for the first time
the marvels which only a naturalist
knows.
It was during this period of teaching
in Providence that she collected the
data for her two works. Moths and
Butterflies and The Frog Book, and for
her series of articles in Countrij Life in
America. It was for these books and
articles that she developed her marked
ability as an artistic and scientific
photographer of insects, amphibians,
birds, and Mowers in the life. \X\ih her
camera and tramping outfit she would
Details from Miss DirkiT>i>n'> pic- tares thai appear on pp. 506-09, 513 of this article have been used for par-
poses of illastration in "The Pageant of Nature" by Mi>s Dickerson, published in Country Life in America
daring 1906-H7, and Nati ral Bistori i> indebted to thai periodica] for permission to reproduce them
507
A PORTRAIT OF A SCREECH OWL
MA RY CI X Til I A DICKERS* )N
509
go into the country for week-ends,
staying at some isolated farmhouse, in
order to take photographs of animals
engaged in their characteristic activ-
ities among their native haunts. No
photograph was ever finally accepted
by her unless it was both scientific and
beautiful.
From Rhode Island she went to
Stanford University, where she was
instructor in zoology for two years.
She also assisted David Starr Jordan in
some of his work in ichthyology, always
broadening her own knowledge. From
Stanford University she went to the
American Museum of Natural Histoiy,
where she remained until her final ill-
ness. She died in April, 1923.
The catalogued data of a human life
are brief and quickly told; the living
of them is slow, complex, and puzzling.
According to the way in which the
individual attempts to solve the per-
plexities of life we appraise his per-
sonality. Of Miss Dickerson it is not
easy to paint a portrait that all shall
recognize, for there is an urge upon the
painter to portray the soul, and here
was peculiarly a woman who all hei
life kept her soul remote from almost
every contact.
If we are to paint her truly, we must
visualize the ready smile, the hos-
pitality that reached out always in
greeting, the generous heart that nevei
failed to help and to give, and the
humility of spirit that underlay it all.
We must paint the diligent worker,
drudging through details beautiful and
ugly alike, never failing in the service
of work, from the simplest task to the
constructing of a marvelous replica of
some little fragment of nature with
every minute detail true to exact fact
and set in an atmosphere of loveliness.
She was always willing to help in the
world's drudgery, and always able to
create beauty in whatever she under-
took.
"I cannot see," she wrote to me
during those last two years of darkness
before her death, "I cannot see even
the shortest distance into the future;
some day when I see 3rou, I will tell
you of all my puzzlement and sorrow
and despair" — a poignant reminder of
the little child perplexed to find that the
faculties of its heart and mind were not
needed in its environment. "What
shall I do without my work?" she
cried, "Perhaps the doctor will let me
go into some sick ward and help take
care of people." And here she is again
the heroic worker, who even in her own
desperate illness cannot bear not to
serve.
What an inspiration of selection it
was that gave her Mary Cynthia for a
name, — Mary, diligent, sweet, gener-
ous, ready in service, humble ; Cynthia,
the aspiring, the ardent seeker after
the romance of the world and the
romance of the cosmos! In her heart
she was Mary; in her soul she was
Cynthia; and always she tried to
find her way.
Her Unusual Gifts as An Editor
By JOHN OLIVER LA GORCE
Associate Editor, National Geographic Magazine; Vice President, National Geographic So ietj
IF St. Paul had lived in our day, he been "made all things to all men,"
would have been an ideal editor, for he laid claim to an attribute which
when, in his First Epistle to the every worthy occupant of an editorial
( 'orinthians, he declared that he had desk most longs to possess. It is an
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514
NATURAL HISTORY
editor's chief end to acquire the power,
to cultivate the gift not only of seeing
each thing and each subject from the
author's point of view but in the per-
spective of a host of readers of diverse
interests and varying intellectual back-
grounds.
Mary Cynthia Dickerson possessed
this gift to a unique degree. There are
authors in many parts of America and
Europe who will bear testimony to the
fact, for few indeed are the manu-
scripts which passed before her judicial
eye and understanding heart that did
not profit by her kindly and construc-
tive criticism and her expert sense of
their appeal to the reading public.
The successful editor is he whose
information is sufficiently broad and
whose tastes are sufficiently catholic to
discriminate between the spurious and
the true. He plays alone the role of a
Supreme Court of Criticism from which
there is no appeal. That which is
excised at his hands in most instances is
lost to the world of letters forever. It
is a weighty responsibility to signal
with blue pencil "thumbs-down" to a
thought! How potent is this sentence,
how revealing this expression, how vital
this group of facts? Has the author,
familiar with his subject through deep
study and close contact, expressed
himself in such a way as to convey the
right idea most effectually to the less
well-informed reader? These are ever-
recurring questions, and the editor who
knows the answer is playing a stellar
role, though to all outward intents an
anonymous one in the magazine world.
Had Miss Dickerson devoted her
rare talents of observation, analysis,
and description exclusively to author-
ship, her name would occupy a more
conspicuous place on the book shelves
devoted to natural history, but she
chose to live the part of Martha in the
household of letters, performing the
unspectacular but essential tasks of
selection, supervision, and revision.
As a result of that unselfish choice, her
fame may fade but her influence will
continue to radiate in many directions,
and every future reader of Natural
History as well as every contributor
to its pages during her editorship will
profit by her wise judgment, her wide
vision, and her broad scholarship. It is
to be hoped that her splendid achieve-
ments and her ideals as to the place
which Natural History should
occupy in the fields of science and of
letters will prove an inspiration and a
beacon to those who assume those
responsibilities from which death alone
has relieved her.
A great editor is a mental receiving
and transmitting station, connecting
the author with his myriad-minded
public. Mary Cynthia Dickerson
nobly performed this exalted function
for Natural History.
Her Studies of Reptiles and Amphibians
By G. KINGSLEY NOBLE
Associate Curator [in charge] of Herpetology, American Museum
A GREAT painting is more than the American Museum
an expression of harmony, bal-
ance, and sequence in line and
color. It is a reflection of a great
personality. Mary Cynthia Dickerson
produced during her association with
a series of
masterpieces of the highest rank. Her
reptile and amphibian groups, so
greatly admired by everyone, epito-
mize her long years of field study and
her understanding of art. In each of the
MARY CYXTHIA DICKERS* >X
515
groups she has, to use her own words,
"attempted to suggest the spirit" of
the scene. The Bull Frog Group and
the Tree Toad Group reflect the spirit
of the marshland, a spirit that Miss
Dickerson knew and loved.
It may be said that Miss Dickerson
had a real affection for each creature
she studied. Xo living material other
than that which could be properly
Florida Cypress Swamp, where she
made studies for her last and greatest
group, she writes :
"Xo pictures and no reading can
carry the effect ... to the mind. It
might be on another planet, so differ-
ent is it from anything else on this
globe. In visiting the Sequoia forests
of the Pacific Coast, we are filled with
wonder at the magnitude of the trees;
A bull frog at rest in an aquarium. — Miss Di 'kerson supplemented her extensive field
observations by careful studies in the laboratory
cared for was over permitted in her
laboratories. She was a keen observer,
an admirable student of the habits of
all living things. She engaged in re-
search of importance on fishes, Crus-
tacea, and Lepidoptera, as well as on
reptiles and amphibians. Miss Dicker-
son's greatest interest was always in
her scientific work and especially in
building up a department of herpe-
tology in the American Museum. And
yet the artistic side of every phase
of this work appealed to her strongly.
In reporting upon the facies of the
at the sight of certain cactus growths
on mountain slopes in the Southwest
we may receive a thrill as though enter-
ing some dimly remembered garden of
ancient gods; but nothing has prepared
us for the influence of the Florida
cypress swamp in the lull sunshine of
the afternoon.''
Miss Dickerson carried on most of
her field work alone. She was always
an independent and highly original
thinker. To take but a single illustra-
tion of her originality, — one day when
mounting one of the water newt- in the
516
NATURAL HISTORY
act of shedding its skin, her assistants
found it extremely difficult to imitate
the shed skin in wax, celluloid, or any
other medium. When the matter was
referred to Miss Dickerson, she sug-
gested at once exactly the right thing —
an onion skin.
Long before Miss Dickerson came to
the Museum, she had made an enviable
reputation for herself by producing
one of the most outstanding contribu-
tions to North American natural his-
tory— The Frog Book. It is to this
book that every naturalist must turn
sooner or later to be thrilled by the
charm of her expression, the beauty of
her illustrations, and above all by the
spirit of nature which she has trans-
planted into this great work.
Miss Dickerson perhaps displayed
her greatest genius in her work in the
Museum, especially in organizing the
department of herpetology, of which
she was made curator in 1919. From
the beginning she realized that a de-
partment without a collection was not
worthy of the name. Hence, she made
every effort to bring material together.
It was through her zeal that expedi-
tions were sent to Porto Rico, Santo
Domingo, Nicaragua. Mexico, and
Florida, primarily to secure reptiles
and amphibians. She corresponded
with many foreign collectors in China,
India, New Zealand, Africa, South
America, and elsewhere, in an effort to
enlarge the collections. As a result, in
ten years the American Museum col-
lection has increased from one of the
smallest to the fourth largest museum
collection in the United States, and
now includes nearly 50,000 specimens.
Miss Dickerson early interested
herself in the technical work of the
department. She began a series of
investigations of West Indian herpe-
tology and published a description of a
new amphisbsenian from the Isle of
Pines. For several years she studied
collections of reptiles from Lower
California and the Southwest, especi-
ally the collection made by the
Albatross Expedition of 1911. In a
preliminary paper entitled "Diagnoses
of Twenty-Three New Species and a
New Genus of Lizards from Lower
California" she gave a brief summary
of her finds, hoping to publish later an
exhaustive treatise on the reptiles of
the Southwest. Her health never per-
mitted her to finish this second paper.
Miss Dickerson in all her endeavors
was highly idealistic. It is gratifying
to know that the ideals for which she
worked are gradually being realized. A
hall to be used exclusively for reptiles
and amphibians is now under construc-
tion as part of the new southeast wing
of the American Museum. Here will be
installed her groups. It is hoped that
this hall will reflect something of Miss
Dickerson's personality, her love of
nature, and her deep understanding of
some of its smaller creatures.
Her Achievement in Popularizing the
Knowledge of Trees and Forestry
By
BARRINGTON MOORE
Editor-in-Chief of Ecology
M
ISS Dickerson's foresight, im-
agination, and love of beauty,
as well as her scientific spirit
and indomitable energy, stood out
strongly in her work as curator of
woods and forestry. She fully realized
the great opportunities offered by this
branch of the American Museum's
MARY CYNTHIA DICKERSOX
517
activities, and planned to create at the
Museum a center of popular education
and of research in forests and trees.
No such center exists in this country.
nor, so far as we know, in any other
land. There are forest schools in a
number of universities for the training
of professional foresters, just as there
are schools of engineering, law, and
medicine. There are a few ranger
schools that give the grounding in
forestry required by forest rangers,
woodsmen, and others who do not need
the higher technical training of the
college. The forest departments of
the Federal Government and of the
states, in addition to their other mani-
fold duties, disseminate information
and answer inquiries; the forestry
associations reach those already inter-
ested. But there is no popular, easily
accessible source of free information
which comes in touch with the man in
the street and shows him clearly and
simply what the forests mean in his
daily life, and what forestry is doing to
protect and grow the thousand and
one tree products on which our civiliza-
tion depends.
Miss Dickerson understood the im-
portance of an awakened and accu-
rately informed public interest in our
forests, and foresaw the profound in-
fluence which the American Museum
could exert in this direction through its
contact with the vast population of
New York. She realized also that the
influence would extend far beyond the
city itself, because almost everyone in
the country visits New York sooner or
later. The great benefit to the public
which would flow from a forestry
center in New York appealed strongly
to her imagination.
The importance of popularizing for-
estry did not blind Miss Dickerson to
the value of research. She under-
stood that research is the foundation
of education, and the source from
which the materials for instruction are
derived. She hoped to make the de-
partment of woods and forest ry a
Mecca which leading foresters from
all over the world would feel impelled
to visit, when sojourning in Ameri-
ca, just as students of evolution now
come to the Museum's department of
palaeontology.
Fungus wheels with their spring plump-
ness and symmetry
As part of her plan of popular educa-
tion in forestry Miss Dickerson wrote
an excellent pamphlet on the subject.
Her knowledge of trees and plants
was of a high order, and this little book
is one of the best popular works on
forestry that has ever been prepared.
It had been out of print for a consider-
able length of time, but instead of
merely having it reprinted she wished
to revise it and bring it up to date.
For this purpose she had collected at
518
NATURAL HISTORY
The flowers of the tulip tree, IAriodendron tulipifera
the time of her death a considerable
amount of material.
Her efforts in exhibitions for the
department of woods and forestry
were concentrated on the Jesup collec-
tion of American woods. This collec-
tion, brought together by Charles S.
Sargent through the generosity of Mor-
ris K. Jesup, is unique. It was made
just before our magnificent virgin
forests had given way to the ax and
the flames. The forests from which
many of the specimens were taken
have been ruthlessly destroyed, and
with them the possibility of ever again
making a similar collection. The sec-
tions are taken from the finest trees,
and represent the growth of many
centuries. She intended to place on
each tree a label which would be not
only scientifically accurate but interest-
ing, and would give some indication of
the conditions under which the tree
grew in nature. Owing to the limited
space, this required a high degree of skill
in writing as well as complete informa-
tion. The plan was carried out for
most but not all of the trees in the
collection. She devised the special
type of labels on green papei with
wooden backing which, while affording
the information, blend naturally with
the tree trunks. The green setting for
the colored pictures of blossoms and
leaves placed above the trunks was
likewise selected with care and good
taste. Her keen love of the beautiful
found expression, so far as the Jesup
collection is concerned, through the
remarkable sprays of leaves, flowers,
and fruits which, through her efforts,
were represented in wax and other
materials and attached to a number of
the tree trunks. The large magnolia
MARY CYXTHIA DICKERSOX
519
blossom, which is the most conspicuous
example of this work, gave her genuine
pleasure.
Although representative of her activ-
ities in herpetology, her well-known
Florida group should be considered
also in connection with her accomplish-
ments in forestry. In arranging the
environment of the Florida animals,
she recreated within the Museum an
excellent example of a cypress forest.
With consummate skill she reproduced
the details, even to the under-story of
shrubs and herbs, faithful!}' and accu-
rately, while at the same time creating
a truly beautiful effect. In this group
she shows her guiding principle, that
science must go hand in hand with
beauty in order to reach and benefit
mankind.
The emergence of the monarch butterfly is illustrated in this sequence. On the extreme left
is the chrysalis with the butterfly showing through. In the adjoining picture the first split in
the chrysalis is seen. The photograph next in order is of the butterfly crawling forth; the
transparency of the chrysalis is well indicated in this picture. On the extreme right is the
butterfly a few seconds after emergence. From Moths ami Butterflies by Mary C. Dickerson;
reproduced by courtesy of Ginn and Company
NOTES
FOSSIL VERTEBRATES
Evolution of the Proboscidea. — For the
better part of the last twenty-three years
Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn has been espe-
cially studying the evolution of four different
kinds of fossil mammals, namely: (1) the
rhinoceroses, regarding which he has published
twelve papers up to the present time, including
the description of Baluchitherium in the issue
of Natural History for May-June, 1923;
(2) the horses, work on which was begun in
1904 and has resulted in fifteen papers, con-
cluding with the Memoir on the types of
horses in Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene
times of North America; (3) the titanotheres,
discussed in twelve papers, the last to come
from Professor Osborn's pen being the mono-
graph entitled, The Titanotheres of Ancient
Wyoming, Dakota, and Nebraska, now in press
as Monograph No. 55 of the United States
Geological Survey; (4) the elephants and
mastodons, work on which was begun in 1900.
The last-mentioned group is represented by
twenty-seven papers, including a large Memoir
entitled, The Evolution of the Proboscidea.
The Memoir on the Proboscidea ranks
next to that on the titanotheres as a most
exhaustive piece of research, to which Profes-
sor Osborn has given a full measure of
devotion and effort; it will present the type
description of every kind of proboscidean
that has been recorded, the fauna embracing
all parts of the world except Australia. Since
the Swedish naturalist, Carl Linnaeus, named
the Indian elephant Elephas indicus in 1758,
more than a century and a half has elapsed in
which no less than 53 genera and 276 species
have been named from Europe, Asia, Africa,
North America, and South America, as well as
from the islands of the Mediterranean, from
the East Indies, and from Japan. The
Memoir will contain a wealth of illustrations,
including facsimile reproductions of all the
type figures of Proboscidea which have been
published and a superb series of pen-line
illustrations by Mrs. L. M. Sterling, whose
first drawings of proboscideans were made
twenty-one years ago. Curator R. W.
Tower is arranging for the reception of this
great piece of typographic and illustrative
work by the American Museum press. It will
form the first Memoir of a new series, in
which each Memoir will constitute a volume
bv itself.
The Elephants of Southwestern-
Europe.— In Upper Pliocene times, that is, just
before the beginning of the Ice Age, a great
international congress of elephants assembled
in southwestern Europe, in northern Italy,
and in southern France. It is probably a
mark of the sagacity of these animals that
they came from different continents to enjoy
the most delightful climate in the world at the
close of Pliocene time. Professor Henry
Fairfield Osborn had already reached this
opinion in the course of preparing the Memoir,
referred to in the previous note, but it has
been more than confirmed in the two small but
invaluable contributions just received from
the laboratories of Professor Deperet, entitled:
"Elephas planifrons Falconer" and "Mono-
graphie des Elephants Pliocenes de l'Europe et
de l'Afrique du Nord." It is shown in these
studies that to this region there migrated two
kinds of elephants from the Siwaliks of India,
a third kind from northern Asia, a fourth,
thus far discovered only in western Europe,
and a fifth that turned northward from
Africa. North America alone was not repre-
sented at this congress of proboscidean sages,
because at no time was it the homeland or
center of migration or dispersal.
Like Professor Osborn, Professor Deperet
is an ardent polyphyletist; he believes in
many separate lines of descent dating back to
very remote times in the Age of Mammals.
It is probable that the combined interest of
these two writers will give the death blow to
old monophyletic theories, such as that which
traces the elephant from the Stegodon, and the
Steqodon from the Mastodon. Under date of
June 7, 1923, Professor Deperet wrote to Pro-
fessor Osborn feelingly on this point:
Je vous remercie egalement des eloges pre-
cieux que vous voulez bien faire au sujet de
mon etude sur les Elephants pliocenes. J'ai
eu la tres grande satisfaction de me trouver
d'accord avec vous sur la plupart des ques-
tions phylogeniques, notamment sur le paral-
lelisme des rameaux des Elephants et sur la
question de leur origine. II fallait a tout prix
couper le cou a cette vieille erreur de la trans-
formation des Mastodontes en Elephants, par
l'intermediaire des Stegodon. Grace a notre
entente commune, je pense que la verite
penetrera plus facilement dans le monde des
paleontojogistes. La publication de mon etude
sur les Elephants a souleve en France deja
un gros emoi et m'a valu de la plupart de
mes confreres des I niversite\s des eloges
peut-etre exageYes. Mais aucun ne m'a
ete plus precieux que votre approbation.
XOTES
521
Burmese Fossils Collected by Mr.
Bahndm Brown. — The remarkable collection
of fossils made by Mr. Barnum Brown in the
Siwalik Hills of India through the aid of the
Mrs. Henry C. Frick Fund has arrived safely
in the American Museum. On completing
his highly successful work in this part of
India, Mr. Brown traveled eastward to Burma
and explored the Upper Eocene beds described
some years ago by Guy C. Pilgrim for the
Geological Survey of India. These beds are of
exceptional interest to the American Museum
because they contain fos.sils closely similar to
those found in 1922 by the Third Asiatic
Expedition in southeast Mongolia and long
previously in the Uinta Mountains of Utah.
Under date of April 28 Mr. Brown wrote
from Sagaing of his Burmese trip:
At last I am through with the long bullock-
cart trip, which lasted nearly two months and
covered 150 miles of teak-bamboo jungle over
trails that are indescribable.
Through lack of roads I was forced to
abandon all thought of collecting in the Irra-
waddy series westward, and confined my
attention exclusively to the Eocene Pondaung
purple clays, the only member that contains
vertebrate fossils.
The collection is small, but better than all
combined collections made heretofore, and I
believe contains all described species. The
choice specimens are a complete skull and
lower jaws of a small anthracothere [an animal
related to the pigs]; lower jaws of Meta-
mynodon [a rhinoceros]; upper and lower
dentition of Anthracohyus from the Eocene,
and half of a lower jaw of Stegodon, with a
good tooth from the Irrawaddy series. This
is a curious fauna in which carnivores,
insectivores, and rodents are absent.
The conditions of occurrence in the Eocene
beds are unique. Vertebrate fossils are con-
fined to highly colored clays at the top of the
Pondaung series, and were never found in the
sandstones above or below. I have some
doubts whether they are a part of the Pon-
daung Age. These clays are about fifty feet
thick, predominantly a brilliant purple;
ochrous yellow and white clays form contact
with sandstones above and below, and the
central fossiliferous part is reddish purple.
Near Myaing the purple clays appear first
where the entire pre-Irrawaddy series are on
edge, thence northwestward they appear and
disappear at intervals in patches a few yards
in length according to the amount of folding
and displacement that has taken place. A
few miles beyond Myaing the underbrush
increases to forest and dense jungle, through
which it was exceedingly difficult to follow a
course. I would frequently ride and walk ten
hours without seeing a fossil, for they occur in
localized areas with barren places between.
Contrary to published data, I found mam-
mal remains nearly as numerous as those of
reptiles and sufficiently associated to spur
one on with the hope of securing good material
at the next exposure, but following this purple
streak was like chasing a rainbow.
Somewhere in Burma favorable exposures of
this purple Eocene bed will develop good
material, probably on the westward slope of
the Pondaung uplift or northeastward cross-
ing into China, but it will be a long time
before these areas are accessible.
Subsequently Mr. Brown proceeded up the
Irrawaddy River to examine formations of
the more recent Miocene Age. Thence his
plans were to go westward and examine the
early Pliocene quarries on the Island of
Samos, with the expectation of returning to
the Museum toward the end of the year.
The Pal.eontology of China. — Dr. A. YV.
Grabau, formerly professor of palaeontology in
Columbia University, author of one of the
most valuable treatises on stratigraphic pake-
ontology, and now connected with the Geo-
logical Survey of China, is engaged in the
publication of the Palseontologia Sinica, em-
bracing both the invertebrate and the verte-
brate palaeontology of China. He writes from
Peking, April 18, 1923:
The Palseontologia Sinica is our pet child
and we hope to make a big success of it. The
publication is assured for a long time and we
have a very good artist to make the illustra-
tions. It is indeed a great pleasure to co-
operate with your party and I have had
many interesting evenings with Doctor Morris
discussing the details of the campaign for the
Palaeozoic rocks in the Mongolian Geosyn-
cline. The problem is an extremely inter-
esting one and the Third Asiatic Expedition
can make a most far-reaching contribution to
the geology of Asia by such detailed work on
these old rocks. You will be interested in the
series of the palaeogeographie maps of Asia
which we are preparing and which will soon
be published by the Survey. They take in
every phase of the Palaeozoic and give a good
picture of the changes in the conditions as
they affected Asia in the past. We hope also
to have a small number of palaeogeographie
maps of the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic.
Doctor Grabau is engaged on the descrip-
tion of all the collections of invertebrate fossils
brought back to Peking by the Third Asiatic
Expedition. Dr. Charles P. Berkey, under
date of June 9, 1923, pays a high tribute to
Doctor Grabau's work in this field:
I do not know of anyone in the world who is
more versatile and ingenious or more sug-
gestive in the field of stratigraphy than
Doctor Grabau. lie ought to have oppor-
tunity, after finishing bis work in China, to
undertake a revision of the stratigraphy of
the world. That oughl to be his major life
522
NATURAL HISTORY
work and to do it he ought to be supported
in American institutions. I devoutly hope
that the American Museum of Natural His-
tory, together with the research interests of
Columbia University, perhaps by securing
some special endowment or funds, may be
able to establish him in that work on a basis
that would insure a valuable scientific con-
tribution of interest to every geologist in the
world and to every country.
The Annual Meeting of the Pal,e-
ontologische Gesellschaft for the year
1923 was held in Vienna under the presidency
of Professor Othenio Abel and the secretary-
ship of O. Antonius. The meeting opened in
the great hall of the University on Monday,
September 24, with an address by Professor
J. F. Pompeckj entitled "Die Anfange des
Lebens." Tuesday and Wednesday were
devoted respectively to a visit to the palace of
Schonbrunn and to a geological excursion. ( )n
Thursday evening President Abel delivered
his address, "Lebensbild der eiszeitlichen
Tierwelt der Drachenhohle bei Mixnitz in
Steiermark." Friday was set apart for excur-
sions to the Kahlenberg and to Klosterneu-
burg. On Saturday the society visited the
Drachenhohle in Rotelstein and, under the
guidance of Mr. Adolf Mayer, the celebrated
Lurgrotte. Other excursions were arranged to
the Tertiary of the Vienna basin and to the
Sonnwendstein, under the guidance respec-
tively of F. X. Schaffer and L. Kober.
Fossil Mammals of thk Fayum. — In 1920-
21 Dr. Hikoshichiro Matsumoto, professor
in the Tohoku Imperial University of Sendai,
Japan, visited this country and spent several
months in studying the palseontological col-
lections of this museum. He undertook as a
special research the revision and description
of the fossil proboscideans and hyracoids in
the collection obtained in the Fayum district
of Egypt in 1907 by the expedition in charge of
Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn. This is
one of five important collections made from
the Fayum, the others being in London, Cairo,
Stuttgart, and Munich; but it has been only
in small part described. The two most
important groups among its fossil mammals
were entrusted to Doctor Matsumoto for
such description, and the result of his very
thorough and able study of the material is
now, after a considerable delay due to direct
and indirect effects of war conditions, in
course of publication in the American Mu-
seum Bulletin. It will appear in three articles,
the first dealing with Moeritherium, the second
with Palseomastodon, and the third with the
hyracoid genera. Preliminary abstracts of
his results have been published in the Ameri-
can Museum Novitates, No. 51, and in the
Proceedings of the Zoological Society of
London, December, 1921.
He discusses at length the difficult problem
of the true relations of Moeritherium to the
ancestry of the proboscideans. The genus has
been considered, on the one hand, as a direct
or nearly direct ancestor of Pal&omastodon
and the later mastodons and elephants; on
the other, as not in the proboscidean order at
all but more nearly related to the sirenians.
Matsumoto takes an intermediate position,
regarding the animal as a primitive member of
the Proboscidea but not close to the ancestral
line of the mastodons and elephants. In his
review of Palasomastodon he shows that the
genus is a composite of two already distinct
lines or phyla: one of these, to which the
genus name is restricted, has a somewhat
shortened jaw and other characters that indi-
cate it as an early ancestor of the true masto-
don of North America ; the other, to which the
name Phiomia has been applied, has a very
long jaw and other characters appropriate
to an ancestor of the long-jawed mastodons,
which inhabited all of the northern continents
during the later Tertiary Period.
Matsumoto's third paper deals with the
Hyracoidea, an order of mammals now
nearly extinct, the little hyraxes or coneys of
Syria and north and east Africa being the
only survivors. In the Fayum deposits are
found remains of a great number and variety
of animals allied to the coney, some as large
as a pig or even a cow. From this and other
evidence it is believed that they were once an
important order of herbivorous animals which
in Tertiary Africa took the place in part of the
modern types of herbivora that had not then
reached that continent. — D. \Y. M.
THE CENTENARY OF JOSEPH LEIDY
The year 1923 is the centenary of the birth
of one of the most distinguished scientists
America has produced — Joseph Leidy of
Philadelphia. The occasion will be cele-
brated not on Joseph Leidy's birthday,
September 9, which falls within a season of the
year when formal gatherings are few, but on
December 8 by the Academy of Natural Sci-
ences of Philadelphia, with which venerable and
honorable institution Joseph Leidy was most
eloselv associated throughout his great career.
XOTES
523
Leidy's life work cannot be characterized in a
single sentence; it was wonderfully thorough
and broad. He was master of several sciences
— anatomy, microscopy, helminthology, palae-
ontology. He was a draughtsman of unusual
skill and a writer who had a most scrupulous
regard for truthful and accurate description.
In contrast to his younger contemporary,
Edward Drinker Cope. Joseph Leidy belonged
rather to the Ernie des Fails of Cuvier than to
any school of speculation. It would be diffi-
cult to single out the greatest of his several
masterpieces, but the volume which will prob-
ably endure longest is the great palseonto-
logical memoir of 1869, which is bound to
remain a classic because of its accuracy of
description, beauty of illustration, and
breadth of erudition. Leidy was honored and
beloved; he had many friends and no scien-
tific enemies. He lived quietly, unostenta-
tiously, and leaves in our minds the impres-
sion of a great personality.
WILLIAM A. HAINES
In the July- August issue of Natural
History (p. 423) reference was made to
the gift of a portrait of William A. Haines
whose distinguished role in the early his-
tory of the American Museum is fittingly
recalled in this connection. He was one of
those principally concerned in promoting the
Museum idea and in making it an actuality.
He was a member of a Special Committee
of three that was appointed to perfect the
organization of the proposed Museum and
that nominated the first Board of Trustees.
A memorable meeting of this Board took
place at the residence of Mr. Haines, in which
a plan for subscriptions was formulated and
steps taken that resulted in the establishment
of the American Museum on an assured foot-
ing. Mr. Haines' preeminent ability as an
organizer received recognition in his appoint-
ment with Messrs. Joseph H. Choate and
Howard Potter to the committee that pre-
pared a charter for the new institution, sug-
gested a name for it, and applied to the
Legislature for the passage of an act of in-
corporation. On April 6, 1K69, the applica-
tion was acted upon favorably by both houses
of the Legislature, and the American Museum
took its place among the institutions of the
city and the nation.
In addition to being one of the twenty-one
Founders, or original Board, of the Museum,
Mr. Haines had the distinction of being the
William A. Haixes. — To his remarkable ability as
an organizer and his untiring devotion the American
Museum is not a little indebted for its start in life.
From a painting recently presented to the Museum by
Miss Emily Somers Haines in fulfillment of a bequest
by her brother
first Chairman of the Executive Committee.
His activities were not relaxed even after
the establishment of the Museum had been
assured, thanks to his invaluable cooperation.
Throughout the crucial years of its early
history his loyal support was no small factor
in promoting the welfare of the institution.
When a change of site from the Arsenal in
Central Park, where the Museum was first
housed, became imperative, Mr. Haines was
one of three charged with the responsibility
of selecting the spot that should be its per-
manent home, and subsequently he served
as a member of a committee of four that took
under consideration the architectural plans
thai were submitted for the Museum. In
1880, at the premature age of fifty-eight. Mr.
Haines was summoned irrevocably from a
world that he had enriched by iiis personality
and his labors. Vet before death came, he
had had (lie satisfaction of seeing the institu-
tion which he and other public-spirited men
had visioned, well started on its career of
public service, for six years previously the
cornerstone of the first section of the present
Museum edifice had been laid by President
(Irani in the presence of an audience that
included three members of the President's
524
NATURAL HISTORY
official family, the Governor of the State of
New York, the Mayor of the city, and many
other distinguished citizens.
THE FAUNTHORPE-VERNAY INDIAN
EXPEDITION OF 1923
Colonel J. C. Faunthorpe has suggested
that the name of Mr. Arthur Vernay, who has
contributed in so many important ways to
the success of the expedition in which he has
been participating, be coupled with his own
in all future references thereto, and President
Henry Fairfield Osborn has approved of
changing the name of the undertaking from the
Faunthorpe Indian Expedition of 1923 to the
Faunthorpe- Vernay Indian Expedition of 1923.
Too much stress cannot be laid on the
importance of the results achieved by this
expedition, thanks to the enterprise and devo-
tion of its leaders. The specimens obtained
assure the perpetuation as museum groups of
a number of the distinctive animals of India
that are on the road to extinction. That the
expedition was undertaken only barely in
time is evidenced b\r the exceeding rarity of
some of the animals sought, witness, for in-
stance, the pink-headed.
Search for Pink-headed Duck. — Colonel
Faunthorpe writes from Lueknow, May 25,
1923, that he has thus far been unable to
secure specimens of the pink-headed duck.
I regret to say that we have entirely failed
to obtain or even hear of a specimen of the
pink-headed duck. I had some hopes of ob-
taining one on the Nepal border north of Oudh
as one specimen was undoubtedly shot there
two years ago. I quote a letter from a man
now resident in the Kheri District on the
subject. It was his brother, now in England,
who shot it.
"I have heard from Jack about the pink-
headed duck. He says he shot a pink-headed
duck in the Nimbwa Bojh Swamp, that broad
patch of water between the two bojhis. He
found it with a number of teal and thought
it was a red-headed pochard except for the
head. It was flying backwards and forwards
and at last he shot it. If it had not been for
his dog, he would not have recovered it as it
fell into thick narkul. He took it to camp and
showed it to de Carteret, who informed him
what it was. He skinned it and de Carteret
sent it to the Bombay Natural History Society.
It is the only one de Carteret has ever seen."
I spent four and a half years in this district
and never heard of the bird during that time.
There is, however, no doubt that one specimen
was shot'last year in the Shah jahanpur District ,
which adjoins Kheri District on the west, and
another specimen two years ago in Kheri
District itself. Hence, although enquiries
tend to show that it is extinct in Behar and
Orisa, where in old days it occurred most
frequently, it is possible that there may be
here and there a pair nesting in some inacces-
sible swamp in or near the Nepal Terai. It is
interesting to observe that the specimens shot
in Kheri and Shahjahanpur were flying in
company with a lot of teal.
The Vanishing Lion of India. — The lion,
which was formerly abundant in India, is
now approaching the vanishing point and
very wisely the Indian government is not
granting permission to shoot specimens except
in very special cases. It is the hope that
through the good offices of the Indian govern-
ment such permission may be given to Colonel
Faunthorpe next season and that the Ameri-
can Museum may thus come into the pos-
session of a specimen of this rare animal. Of
the Indian lion Colonel Faunthorpe writes:
The Gir forest in Kathiawar, Bombay
Presidency, is the only place where the Indian
lion now survives. In olden days they were
not uncommon in central India and as far
north as Delhi, and it is on record that one
was shot in Allahabad District, or near there
as late as 1865. The disappearance of the
lion may, I think, be ascribed to two causes —
(1), it lived in a comparatively open count ry
and was easily located and shot, and (2) when
tigers became abundant, they drove out the
lions. In certain parts of the country where
heavy jungles still exist, the tiger is in no
danger of extinction at present. For in-
stance, in the Kheri District, from which we
have just returned, there are certainly more
tigers than there were ten years ago.
In another connection Colonel Faunthorpe
write.--:
Some African lions were introduced into
India ten or more years ago. One of the native
princes bought some of these lions and turned
them loose. It was the intention to feed
donkeys to them, but the lions took to eating
villagers exclusively. Accordingly efforts
were made to destroy the lions and I believe
they were all shot.
These African lions are not to be confused
with the Indian lion of the Gir forest.
The Mammals of Burma. — The final
journey of the present season for Colonel
Faunthorpe and Mr. Vernay was into Bur-
mah. In a letter dated from Lueknow, June 6,
Colonel Faunthorpe tells of their experiences:
Up to the time I left Burma we had secured
material for a good group of thamin, or brow-
antlered deer, namely one large stag, one
small stag, two does, and one fawn. This will
make a very beautiful group. We had up to
the time I left secured only one bull tsine, and
Vernay stayed on in order to get another bull
and a cow, which I expect he has done by
this time. The pursuit of the tsine involves
hard work as he is a very active and wary
NOTES
525
animal and, when disturbed, travels for great
distances. All the tracking was on foot in
great heat over extremely broken country.
We also obtained a group of the kakar, or
barking deer, — a pretty little animal, some-
what resembling the roe deer of Europe.
Among the other animals secured by the
expedition in Burma were two kinds of bam-
boo rat and various kinds of snakes, including
two specimens of Russell's viper.
Answering certain inquiries made by Presi-
dent Osborn, Colonel Faunthorpe had written,
previous to the letter just quoted, that there
are two kinds of rhinoceroses still living in
Burma and Siam (1) R. so7idaicus and (2)
the two-horned R. lasiotis, related to the
sumatrensis. Both these animals are much
smaller than the great Indian one-horned R.
indicus, of which the expedition secured a very
fine series in Nepal and which occurs also,
although rarely, in Assam. There are very
few of sondaicus and lasiotis living in Burma
and Colonel Faunthorpe states that the
government has recently prohibited the shoot-
ing of them, — perhaps too late. R. sondaicus
occurs also in the almost impenetrable swamps
of the Bengal sunderbund, or at least used to
be there.
A Survey of the Expedition. — Mr.
Vernay reached England late in June and
some excerpts from a letter which he wrote at
that time to President Henry Fairfield Osborn
may fittingly be quoted in conclusion as a
summary of the work of the expedition and
as an evidence of the spirit that has actuated
those in charge of it.
I arrived in England on Sunday last, and
am having prepared a complete list with field
notes of the various specimens Colonel Faun-
thorpe and I have obtained. This will be
forwarded in due course. We are very pleased
with the results of the expedition, and I think
that within the six months we have had all
the good fortune that we could possibly ex-
pect. Every assistance has been given us by
the British government as well as by various
ruling princes. Without this help and the
extremely able organization conducted by
Colonel Faunthorpe, the obtaining of the col-
lection would have been impossible. In
birds we have not been particularly success-
ful, as the original ornithologist whom we
hoped to obtain, died" a few months before
our arrival in India. Mr. Jonas [the prepara-
tor designated by the Museum to accompany
the expedition] has done his work extremely
well, and I think all of t lie skins and skeletal
material will arrive in perfeel condition. As
far as possible the skins have been shipped
to the Museum in tin-lined cases, hermetically
sealed. The bones have all been poisoned
and sent in wooden cases. . . .
We have taken a number of interesting
photographs, many of which will be of great
assistance in the mounting of the specimens.
We have taken actual photographs of the
jungle, or whatever might be the character of
the place where the animal was shot. We
also had moving pictures taken expressly for
the purpose of showing environment. The
chinkara country, for instance, has a pecu-
liarity of its own, and a few feet of moving
pictures will give the taxidermist a better idea
of its character than any quantity of ordinary
photographs. Our motion-picture films should
prove interesting as we have wild elephant
within a few feet of the camera, tiger within
seven yards of the camera, tiger charging
elephant, tiger running across a nullah, black
buck, swamp deer, chital, nilgai, scenes
connected with the ringing of tiger in Nepal,
and many others.
In closing Mr. Vernay writes:
The great point of the whole thing is that
we do feel that this expedition is really going
to have, although in a very small way, the
effect of creating in some channels better
feeling between our two countries. Although
it is only a very small brick in the building
of a great friendship which is daily increas-
ing, every brick counts, and if a few other
people would supply a bit of mortar here and
there, instead of tumbling the bricks down,
the world would surely be a happier place.
To my mind England and America stand
for the best there is in our civilization today.
A perfect understanding between the two
countries, an understanding which would be
apparent to the whole world, would mean a
world peace.
THE THIRD ASIATIC ENPEDITION
Latest Reports from Mr. Roy Chapman
Andrews. — The leader of the Expedition,
sends the following stirring budget of news
from the field:
In Camp, Erhlien (Iren Dabasu)
May 15, 1923.
I returned to camp four days ago and found
all well. I can also report progress — in fart.
so much progress that it is going to be difficult
to get away from here. Just before I left
( lamp Granger, Morris and I made an explora-
tion trip to the east to follow out the Cretace-
ous exposure which we suspected must re-
appear before long. We found it eight miles
from camp and also saw much fragmentary
dinosaur material lying about on the sur-
face. While I was gone the men prospected
the exposure and found a really extraordinary
deposit of dinosaur bones. The whole ridge
seems to lie full of them. We think there is
work here for three or four men for an entire
season.
Johnson found an enormous "mine'' of
bones where there are carnivores and herbi-
vores mixed up in a greal mass. This makes it
difficult to remove the material but there may
be enough to mount skeletons of both types.
m —
>j -
— -
Eh =i
Z
x ■-
Q 5
NOTES
527
Thej- have exposed complete tails of both a
carnivore and herbivore lying one on top of
the other, as well as complete limbs and feel
and many vertebrae, some with ribs attached.
Also some skull bones and, at the moment.
about 16 jaws with teeth. The "mine" is
only half worked out and already there is
enough for paper restorations of both types —
whether or not there will be sufficient to
mount skeletons we do not know as yet. I
think there will be, because I am an optimist.
Half a dozen complete feet and limbs have
been removed and many separate bones in
good condition.
The new men are much excited and Olsen
says, "Why the whole hill is full of bones. I
can't start to work around one before I
strike another." Yesterday we packed boxes
with what has already been removed and
have about 800 pounds. That, you must re-
member, is with the "mine" only half worked
out. There is so much stuff that I will have
to send a car back to Kalgan with it — we
can't carry it on with us. If we keep on at this
rate you might as well start building opera-
tions on another wing for the Asiatic Hall!
The herbiverous dinosaurs seem to be of the
Iguanodon type rather than Trachodon, and
the carnivores are both large and small types.
As yet we have found no jaws of the carnivores
but the herbiverous jaws are abundant and
remarkably complete.
In Cam]), Irden Maunah
May 25, 1923.
It is impossible to write with ink for a
terrible storm is roaring and the sand sift-
on my paper so rapidly that a pen will not
write. For five days we have been having the
most "beastly" weather I have ever known in
Mongolia — terrific gales and such sand storms
that we can see only a few hundred yards.
The basin below us is simply smoking with
yellow clouds of sand and everything in our
tent is inches deep in sand. We have been
able to work only one day since we came, for
the gale has not ceased for five days.
The day after we arrived here— the only
one in which we could do prospecting —
Granger found the most beautiful titanothere
skull you could ever wish to see. It is the
Diplacodon type with horn knobs about two
inches high and almost as perf'ecl as though
the animal had died last week. I understand
then; is only one other — that at Princeton.
Right under the skull was an extra pair of
lower jaws of a somewhat larger individual —
absolutely perfect. Twenty fee! away was
another skull but that one seems to lie some-
what broken, though it has not yet been ex-
cavated because of the weather. On the same
day Olsen found and removed a fine palate of
the same beast also several jaws of lophio-
donts — all these were found in the first day's
prospecting, bo you see what a rich -pot I hi- is.
I went up to sec Johnson and Kaiser
yesterday. We left them at the dinosaur
quarry in Erhlien 23 miles away. They say,
that the bone is getting better and better the
farther they go down. They have enough for
mounts of both large Iguanodon and smaller
carnivore types — legs, feet, and jaws complete
of other individuals and the quarry shows no
sign of being worked out. It is a remarkable
place.
While I am away in Urga, they will continue
to work at Erhlien on the dinosaurs. Olsen,
Granger, and Morris will stay at this camp,
working in the upper Eocene.
ARCHEOLOGY
Invaluable Gift from the Natural
History Museum at Brussels. — The Ameri-
can Museum has just received from the
Natural History Museum at Brussels an in-
valuable gift of flint implements representing
the entire Palaeolithic and Neolithic systems
of Prof. A. Rutot, the distinguished head of
the archaeological department of the Brus-
sels institution. The collection includes a
succession of industries going back to Oligo-
cene time, namely:
I. Industrie Fagnienne, middle Oligoeene, from
Boncelles, 52 pieces
II. Industrie Pre-Chellenne, base of the Lower
Quaternary, from Spiennes, near M<m>, .">]
pieces
III. Industrie Strepyenne, Lower Quaternary, from
Spienne and Strepy. t- piece.-
IV. Industrie Chellenne. Lower Quaternary, from
tlic valleys of theHaineand the Trouville, 22
pieces
V. Industrie Acheulenne inferieure, middle Qua-
ternary from the valley of the Haine, 6
pieces
llbis. Industrie Reutelienne, Lower Quaternary, from
Elonges and Hornu-W asmes, 26 piece- (Con-
temporary with the Pre-Chellean.)
IVbis. Industrie Mafflienne, Lower Quaternary, Ex-
ploitation Hardenpont at St. Symphorien,
near Mons, 16 pieces (Contemporary with
the Chellean)
Vbis. Industrie Mesvinienne, middle Quaternary,
Exploitation Helin at Spiennes, 34 pii c -
NEOLITHIC
A. Industrie Flenusienne, commencement of modern
epoch, from La Flenu and Spiennes, 27 pieci -
B. Industrie Spiennienne, middle of the Neolithic,
from Spiennes and St. Symphorien, ~>7 piezes
Each of these industries, certain of which
are in dispute among archaeologists, is repre-
sented by a valuable series of implements
bearing the inscription of Professor Rutot.
This gift greatly strengthens the collection
of European archaeology which President
Henry Fairfield Osborn. vigorously aided
by Mr. N. ('. Nelson, associate curator of
archaeology, American Museum, has been
bringing together for years past. This ac-
quisition will be arranged in a case by itself,
showing the entire Rutol System of classi-
fication of the I're-paheolit hie, the Palaeolithic,
and the Neolithic, which has been extensively
quoted, as in a recent work of Professor I lams
Wilder, Man's Prehistoric Past. The gift
is another evidence of the very generous feel-
ing which the Belgians and the Belgian insti-
528
NATURAL HISTORY
tutions of science entertain for the American
Museum. Our readers will recall the splendid
ethnological collection presented to the Mu-
seum by King Leopold, as well as the coopera-
tion of the Belgian government in connection
with the obtaining of the Congo collection.
The Antiquity of Man. — A paper on this
ever interesting problem, prepared jointly by
Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn and Dr.
Chester A. Reeds and published by the Geo-
logical Society of America, under the title,
"Old and New Standards of Pleistocene Divi-
sion in Relation to the Pre-history of Man in
Europe," has attracted favorable comment in
France and Germany. Dr. Ch. Barrois, now
the senior geologist of France, wrote Professor
Osborn under date of January 20, 1923:
Je vous prie d'agreer mes remereiements
pour les beaux et intcressants memoires que
vous avez bien voulu m'adresser. Votre
synthese de nos connaissances sur les divisions
du Pleistocene et le prehistoire de 1'homme est
ce que nous avons de plus complet, de plus
judicieux, de plus pondere en meme temps
que de plus eleve sur la matiere. Je vous en
felicite bien vivement en meme temps que je
vous en remercie. Je le transmets a mon
assistant M. Dubois qui etudie depuis quel-
ques annees les formations Pleistocenes de
nos cotes francaises, et en tirera, j'espere,
meilleur parti que moi, a l'age ou je suis
arrive.
Professor Charles Deperet, the leading
authority in France on the correlation of the
Age of Mammals and of the Age of Man,
wrote (June 7, 1923) :
Mon cher confrere et ami:
Je suis vraiment impardonnable d'etre
reste si longtemps sans vous ecrire pour vous
remercier de l'amicale bienveillance avec
laquelle vous avez bien voulu exposer et
defendre pour les lecteurs de langue anglaise
mes essais de coordination generale des
temps quaternaries, en partant de la base des
formations marines. Je vous en suis pro-
fondement reconnaissant et j'ai la certitude
que votre puissante intervention contrib-
uera beaucoup a repandre et a faire triompher
la these que je soutiens. Naturellement,
comme toutes les choses un peu nouvelles,
cela suscite des objections et des resistances
de la part des anciens, habitues a d'autres
ideVs, et qui ne veulent pas en changer. Mais
l'appui que j 'ai trouve aupres de vous en Amer-
ique, aupres de MM. Sollas et Dewey en Angle-
terre, de MM. Ternier, de Margerie, Kilian,
etc. en France, Lugeon en Suisse etc., etc.,
me font esperer un succes definitif peu
eloigne. Jen'ai pas voulu, a dessein, aborder
de front les causes premieres des changements
de niveau des mers et des. fleuves, c.'est-a-
dire en somme les theories de la deformation
de la terre; cela m'eut mene trop loin et sur
un terrain trop difficile. J'ai prefere m'en
tenir pour le moment au terrain solide des
faits. Merci encore et du fond du coeur.
Following the discussion of the antiquity
of man in Osborn's Men of the Old Stone Age
of 1914, the Reeds-Osborn paper of 1922 is
another attempt to make a complete synthesis
of the thirteen parallel changes in the earth
history and the life history of western Europe
during the Age of Man. It is very gratifying
to know that two of the leading geologists of
France welcome this synthesis, are favorably
disposed toward it, and do not regard it as an
intrusion into their special fields of work.
Les Fiancees du Soleil by V. Forbin. —
The appeal of the dim beginnings of human
society is evidenced not only by the strictly
scientific studies prepared by archaeologists
but by works of fiction in which the authors
have interwoven romance and fact for the
interest and stimulation of their readers. Les
Fiancees du Soleil, by V. Forbin, is a recent
addition to this group of fiction, dealing as it
does in vivid style with what from the stand-
point of culture is perhaps the most interesting
of the early races of man, the Cro-Magnon.
Monsieur Forbin's story gives a spirited
account of the triumph of the intellect over
brute force, of the spirit of invention and
reason rising in mastery over the obstacles
existing in the rude world at the close of the
( rlacial Period. Naturally one looks to a work
of fiction for a dramatic and artistic presenta-
tion of life rather than for a literal rendering
of fact, and M. Forbin is too conscious of the
proper mission of fiction to permit himself to
be fettered by details that might be obstruc-
tive to the development of his story. Never-
theless, M. Forbin has the advantage over
many other writers of fiction in being genuine-
ly interested in science, an advantage which is
bound to manifest itself when he turns, as in
the present instance, to a subject that has
been a fruitful field of scientific investigation
by scholars in Europe and America. To one of
these, Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn, of the
American Museum, the book is dedicated by
the author.
Arrangement of the Archaeological
Collections. — It is probable that the exhibi-
tion hall in the American Museum containing
side by side the archaeological collections of
Europe and America will be named the hall of
the prehistory of man. The collections from
America are very extensive although in many
special fields far behind those of other rau-
XOTES
529
seums. The collections from Europe are
growing so rapidly that the hope seems justi-
fied that there will soon be a very representa-
tive sequence from the beginning to the end
of the Stone Age and on into the Bronze Age.
The collections of New Stone Age have just
received a rich accession of Swiss dwelling
material, which will be noted in a later
number of Natural History when the con-
tents of the shipment are more fully known.
During the last winter Mr. X. C. Nelson,
associate curator of archaeology, classified
AWARD OF THE ROOSEVELT MEDAL
OF HONOR
Promotion of Natural History. — The
Roosevelt Memorial Association appointed
the following committee to consider the award
of its first three Medals of Honor: Dr. John
H. Finley, chairman, Col. William Boyce
Thompson, Secretary of Agriculture, Henry
Cantwell Wallace, Governor Gifford Pinchot
of Pennsylvania, the Hon. Oscar S. Straus,
who was Secretary of Commerce and Labor
in President Roosevelt's Cabinet, and Mrs. C.
The Roosevelt Memorial Association Medal of Houor, bestowed upon Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn
of the American Museum for his "promotion of the study of natural history." The presentation of the medal
was made by President Harding shortly before he undertook his trip to Alaska
about 4000 old-world archaeological objects
and catalogued nearly 3000 of them. A part
of this material, such as the type specimens
from Chelles, has been placed on view, — but
further exhibits are planned when new cases
can be prepared for the reception of this col-
lection. The major part of Mr. Nelson's
time for two or three years pas' has been
taken up with the American collections. With
the constant accumulation of new archaeo-
logical material it is imperative that proper
storage space lie provided through the conden-
sation of old material as a preliminary to the
proper revision of the collections themselves.
Some day the department of anthropology of
the Museum will have a larger archaeological
stall', capable of assisting Mr. Nelson in ar-
ranging the archaeological material so that it
will connect with the prehistory of man as
displayed in the hall of the Age of Man and
in the exhibits of physical anthropology pre-
pared by Dr. Louis R. Sullivan.
Grant La Farge. The recipients chosen by
the committee were General Leonard Wood,
especially for his "promotion of the national
defense"; Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler for her
service in promol ing t he welfare of women and
children; Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn for
the promotion of the study of natural history.
The ceremony of presentation took place in
the east room of the White House on Friday,
June 15, at four-thirty. President and Mrs.
Harding, several members of the Cabinet,
the French Ambassador, and a large number of
representatives of the Roosevelt Memorial
Association and other distinguished quests
were present. Addresses on behalf of the
Association were made by Director Hermann
Hagedorn. The medals were handed to
President Harding, who with brief and
appropriate remarks presented them to the
recipients or their representatives. As shown
in the accompanying illustrations, the medal,
designed by James Earle Kraser. is after the
530
NATURAL HISTORY
style of Italian models of the school of Vitore
Pisano, of the middle of the fifteenth century.
The face of the medal bears a superb head of
Theodore Roosevelt, with the years of his
birth and death, MDCCCLVIII and
MCMXIX, and the words " For distinguished
service" above. In the center of the obverse
is a flaming sword, across which is written.
"If I must choose between righteousness and
pence I choose righteousness." Encircling
the medal are the words "Roosevelt Memorial
Association Medal of Honor."' The rim of the
medal awarded to the President of the Ameri-
can Museum is inscribed "To Henry Fair-
field Osborn for the promotion of the study
of natural history." In his brief speech of
presentation President Harding said:
It is a very rare distinction to have so
pursued one's activity as to earn the devoted
and trusted friendship of the late Theodore
Roosevelt, and it is a very great distinction,
sir, to be at the head of what is rated to be the
leading institution of its kind in the world.
And now, sir, it is an added dist inct ion to have
from this source a mark of tribute and approval
which I know that the late Colonel Roosevelt
himself would most cordially approve. It is a
pleasure to be the agency of transmission.
and I beg to bestow the medal in the name of
the Roosevelt Memorial Association, with my
very cordial congratulations.
The medal was accepted by the President of
the Museum as a tribute on the part of the
Roosevelt Memorial Association and the
President of the United States to the work
which the American Museum is doing in the
promotion of the love and study of natural
history throughout the United States.
The Roosevelt Memorial Association, under
the presidency of Col. William Boyce
Thompson and the direction of Mr. Hermann
Hagedorn, has raised a very large sum for the
erection of a national memorial to Theodore
Roosevelt in the city of Washington. The
character of the memorial has not yet been
decided upon, but prominent among the
designs under consideration is the monumental
statue of a lion by Mr. Carl E. Akeley.
A PERMANENT MEMORIAL TO
ROOSEVELT
Third Meeting of the Memorial Com-
mission.— New York State will not be be-
hind the nation in keeping alive the memory
and influence of its most distinguished son.
The original Roosevelt Memorial Commission
of the State of New York was appointed by
Governor Smith and the presiding officers of
the State Senate and Assembly in 1920, and
the Commission expects to make its final
report to the Governor and the Legislature
upon the opening of the Legislature of 1924.
The many projects brought before the Com-
mission from all parts of the state and
country have been considered with great care
and at the second meeting, held in Albany,
the following resolution proposed by Mr.
Kiernan was unanimously adopted:
Resolved: That it is desirable to adopt a
form of memorial which may be utilized for
scientific, educational or administrative pur-
poses and thus reflect the chief activities of
( iolonel Roosevelt 's life.
Since the purposes of the Commission wen1
clearly declared in this resolution, no further
suggestions have been received as to the char-
acter of the state memorial. The Regents of
the State of New York were especially invited
to prepare and present what may be known
as the City of Albany plan of a memorial:
similarly the Trustees of the American Mu-
seum were invited to prepare and present what
may be known as the City of New York plan
of memorial. The third meeting of the Com-
mission was called in the American Museum
on Wednesday, .bme 27, to receive the dele-
gates from these two bodies. The following
members of the Commission were present:
Henry V. Osborn, Chairman, Senator George
L. Thompson, Senator Samuel .1. Ramsper-
ger, Louis A. Cuvillier, Peter D. Kiernan.
George N. Pindar, Secretary.
The City of Albany plan was presented by
the Hon. William Bondy and by Dr. John M.
Clarke, director of the State Museum. It
provides for a new natural history museum,
to lie erected in the City of Albany on a site
presented by the City Council, at an estimated
cost of $5,000,000; it is proposed to call the
institution the Theodore Roosevelt Museum
of Natural History; it is planned that the
eastern wing of the museum shall be con-
structed first, at an estimated cost of
$1,493,000: leaving the center and western
wings to be buill at a later date.
The City of New York plan was presented
by four speakers as follows: Albert Gallatin,
Commissioner of Parks, designated Manhattan
Square, to be renamed Roosevelt Square, as the
site, to be approached from the eastern side of
the city by an intermuseum promenade which.
it was suggested, might be called "The
Roosevelt Trail"; Mr. A. Perry Osborn, of the
Board of Trustees of the American Museum,
presented the general object and purpose to
lie attained by the erection of a monumental
I*
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Exteri »r view
CITY OF NEW VUKK
PRorosi:u
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
June 27, L923
I ni erior view
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XOTES
533
building on this site; Mr. Breck Trowbridge,
for the firm of Trowbridge & Livingston,
architects, described the character of the
building, both interior and exterior, as de-
signed to dominate not only the American
Museum building group but the west side of
Central Park; Mr. Akeley outlined the plan
and purposes of the Roosevelt African Hall,
of which he is the originator and designer.
After the two plans had been clearly pre-
sented and discussed, the Commission held an
executive session, in which both plans were
more thoroughly considered. It was agreed
to withhold decision until the autumn; in
the meantime to confer with the State
architect and with Governor Smith. This
matter is of such interest to the readers of
Natural History, not only in various parts
of New York State but throughout the
country, that both building plans are shown
on the two preceding pages.
FISHES
Completion- of "Bibliography of
Fishes." — The great Bibliography of Fishes,
which has been in progress for thirty years
under the direction of Dr. Bashford Dean,
honorary curator of ichthyology, American
Museum, is at last completed. The sheets
of the third or index volume have just come
from the printer and as soon as the binding is
completed the entire work will be ready for
distribution. The President and Trustees of
the Museum have strongly supported this
monumental undertaking by Doctor Dean and
his splendid staff of collaborators, in the belief
that this Bibliography will be a permanent
contribution, not only to ichthyology and
natural history in general but to every branch
of human welfare and activity directly or
indirectly connected with the life of fishes.
WheD the publication appears. Natural
History will give an adequate review of the
entire series of volumes. In the meantime it is
pleasant to record the praises which the two
volumes of the work are receiving from natur-
alists in various parts of the world. Among
these tributes may be cited the following:
''Your bibliography is clearly a work of the
greatesl importance, not merely to specialists
in ichthyology, but to all interested in the
morphology of vertebrates in general. Its
publication will do much to accelerate the ad-
vent of the day when workers on the anatomy
of man and the higher vertebrates will realize
that a sound morphology of the higher verte-
brates must be founded on a sound mor-
phology of the lowest members of the group
Vertebrata." (Prof. J. Graham Kerr, Uni-
versity of Glasgow, contributor of the morpho-
logical part of the article on Ichthyology in the
Encyclopedia Brittanica, author of Test-book
of Embryology and numerous other works, i
"I feel that you are indeed greatly to be
congratulated upon this magnificent 'subject
catalogue' which will be an absolutely invalu-
able work of reference to all interested in the
morphology of vertebrates. I hope it will
not be many months before I have a copy of
the new volume on my shelves." (Prof. J.
Graham Kerr).
"You seem to me to have been most
successful in condensing so much accurate
information in so little space, and I feel sure
your work and indeed the whole of the Biblio-
graphy will prove of great value to zoologists.''
(Prof. Edwin Stephen Goodrich. University
Museum of Oxford, author of "Cyclostomes
and Fishes" in the Treatise on Zoology edited
by Sir E. Ray Lankester. I
"I will be most glad to see the final
result. I certainly approve of the way it
is done. These little summaries of each
morphological section will prove of great
value. . . it will be worth all of the labor it
has cost." (Prof. John Sterling Kingsley, dis-
tinguished American comparative anatomist.)
In various stages of this work Doctor Dean
has had no less than twelve collaborators,
several of whom, like Doctors Eastman and
Gudger, have devoted their entire time to it
and to all of whom the ichthyologists of the
world are under lasting obligations.
GEOLOGY
Doctor Hovey Yisits Australia and
New Zealand. — On June 29 Dr. E. O. Hovey,
curator of geology and vertebrate palaeon-
tology, American Museum, sailed from Van-
couver, British Columbia, for Sydney,
Australia. He represented not only the
Museum but also the Geological Society of
America and the New York Academy of
Sciences at the Second Pan Pacific Scientific
Conference, which was held in Sydney and
Melbourne from August 13 to September 3.
He was commissioned by President Henry
Fairfield Osborn to relate to the conference
some of the striking results obtained by the
Third Asiatic Expedition, and to announce
the palaeontological studies of Professor
Osborn and Dr. William 1). Matthew and the
534
NATURAL HISTORY
geological investigations of Prof. Charles P.
Berkey and Doctor Morris. Doctor Hovey also
planned to give a statement of the achieve-
ments of the Whitney South Sea Expedition
and to present the paper by Dr. Chester A.
Reeds entitled "Seasonal Records of Geologic
Time/' which appears in the July-August
issue of Natural History, pp. 370-3S0.
Doctor Hovey expects to utilize the oppor-
tunity which his sojourn in Australia affords.
of viewing the famous mining district of
Broken Hill, New South Wales, and other
places of geologic interest, including a few of
those which offer light on the various glacial
periods that have visited the continent. His
itinerary includes on the return journey a
stay of four weeks in New Zealand, where he
expects to visit the famous geyser and hot-
spring region and one or two of the other
volcanic areas in the north island, and the
glacial regions in the south island, for the
purpose of obtaining information that will
be of value in the construction of additional
relief models at the Museum. The important
museums in the two countries will be visited;
exchange relations with those in New Zealand
will be established and such relations now
enjoyed with the museums of Australia will
be extended.
PUBLIC EDUCATION
The American Museum and the Train-
ing Schools for Teachers. — The oppor-
tunities offered by the American Museum to
the schools of Greater New York are of an
unusual character and it is important that
prospective teachers should know just what
facilities are at their disposal so that their
classes may benefit to the utmost. With this
thought in mind, the American Museum enter-
tained on June 15 the faculty and graduating
class of the New York Training School for
Teachers, and on June 27 the faculty and
graduating class of the Maxwell Training
School for Teachers. Following the precedent
of other years, there was a lecture on the
Museum's work with the public schools,
delivered by Dr. G. Clyde Fisher, a demon-
stration, respectively by Mrs. Ruth Crosby
Noble and Mrs. Grace Fisher Ramsey, of the
use of slides and of motion pictures for pur-
poses of instruction, and a tour under the
guidance of members of the scientific staff
through the several exhibition halls. In con-
clusion refreshments were served. Director F.
A. Lucas gave the address of welcome at the
gathering on June 27 and Dr. Gustave
Straubenmuller, associate superintendent of
schools, expressed his great esteem for the
educational work of the Museum.
CONSERYATION
Staten Island and Its Park Area. — It
is to be hoped that there may be no hesitation
in complying with the suggestion made at a
recent meeting of the Staten Island Bird
Chili, namely, that a part at least of the area
set aside for park purposes in Staten Island be
preserved in its natural condition. As the
population of Greater New York expands,
more and more land is denuded of its native
wild flowers. Brick and stone and stucco
encumber the landscape, or, at best, flowerless
lawns and artificially reared plants — many
of them foreign to our flora — replace the
rightful possessors of the soil. The character
of a region is determined not only by its
institutions and customs, its historic monu-
ments, and the collective personality of its
inhabitants, but by the surface aspect of the
landscape. Scotland would be incomplete
without its heather, Switzerland would lose
something of tangible as well as sentimental
value if deprived of the edelweiss. The daisy,
the goldenrod, the spring beauty, and the
Jack-in-t he-pulpit are not to be despised.
Animal life, notably in the case of the insects,
is not infrequently associated with a particular
plant or group of plants, and the destruction of
our native flowers and shrul s has therefore
resulted in a serious diminution of the crea-
tures dependent upon them. The action of the
Staten Island Bird Club is a timely reminder
that precautions should be taken to the end
that at least a few spots of native interest in
our municipalities may escape the all-too-
prevalent tendency to root out the growths
planted by nature and introduce in their stead
the growths planted by man.
SOUTH AMERICA
Mammal Collecting in Ecuador. — On
July 14. Mr. H. E. Anthony, associate curator
of mammals of the Western Hemisphere,
sailed for Guayaquil, Ecuador, whence he will
proceed to the high Andes for a collecting trip
of several months' duration. Much attention
will be given to the region about Chimborazo
and Pichincha (the peak at the base of which
lies Quito) and to other elevations which,
while less imposing than Chimborazo with its
more than 20,000 feet, yet rise to heights
greater than those of the loftiest peaks in the
Alps. Many of these mountains are either
semi-active volcanoes or have been in violent
XOTES
535
eruption in the past; they are not links in a
continuous chain hut more or less isolated
heights rising out of a basal plain. Mountains
of this character, like islands scattered over
the sea. often develop their own peculiar
fauna, and one of the objects of the expedition
is to ascertain to what extent this insular
environment has produced distinct forms of
animal life.
Among the animals of more spectacular
interest which, it is hoped, may he obtained
in these high altitudes is the tiny deer known
as the Pudu, the closest relative of which is
found in Chili, where the more southern lati-
tude affords at lower elevations zonal condi-
tions approximating those of the high moun-
tains near the Equator.
If it is possible to do so, Mr. Anthony wants
to make a zoological cross section through the
easternmost range of the Andes, near the
boundary of Colombia and Ecuador. The
fauna of this region is not particularly well
known and specimens secured there will be
valuable for purposes of comparison with those
obtained in a similar cross section made
through Rio Zamora in southern Ecuador,
near the Peruvian boundary.
One of the objects of the expedition will be
the collecting of a representative series of
specimens from the fossil deposits at Punin,
near Riobamba. Here, in an extensive bed of
volcanic ash, have been found the remains
of the Andean mastodon, camels, horses,
ground sloths, deer, and other forms. Through
the generosity of Mr. Childs Frick it will be
possible to work these fossil beds and obtain
from them a representation of this South
American fauna for the Museum.
Mr. Anthony is accompanied on the expedi-
tion by Mr. G. H. H. Tate, who awaited him
when he disembarked at Guayaquil. In a
letter which Mr. Tate addressed to Mr.
Anthony before the latter's departure, he
reported thai he was meeting with good suc-
cess in his collecting in the Siena de ( lolonche
in western Ecuador. Here Mr. Tate worked in
in an exceedingly humid forest, the conditions
of which were in sharp contrast to those of i he
markedly arid coastal strip lying immediately
to the westward. Practically no zoological
collecting has been done in this rang- of
mountains and the specimens taken by Mr.
Tate are eagerly awaited at the Museum.
Although Mr. Anthony plans to return to the
Museum about the middle of November, Mr.
Tate will continue working over the Ecua-
dorian field until the spring of 1924.
The Expedition" of the "Noma-" to the
Galapagos Islands. — Lying for the most part
just below the Equator, more than seven
hundred miles west of the coast of Ecuador,
the Galapagos Islands are rather far removed
from the normal routes of travel and but few
naturalists have been so fortunate as to reach
them and observe at first hand their peculiar
fauna and flora, which Darwin described as
"eminently curious." In the waters sur-
rounding these islands and on the rocky sea
beaches is found a genus (Amblyrhynchus) of
marine lizards that is highly specialized for
life in the sea; the giant tortoises of the
Galapagos, which share with the huge Easl
Indian turtles the distinction of being the
most spectacular and ponderous of all exist-
ing tortoises, although now on the way to
extinction, formerly existed there in large
numbers; while, thanks to the cold waters of
the Humboldt Current, penguins, which we
normally associate with the ice-bound shores
of the Antarctic, exist on these islands al-
though exposed to the merciless glare of the
equatorial sun.
Due to the generosity of Mr. Harrison Wil-
liams, through whom the steam yacht
"Noma" was made available for the purpose,
Mr. William Beebe, director of the Tropical
Research Station of the Xew York Zoological
Society, was recently able to visit the Gala-
pagos with twelve of his associates and to
make a very full record of the animal life
which it contains. The greater number of
specimens were brought back alive and have
joined that cosmopolitan community of
animals, including representatives from prac-
tically all parts of the world, which is main-
tained at the Zoological Park in the Bronx.
Other specimens have come into the posses-
sion of the American Museum. Among the
latter are a family of sea lions, eighteen lizards,
and a giant tortoise. This tortoise, captured
on Duncan, was the only one of these monsters
that the members of the expedition encoun-
tered,— a melancholy contrast with former
days when, it is said, single vessels would
carry off hundreds of these reptiles.
Darwin, who visited the islands in the
course of the voyage of the "Beagle," noted
the extraordinary tameness of the birds. "All
of them approached sufficiently near to lie
killed with a switch, and sometimes, as I
myself tried, with a cap or hat. A gun is
here almost superfluous; for with the muzzle
I pushed a hawk off the branch of a tree. < me
day, whilst lying down, a mocking-thrush
536
NATURAL HISTORY
alighted on the edge of a pitcher, made of the
shell of a tortoise, which I held in my hand,
and began very quietly to sip the water; it
allowed me to lift it from the ground whilst
seated on the vessel: I often tried, and very
nearly succeeded in catching these birds by
their legs."
Mr. Beebe's experiences prove that as in
Darwin's day the creatures of the Galapagos
still show little fear in the presence of human
beings: "The instantly arresting feature was
the astounding tameness of all the creatures.
Having never seen human beings they had
little fear, the birds and sea-lions being
particularly indifferent to us. Perhaps indiffer-
ence is hardly the word, since in many cases
they showed great curiosity about us. Mock-
ing birds would follow us along, hopping from
branch to branch within arm's reach; little
flycatchers would perch a foot from our
faces, in close inspection of our mystifying
presences."
DINOSAUR EGGS DISCOVERED
As this issue goes to press, a cable report
reaches the American Museum of the re-
markable find by the Third Asiatic Expedi-
tion, in the course of its explorations in
Mongolia, of no less than seventy skulls and
ten skeletons of primitive horned Ceratopsian
dinosaurs and contemporary carnivorous
dinosaurs. This collection, which is one of
the most superb brought together in so brief
a time, derives additional scientific import-
ance and popular interest from the fact that
included in it are three nests and twenty-five
dinosaur eggs. This is the first actual dis-
covery of the eggs of dinosaurs and establishes
as a certainty what heretofore could be
designated merely as a strong probability,
namely, the egg-laying habit among the dino-
saurs. The expedition also secured a large
series of remains of fossil mammals from six
distinct horizons in the early part of the Age
of Mammals. These are mostly those of new
and interesting kinds of extinct animals and
will furnish important evidence on the
theories of the dispersal of animals from a cen-
tral Asiatic source.
Since the last issue of Natural History
the following persons have been elected mem-
bers of the American Museum, making the
total membership 7040.
Life Members: Mesdames Robert G. Elbert,
S. Z. Mitchell; Miss Dorothy Oak;
Messrs. Walter Scott, J. H. Wade, and
Park M. Woolley.
Annual Members: Mesdames Winthrop M.
Crane, Jr., Carl A. de Gersdorff, Wyllys
Terry, B. H. Vredenburgh, G. De Witt
Williamson; the Misses Amelia E.
Cameron, Helen Louise Lewengood, Alice
Lind, J. S. Roosevelt, Ida Ruperti.
Estelle Whitfield; Edward Levenson,
D.D.S.; Messrs. Chester Alexander,
George H. Bissinger, Douglas J. Craw-
ford, Wm. E. Gifford, Chauncey J. Hamlin,
Adam Ogint, Joseph Spektorsky, Harry F.
Sthattox, A. G. Van Nostrand, and James
P. Woodruff.
Associ'ih Members: Mesdames A. N. Burk,
Robert Codman, John Clarence Egan, J.
A. Gould, F. N. Iglehart, H. F. Lyman,
Arthur M. Marsh, W. E. McLean, Gal-
braith Miller, Jr., Leila Y. Post Mont-
gomery, A. St. J. Newberry, Lee Newbury,
Sarah A. Turnbull, H. F. Vickery,
Andrew B. Wallace, Harwood Otis Whit-
ney; the Misses Margaret E. Chase, Mary
Wood Daley, M. Annie Miller, Elisa W.
Redfield, Ruth N. Reeves, Myra Valen-
tine, Mary C. Wheelwright; Sir Harry H.
Johnston, Sir Ray Lankester; the Hon.
Louis Will; Colonel M. L. Crimmins;
Doctors Frank D. Adams, F.R.S., H. C.
Bliss, Herman L. Fairchild, Edward
C. Franklin, Francis R. Hagner;
Professors Edward Phelps Allis, Jr.,
L. Bolk, L. Cuenot, Henry S. Jacoby,
Roy L. Moodie, T. Odhner, Otto T.
Walter, Max Weber; Messrs. Carl L.
Alsberg, Barnard S. Bronson, J. J.
Carroll, Willard M. Clapp, Edw. S.
Dana, Kimball G. Easton, Carroll Lane
Fenton, C. H. Foster, F. S. Gordon,
Oliver B. Hopkins, Wr. J. Hunsaker,
Thomas H. Kearney, Emil F. Kuithan, E.
P. Lewis, M. Albert Linton, David S.
Ludlum, Charles J. Lynn, A. Ware Mer-
riam, Arthur N. Milliken, J. Merrick
Moore, I. H. Morse, Gordon Parker, H. A.
Parsons, George J. Pearl, Wm. R. Pentz,
Casper L. Redfield, Max L. Rosenberg,
Fred C. Schoenthaler, G. C. Schoon-
maker, Theodore E. Shucking, Samuel >*>.
Spaulding, Carl L. Spofford, Charles W.
Stage, J. H. Steinmech, F. Paul Stevens,
George H. Streaker, F. S. Streever, W. H.
Sudduth, Arthur W. Sugden, Wm. J.
Thistlethwaite, H. B. Van Duzer, John
Sminck Van Epps, William Van Orden,
Chas. W. Welch, W. R. Wtestcott, Eddy
Whitby, Henry Nicoll Wightman, Ellison
A. Williams, and Henry G. W^ynn.
NATURAL
D
U If
Inl 1
THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM
DEVOTED TO NATURAL HISTORY.
EXPLORATION, AND THE DEVELOP-
MENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
THROUGH THE MUSEUM
' E0/3JIV,
!: - - - n ii r . J_I—JL^J- -^w"Fn ^T7
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 1923
[Published December, L923
Volume XXIII, Number 6
( opyrighl L923, by The American Museum o( Natural History, New Vork, \ 5
ATURAL HISTORY
Volume XXIU CONTENTS FOR NOVEMBER-DECEMBER Number 6
Trailing the Rhinoceros Iguana (i. Kingsley Noble 540
How the facts presented in the group of these reptiles recently installed in the American Museum
were obtained in the field by the Angelo Heilprin Expedition
Witli photographs, by the author, of the reptiles in question and oi Santo Domingo, their homeland
I )ogs as Fishermen F. W. Gudgeb 559
A little-know a habit that certain canines indulge in for sport, to obtain food, or in the service of man
With reproductions of quaint illustrations depicting the practice
A Wasp That Hunts Cicadas William M. Savin 569
Episodes in the life history of Sphecius speciosus
i irigina) photographs, taken by the author, of the wasp, her workmanship, and the tragedy that some-
times befalls her. and a frontispiece in color from a painting by Mrs Edna L. Beutenmuller
The Treasure House of Spain Edward W. Berry 576
The famous New-World mines of Oruro, Colquechaca, and Potosf
Scenes of the region photographed by the author
••The Most Wonderful Plant in the World" Frank Morton Jones 589
With some unpublished correspondence of Charles Darwin
Pictures, obtained by the author, of Venus's flytrap and it> insect captures
How Elephants Are Mounted Frederic A. Lucas 597
A chapter in the historj of taxidermj
Illustration- depicting processes of mounting from the somewhai primitive devices of t 1 1 * ■ early nine-
teentl ntury to the perfected art of Carl E. \keley
The Department of Fishes, American Museum Bashford Dean 606
Its Aims and Achievements
With illustrations of some of tin' activities of the department in the Museum and in the field
Mounting Horse Skeletons to Exemplify Different Gaits and Actions
A. Katherine Bkkokr 616
A glimpse behind the scenes at the American Museum
Photographs showing the principal steps that an to ure perfection in the completed work
Notes 622
Published bimonthly, by the American Museum <>f Natural History, New York, X. Y.
Subscription price $3.00 a year.
Subscriptions should lie addressed t<> George F. Baker. Jr.. Treasurer, American Museum
,,1 Natural History, 77th St. and Central Park West, New York City.
Natural History is sent to nil members oftht Aim riant Must mn n.< oni of th< privileges of
rru mbership.
Entered as second-class matter April :;. 1919, a1 the Post < >ffice at New York. New York,
under the Act of August 24. 1912.
Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided tor in Section 1103, Act oi
October 3. 1017. authorized on July 15. 1918.
Australia and Asia
Natural History for January-February, 1924. will be de-
voted predominantly to Australia, the fauna, the Mora, and the
anthropology of which have a unique interest. Australia is the land of
living fossils. There, and in do other continent, are found the egg-laying
monotreme mammals, the lowest division of the Mammalia; there the
marsupial mammals, represented not only by the familiar kangaroo but
by flesh-eating members of the group, flourish as they thrive nowhere
else in the world: there the placental mammals, the group which we
who live in another part of the globe think of as the mammals par
excellence are exclusively later-day invaders.
Hardly less interesting than the mammals of Australia, living and
extinct, are the birds and the reptiles.
Just to the south of Australia lies Tasmania, where until recently
lived the most primitive representatives of modern man. so lowly in
physical type that like the mammals of the region they must be regarded
as something that has persisted from a remote past, a past that has been
largely effaced in other parts of the world.
The American Museum's interest in Australia lias beeD a keen one.
In May, 1921, a Museum expedition, consisting of Dr. William K.
Gregory and Mr. Harry C. Raven, sailed for that continent, where col-
lecting was in progress until February. 1923. In addition to specimens
obtained in the field, a number of exchanges have been consummated
with museums in Australia, so that the American Museum is in a position
to install in the not distant future an Australian exhibition that will give
the visitor a representative picture of that land.
In the January-February number of Natural History Doctor
( Gregory will describe the character of this exhibition, Mr. Raven will tell
of the work done by the expedition, while several of Australia's foremost
naturalists will deal with different divisions of their country's wonderful
wild life.
The March-April Number will lie devoted to Asia, especially to
the Third Asiatic, Faunthorpe-Vernay, and Siwalik Hills Ex-
peditions.
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NATURAL HISTORY
Volume XXIII
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER
Nt'MBER H
*k
Trailing the Rhinoceros Iguana
HOW THE FACTS PRESENTED IN THE GROUP OF THESE REPTILES RECENTLY
INSTALLED IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM, WERE OBTAINED IN THE
FIELD BV THE ANGELO HEILPRIN EXPEDITION
By G. KINGSLEY NOBLE
Associate Curator of Herpetology (In Charge), American Museum
BLANCHED cliffs of jagged cor-
als shut in on both sides the
viscid waters of Lake Enriquillo.
Under the dazzling glare of a Domini-
can sun these waters have gradually
evaporated, turning first from a brack-
ish solution to a brine, leaving behind
miles and miles of scorching saladas
(salt plains) to dance in the broiling-
heat. When the sun has reached its
fullest intensity, great, dark-skinned
lizards here and there slide out from
the tunnels which they have clawed
through these cliffs of coral limestone.
Wagging their ponderous heads in
mechanical-toy fashion, they gaze with
seeming contentment upon their deso-
late world.
A portion of this region has been
represented in the rhinoceros iguana
group recently placed on exhibition in
the American Museum, for it was in the
vicinity of this shrunken Lake Enri-
quillo that the Angelo Heilprin Expedi-
tion first went to hunt these powerful
saurians. Although fully equipped
and provided with two Ford cars, the
expedition required a month of the
most difficult traveling to capture the
specimens exhibited and to ferret out
the secrets of their strange life.
During a part of the Pleistocene.
this whole region was under the sea.
A great arm of the ocean then separated
southwestern Haiti from the rest of
the island, ("orals and sea fans vied
with mollusks and tropic fish in
splendor and brilliancy of color. Later
came an orogenic movement which
<ait off the strait from its mother ocean
and transformed it into two large lakes.
—Enriquillo to the east and Saumatre
to the west. Mountain streams poured
fresh water into these lakes: the sea
life died. With the tropical sun beat-
ing down from overhead, the water
gradually receded, leaving the skeletons
of dead sea creatures ghastly white on
the parched plains.
This region has been a valley of
death ever since man can remember.
At first avoided by the Indians because
of its sterility, it later became a refuge
for natives that had escaped from their
Spanish masters. At one time, six-
hundred such fugitives gathered about
the lake, and under the wise guidance
of their chieftain Enriquillo, defied the
Spanish for many years. At length a
treaty was made and the district turned
into an Indian reservation, soon to be
destroyed by Spanish treachery.
Today a few natives still gain their
living near the mountain streams which
How into these ever-receding lakes.
One of the largest of these settlements,
known as Duverge. had been selected
as our first base in the search for the
rhinoceros iguanas. Toward this vil-
lage, accordingly, we directed our two
Fords one September morning in 1922.
In these small outlying settlements
'Photographs by G. Kingsley Noble and Ruth Crosby Nobl<
542
XATCRAL HISTOID
the most influential man is apt to be
the one with the blackest reputation.
In Duverge the village chief was an
Armenian ex-bandit who had adopted
the name of .Juan Herrera. In the
neighboring Town of San Juan, the role
of leader had been assumed by "Papa
Lavoria." The latter, dressed like a
Zouave, had instituted a religious sect.
better. Instead of going in for religion,
he went in for Americanism as he con-
ceived it and adopted all the trappings
of civilization which went with it.
Drawing upon his treasure chest he
bought a stiaw hat, a Ford car, and
even set up an electric light plant in
his hacienda. The Marines wisely gave
him an official title and let him wear a
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Enriquillo. the dead sea. — No life ran exist here except where some mountain stream has
worked its way across the scorching plains to mingle with the saline water-. The feral
pig in the distance has been startled by the approach of members of the Heilprin Expedition
and had won sufficient fame to have
a brand of rum named after him. Al-
though the l". S. Marines had conic to
Santo Domingo to drive out the bandits,
they could not. do so if the latter hap-
pened to be the leading citizens. The
next best thing was to make friends
with these marauders of high station,
and try to reform them. " Papa La-
voria" would not reform. His crimes
continued until he was finally shot in
attempting a bold getaway. With
Juan Herrera diplomacy had worked
revolver. The added prestige delighted
Juan. lie set aside his best thatched
hut as quarters for visiting Marines 01
for their American friends. Hence it
came about that we were to be his
guests while at Duverge.
Duverge proved to be a scattering;
of dingy huts staggering about without
reason on the arid plain between Lake
Enriquillo and the Sierra de Bahoruco,
The enormous load of palm thatch
which smothered each hut served as an
index to the terrific heat we were des-
THAI LlSd THE Kll 1 \'<H EROS IGUANA
543
Duverge, .-it the fool of the Sierra de Bahoruco, was made the tirsi base in the hunt for
the rhinoceros iguana
The customs house near Las Lajas on the Haitian-Dominican border one <>i the tew
well-built houses in this region, was devastated by bandits in 1919 and has remained in
ruins ever since
tincd to withstand during the fol- :i few miles away. Ashy forests of
lowing weeks. cacti and tamarind growing in dense
The morning after om- arrival we prof usion in the valleys crowded againsl
went with two guides into the hills the base of these hills, hut the rugged
544
\ AT URAL HISTORY
The home of the rhinoceros iguana <>n the western shore of Lake Enriquillo. The burrows
are clawed through fossil corals sometimes for a length of forty feet
slopes were only sparsely clothed with
vegetation. ( )ne of the guides took the
load and without looking to right or
left moved swiftly across the hills in a
westerly direction. In this desert
region of Santo Domingo the rains fall
only during a short season, but then
the downpour is so violent that it
carves deep chasms in the hills. These
the natives call arroyos (streams),
although they are dry throughout most
of the year. As I scrambled along
over the hills, I felt myself gradually
wilt. Dark blotches of perspiration
spread rapidly over my khaki trousers.
My leather putties turned from tan to
nearly black and began to droop in
soft, damp folds about my tinkles.
We came at length to the brink of
one of those dry arroyos, one t hat was a
little dustier and more stifling than the
others. The acacias which had once
grown here had been scorched out of
existence, leaving only their gnarled
roots to twist and writhe among the
sun-heated limestones. Here and there
little clumps of organ cacti had sur-
vived by drawing close together, like
so many soldiers withstanding a final
attack. The guide had stopped and
was pointing at something far up in
the canon. At first I could see only the
twisted roots of the dead trees. Grad-
ually there took shape in the shadow
of one of the larger trunks the crest of a
rhinoceros iguana. Slowly the beast
raised itself. His deep-set eyes stared
coldly in our direction. I noted that he
was directly in front of a jagged bur-
row and quietly I slipped my heaviest
charge into the breech of my shotgun.
Slowly the stock came to my shoulder;
a terrific report echoed through the
canon. The lizard reared, then dropped
THAI LI XG THE RHINOCEROS IGUANA
545
down the burrow. We rushed up the
bank and tried in vain to dig him out.
Next morning we came back with
pick and shovel. The burrow went in
13>2 feet, gradually turning to the
right. At the end was a chamber three
feet square and about 1% feet high.
But there was no sign of the iguana.
The wounded lizard had obviously
escaped during the night.
For a week we searched these canons.
We found that the rhinoceros iguanas
dug their burrows only in the stony
cliffs or in the vertical walls of occa-
sional sink holes,— never in the sandy
playas which stretched for miles and
miles on all sides. With native help
we rounded up a number of half-grown
iguanas, but the large ones always
escaped us.
As it became more and more doubt-
ful whether we would secure any large
specimens, some of the natives came to
us and said that out in Lake Enri-
quillo there was an island abounding in
gigantic iguanas. To be sure, no one
had been to the island for twenty years.
Enriquillo was a dead sea and there
were no boats on the lake. In fact,
there was no need for boats, as fish did
not exist in water 50 per cent more
saline than the ocean.
A few days later, however, the town
of Duverge was startled by the sight
of a boat carried aloft on a Marine
Corps's truck through the heart of the
village. Our host, Juan Herrera, was
particularly excited and immediately
organized a party to assist in exploring
the iguana island. Early on the mor-
-sss
\i borne, — a detail from the Rhinoceros [guana Group (frontispiece). Most of the cliffs
which border Lake Enriquillo have a similar composition of fossil corals and shells
546
XATUNAL HISTORY
To reach Enriquillo the boal had to be dragged across miles of salada, soft, salt-
streaked mud, fissured with sun cracks having a regular polygonal form
'. : "
The unfrequented island in the lake proved to be a greal sand Hut adorned with enor-
mous candelabra-like cacti
row eight pairs of hands dragged the from the water's edge. The boat
boat across the two miles of quaking would hold only four and it was
mud that separated the terra firma decided to take Juan, a guide Mrs.
TRAILING THE RHINOCEROS IGUANA
547
Noble, and oiyself. Foui' miles of
open water stretched between the
island and ourselves. A strong wind
had already sprung up and the waves
washed dangerously close to the sun-
wale of our little craft. I took the
oars and had made perhaps a mile
when suddenly a greal black snout
arose from the green waters and shot
out ahead of our hows. It was a
crocodile perhaps twelve feet in length.
The waves striking on his muzzle
broke into spray, which glistened in tin-
sunlight. A crocodile in a dead sea.
landlocked, and separated from the
ocean by forty miles, must lead a
precarious existence. Surely he must
be very hungry!
Two hours later we reached the
island. It was a long sand spit twelve
miles in length by a mile in width.
Strange candelabra-like cacti con-
fronted our eyes on all sides As we
moved inland, there was a rush and
four grotesque saurians charged mil
from under some fallen cacti. Before
they disappeared I rioted that they
lacked the tusk of the rhinoceros iguana
but were equipped instead with num-
erous whorls of spikes on the tail.
They were, in fact, a different species—
Cyclura ricordii and one that had
been lost to science for more than fifty
years. We soon found that these
lizards were everywhere on the island.
Unlike the rhinoceros iguanas, they
dug holes into the Hat salt-encrusted
playas. Of the rhinoceros iguana we
could find no trace. Aftei hunting a
half day we gave up and went back to
the boat.
By this time the dead sea had be-
come lashed into ;i in;i» of white-
caps. Dominicans are traditionally
poor sailors and Juan was eager to
remain overnight on the island, hoping
to venture across when the wind abated.
But our friends were waiting expec-
tantly for us on the other shore and so
at last we started. The wind con-
tinued to rise. The guide and I
steadied the boat with our oars. Wave
after wave came over the gunwale.
Mrs. Noble bailed frantically while
Juan hung limply over the side of the
boat. In spite of our shouts "Saca
in) iki!" Juan remained motionless
until the guide reminded him of the
crocodiles when he recovered his
vitality with startling suddenness. It
was soon apparent we could not make
the opposite shore, and it was equally
dangerous to attempt a return to the
island. While Juan alternately swore
and prayed, we began to drift straight
down the lake with a distance of more
than ten miles between us and the lee
shore. Four hours later our boat
half full of water— scraped bottom just
off a beach. We all jumped out and
pulled our specimens clear of the tum-
bling waves. It was now dark and we
had drifted many miles from any
habitation. In true bandit fashion
Juan lit a fire, and the guide after
much grumbling stalled out in search
of the Fords.
A few days later we gave up our
search for adult iguanas in the vicinity
of Duverge and struck out for Lake
Saumatre on the Haitian border. It
was long after dark when we reached
Fas Fajas. the last Dominican outpost.
In the dim light of ( Juardia lanterns the
half dozen hovels that form this settle-
ment seemed untenable. We were
directed with much ceremony to the
casita of Roque Valdez, the customs
officer and first citizen of the town. \\
was a dingy hut of three rooms, palm-
thatched and adobe-walled, yet the
elaborately embossed rum glasses on :i
massive table were obvious indica-
tions that we were in the home of a
548
XATL'RAL HISTORY
The rhinoceros iguana [Cyclwra cornuta), the Largest of the rock iguanas. — It was primarily
to work out the life biston of this saurian that the Angelo Heilprin Expedition went to
Santo Domingo
gentleman. Dinner had already been
prepared for us. With surprising
relish I consumed my share of burned
goat meat, fried plantains, and fresh
papaya, then leaned back to take a look
around. There at my feet, staring
up with eyes of hunger, was the lean-
est yellow dog I had ever seen. How a
hungry dog can stare! The rind of my
papaya was still on my plate. .lust to
avert the stare of those eyes I dropped
the scarcely edible portion upon the
clay floor. A snarl, a tew gulps, and
the rind had disappeared.
The island which we had selected for
our hunt in the morning, though not
indicated on any map. is nearly a
quarter of a mile long and a hundred
yards wide. In all our iguana hunts,
when we wished to capture the beasts
alive', (.logs were essential. Various
natives had promised me hunting dogs
that morning, but of course they did
not appear. In my dilemma I came to
THAI USii THE RHINOCEROS IGUANA
549
The Dominican spike-tailed iguana {('//dura ricordii). — This huge saurian is found in the
same region as the rhinoceros iguana, but lias very different habits. The photograph was
made on the island in Lake Enriquillo by stealthily approaching a wild specimen
think of the lean yellow dog with the blow, a slinking shadow in the home of
terrible appetite. "Was the little Roque Valdez. Yet this morning any
dog a hunter0 What was his name?" dog was better than none and the
Roque only shook his head and said. worst was worth a try-out. So ii
" No ser-vet, no wr-rcc" a corruption came aboul that "No Ser-vee" be-
of no sirve, meaning good for nothing, came a member of our party.
and implying that the dog did not .lust as we were Loading our equip-
deserve a name. Most Dominican mem on to the small boa! we had
dogs are broughl up to chase pigs or broughl with us, two Haitian hoys
goats. The yellow pup had apparently came along with a second yellow dog,
not proved very valuable and had this one slightly larger and more mus-
therelore become the objecl of many a cular than Roque's. The boys gave us
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552
NATURAL HISTORY
The "Mayflower" at anchor off Beata. — An iguana hound kept watch while the men
unloaded the boat in preparation for a hunt on the morrow
to understand that this dog was espe-
cially trained to hunt iguanas, for on
the Haitian side of the island these
lizards are highly prized as food.
An hour later the boat grated on
bottom close to the island, and dogs
and blacks scrambled pell-mell across
the few yards of glaring limestone
to a forest of cacti that covered the
central core. In a moment all had
been swallowed up by the brush and
the gray streamers of Spanish moss
which swung from the cacti. Separated
from the party, I picked my way alone
through the forest toward a ridge, the
outer edge of this rugged island.
Suddenly a dog's yap broke the
silence, followed by a rattle of short
barks. There was a scramble, and then
an iguana — mouth agape — shot from
TRAILING THE RHINOCEROS IGUANA
553
the brush, with the "Good for Noth-
ing" dog close at his heels. The rep-
tile turned at bay a yard from the
water hut the little dog dove at him.
Another scurry, and both dog and
iguana splashed into the water. The
little dog came out as quickly as he
went in and stood shaking himself
with his tail between his legs. Most
yellow dogs are not very heroic in ap-
pearance, but when such a dog is very
thin and very wet, he excites only pity.
Of the iguana nothing was to be seen.
Had the reptile been swallowed up
by the lake? These saurians live their
whole life on land, emerging from their
burrows only when the sun is shining
brightly. Heat and drought seem
essential to their livelihood. They
avoid regions of luxuriant growth. 01
even of moderate humidity, preferring
always the sun-baked rocks and scrub
of the bad lands. The iguana must
surely be drowned, I thought, when
after nearly five minutes of patient
waiting, there was still no sign of him.
Just then a dark object rose slowly
toward the surface. Stiff as a bar,
and nearly vertical in the water,
the iguana was cautiously seeking air.
Hardly had the horned snout cleared
the surface, when the reptile saw
the two excited dogs and the four
humans gazing at him. With a gulp
he dove again into the blue depths of
the lake.
These singular actions made clear
to me a problem which had long been a
puzzle. Why is it that many of the
West Indian island- which are sup-
posed to he volcanic in origin, to have
arisen from the depths of the sea.
are. notwithstanding, peopled by rep-
tiles and amphibians thai are never
known to approach the sea and hence
could not have been carried from the
mainland bv accident? Here in the
case of the iguana we had an explana-
tion. Although the iguanas in their
ordinary round of existence avoid the
sea, nevertheless, when thrown by
accident into it, they are perfectly
at home. Potentially they are water
reptiles, even though the daily exigen-
cies of life do not call forth any contact
with the ocean. While I was thus
musing, one of the Haitian boys had
stripped off his clothing and plunged
into the lake. A shower of spray, and
the boy emerged holding the iguana
firmly by the neck. A pair of out-
stretched hands relieved him of the
prize and nimble fingers tightened
cords about the booty.
The days that followed yielded other
iguanas. ( )ur pack now included many
dogs and these hunted well. Each
sweltering chase added a little to our
growing information regarding these
reptiles. Their food habits, the places
where they occur, the form of their
burrows, — all had to be determined.
But while these problems were soon
solved, some of the most important
questions remained unanswered.
Where did the iguanas lay their eggs*'
Why had we seemed no very large
specimens? In desperation, we changed
our hunting grounds again, first re-
turning to the coast with the speci-
mens we had secured.
Hack in Barahona the Marines
turned the barracks over to us in which
to house ourselves and the iguanas we
had taken alive. We tied up the
thirty or more captives to the springs
of the cots. There they stood solemn
and statuesque, peering with sullen
dignity at those of the passers-by who
cautiously kept their distance, and
offering a warning gurgle to the more
curious. Bananas were placed before
the creatures and these they devoured
:it :i gulp.
•V)4
NATURAL HISTORY
At night uncanny sounds arose from the
thickets: the hermit crabs of the seabeach
were climbing trees in search of prey
At last, with only a couple of weeks
left before the boat would arrive that
was to take us and our captives back
to New York, we decided to make one
last effort to find the eggs. A Marine
had told us that far down the coast on
a little islet called Beata (the blessed
one) he had seen iguanas "as big as
crocodiles." Not knowing where else
to turn, we engaged a little sloop — the
"Flor-de-Mayo" ("Mayflower") and
the last day of September started out
to sea with five men and the two yellow
dogs we had brought from Las Lajas.
By dusk of the following evening we
dropped anchor in a cove on the west
side of the island.
Beata is a triangular block of eroded
limestone about seven miles in length.
Its leeward, or westerly, part is densely
covered with a tangle of cacti and
bush, while its eastern arm is al-
most devoid of any cover. Although
no one lives on the island, turtle fisher-
men occasionally stop there and on
The expedition joined forces with a band of pig; hunter:
TRAILING THE RHINOCEROS IGUANA
555
rare occasions some hunters come to
seek the goats and pigs which have run
feral there for many years.
It so happened that one of these
hunting parties had just landed on the
island. That night we joined forces
and thus added six dogs and three men
to our iguana party. We were a
strange group seated about the camp
fire. Half the men were stripped to the
waist and all save my two Guardia
wore machetes, which shone blood-red
in the light of the camp fire. Grad-
ually, above the voices of the men I
made out a dry, rustling sound, a
crawling noise, as if someone were
dragging dead bones out there in the
darkness. I seized my hand lamp and
shotgun and tiptoed out of the circle.
Xow the sound came from above my
head. My electric light flashed up-
ward, cut a great hole in the black-
ness. Numerous white balls were
moving in every direction up and down
the trees. I drew nearer and found —
the last thing I would have expected
— hermit crabs, usually to be seen only
between the tide lines, here clambering
noisily over the branches, carrying their
shell houses with them.
Next morning we waited until the
sun was well up and then started out in
a body. We had gone only a few steps
when, wit ha yelp, the dogs started some-
thing. It proved to be an enormous
iguana, which easily waded through
the pack and disappeared down a
burrow. Then a strange thing hap-
pened. The little yellow dog we had
brought with us from Las Lajas, the
one that had been considered useless
by Roque Valdez, plunged headlong
down the burrow after the iguana.
His barks became less and less audible
as he went deeper into the ground.
The natives were now very excited.
It was impossible for the little dog to
pull out the iguana, and they all be-
ban to shout "Viene p'au, vient p'au."
But the dog paid no attention. The
1 talking grew weaker and weaker.
Then suddenly a shrill yelp arose
from the depths, and the little dog
came charging out — dripping with
blood. He had been badly bitten in
the head. We hastened to bandage
him up, and at last sent him back to
camp with one of the men.
A short distance beyond we came to
a little clearing. To the seaward side
was a great pile of conch shells, each
shell very much weathered but show-
ing the round hole made by some
Carib fisherman when cutting out
the fnollusk. This was obviously the
camp site of an ancient Indian settle-
ment. I began to inspect the ground
closely and came at length upon some
broken eggshells. They were larger
than chicken's eggs, but shrivelled
and leathery in appearance. They
could not be turtle eggs, for most of
these have hard shells like those of a
chicken. Could they be iguana eggs'.'
Manuel was on his knees and digging.
He was nearly down to his arm-pit
when he abruptly jerked up and there
in his hand was a tiny iguana in the
very act of hatching from an egg.
Leiocephalus beatanus, one of the four
species of lizards new to science which came
tot he camp at Beats
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558
NATURAL HISTORY
We now began digging everywhere
in the sandy clearing. In a space
150 X 70 feet we found five nests.
Obviously, the iguanas were somewhat
gregarious during the breeding season.
This was of special interest, for the
rhinoceros 'iguana is supposed to be re-
lated to the ('(Mitral American iguana,
which is known to dig holes in sandy
areas similar to the one we had just
discovered. But the Central American
iguana has gone one step further in its
gregariousness: the females frequently
lay their eggs in the same hole, until
there may be more than ten dozen in a
single pile.
Not only the nests but the young
also gave us a clew as to the relation-
ships of the species. The young had
pale eyes and fleshy mouth parts simi-
lar to those of some of the less special-
ized rock iguanas. Furthermore, the
young were cross-barred with black
very much in the manner of certain
species of ''black" iguanas | ( 'tenosaura).
While we had been digging, the rest
of the party had been scouring the
thickets and before noon the men re-
turned carrying two iguanas much
larger than those we had seen before,
though hardly the size of crocodiles.
That night the crawling sound of
arboreal hermit crabs sounded almost
joyful to me, and the bats as they
whirred through our rancho, only a
few inches above my face, seemed to
understand something of our satis-
faction in their island. The morning
came and yielded not only more and
larger iguanas, but additional data
regarding the life history of these
saurians. Four species of smaller lizards
new to science were captured at
the very door of our shelter. Beata,
the unknown, was truly a reptilian
paradise.
While the story of our group ends
here, the story of the iguanas continues
even as I write. More than forty were
brought to New York alive and many
of these were sent to Bronx Park. The
keepers of the reptile house were duly
warned of the ferocity of these new
arrivals. But Head Keeper Toomey
tried the experiment of making friends
with them. Within a few months one
of the largest of the iguanas had been so
won over by this show of good will that
when Mr. Toomey entered the cage, he
would jump playfully on his knee like a
kitten and look this way and that in
an almost affectionate manner. After
my weeks of chasing and fighting the
iguanas in the field, this performance
seemed almost incredible. But more
surprising still was the change of food
habits which Mr. Toomey induced. I
had proved that the creatures were
purely vegetarian in nature. One day
at the Park when the supply of bananas
was low. Keeper Toomey gave the
iguanas some mice. These they seized
quickly, shaking them as a cat might do,
and immediately engulfed them in their
greal jaws. From these experiences it
would seem that the rhinoceros iguanas
are among the most changeable of
reptiles. We had believed them ter-
restrial and they convinced us that
they are at home in the water; we
had thought them ferocious and they
revealed themselves as affectionate; we
had proved them, as we thought, to be
vegetarians and they demonstrated to
us that they could stalk mice in a most
un-reptilian maimer.
-V5
This picture of a Scotch terrier pulling out of the water a live cod thai lie has caught is
reproduced from a volume by Cornwall .Simeon published in 1860 under the title of Stray
Notes on Fishing and Natural History. Every afternoon this dog would take his stand on
certain stones that served as a landing place and wait until the approach of a fish enabled him
to make a capture by a swift anil accurate plunge upon his prey
Dogs as Fishermen
By E. W. GUDGER
Associate in Ichthyology, American Museun
THE wild Canidse seek their prey
in the woods and fields and
many tame dogs still do so to
some extent. However, early in the
long course of his evolution from the
status of cave dweller, man tamed the
wild dog, and today brings him up as a
household animal. And so artificial
are some of our modern breeds of dogs.
that if they were left free in a wood well
populated with rabbits, they would
inevitably starve.
Xow, if dogs originally hunted for
themselves, if they have been trained
to retrieve ducks shot in a pond, and to
hunt in the water such water animals
as otters, then may they not be ex-
pected in some instances and under
certain conditions to seek their prey
in the water, to fish for themselves? A
number of accounts of such activities
have come to hand and will be set forth
herein. These accounts may be
divided into three categories: first,
where dogs fish for themselves to ob-
tain food; second, where they fish for
sport; and third, where they assist
men in fishing.
If dogs ever fish for themselves, one
would expect them to do so either
where there is practically no other food
obtainable, or where fishes are more
abundant and more easily caught than
any other kind of food. First, then,
let us go to the low-lying coral atolls of
the South Seas where the birds of the
air or the fish in the sea furnish prac-
tically the only edible food for dogs;
where the inhabitants subsist almost
wholly upon the fruits of the coconut
palm and Pandanus and upon fish.
Here the dog (primarily a carnivorous
beast) must eat fish or die, and here
he must often make his own catch, for
his master has frequently enough to do
to fish for himself and his family.
560
NATURAL HISTORY
At Rutiaro atoll in the Tuamotu, or
Low Archipelago, Hall and Xordhoff1
tell u* that they "watched a group of
Kutiaroan dogs in their search for
food. They had developed a sort of
team work in the business, leaping
toward the shore all together with a
porpoise-like curving of their bodies,
and were as quick as a flock of terns to
see and seize their prey." Further-
more, one of these dogs, the best fisher
on the island, always brought his cap-
ture to his master to be cooked and
would not cat it until it had been
cooked.
St. -Johnston- likewise records a
similar habit of a dog at Loma-Loma
in Lau, an island lying between Fiji
and Tonga. This dog was once seen
standing waist-deep in the water and
snapping at something that was pass-
ing. Investigation showed that she
was catching fish as they swam by in a
shoal. She afterwards became a very
keen devotee of fishing, changing
fishing grounds with the tides and cur-
rents. She likewise trained one of her
puppies, who shortly became quite as
expert as his mother, often "edging her
off his own private fishing-ground when
the fish happened to be scarce.'*
In Siberia, at the season when the
salmon are ascending the streams, the
dogs find it much easier to catch fish in
the water than to seek prey in the woods.
I have in times past seen a number of
references to this fishing habit as ex-
emplified by the dogs of that region,
hut unfortunately only two instances
have been preserved. Roulin3 says
that in Kamchatka during the summer
the dogs, which throughout the re-
mainder of the year are fed mainly on
Hall. James Norman, and Xordhoff, Charles
Bernard. Fatry Lands of Do South Sms. New York,
1921, pp. 126 and 142.
-St.-Johnston, T. K. South Sea Reminiscences. Lon-
don, 1922, pp. 205-06.
3Roulin, F. Histoin Naturelh el Souvenirs de Voy
I'm i- I I 865], pp 85-6.
dried fish, vary their food by catching
their own fish fresh from the water.
wading in belly-deep to do so.
Roulin does not indicate the source
of his data, but it seems probable that
his informant is Langsdorff,4 who, in
that part of his travels, dealing with
Kamchatka, gives a whole chapter to
"Kamschadale Dogs." Concerning
their food he says that:
In summer they [the dogs] are gen-
erally left to rove at large, and find
their own food, when they keep on the
seashore, or in the neighborhood of
livers lurking after fish, standing in the
water up to their bellies: when they
see a fish they snap at it with such a
certain aim. that they rarely miss it:
in doing this their whole head is fre-
quently under the water. When they
can get a superabundance of food, as
for instance, at the time when the
salmon come up the rivers in shoals.
they eat the heads only, as being the
finest flavored part of the fish, leaving
the bodies to become putrid.
Similarly I iiiillemard ' writes of a
sledge dog that being "a good hunter
and fisherman, he supports himself
upon the game and salmon he catches."
He also tells how a particular dog.
named Verglaski, would wade out into
a stream, filled with salmon living and
dead, and watch for a good, active,
"clean" fish. This he would catch
and retiring to the hank would eat.
The half-dead fish (easy to catch)
he would totally disdain.
In a part of the world far removed
from either of the above-mentioned re-
gions, both in space and physical con-
ditions, namely in Egypt, dogs have a
hard time getting a living. Food being
lacking on land, they are forced to turn
'Langsdorff, Georg Heinrieh von. Bemerkungen
einer Reise not do Welt in dm Jahrtn 1803 bis ISO?.
Frankfurt-am-Mayn, 1812, 3 vols. — English version.
iges and Tranh I n Various Parts of the World in
iht Years, 1803, 1804, 1805, 1806 and 1807. London
is 14. 2 vols.. Vol. II. Chap. 14. p. 277.
5Guillemard, F. H. H. Cruise of the Marchesa to
Kamchatka and New Guinea. London. 1SS6, Vol. II,
pp 82, 123.
DOGS AS FISHERMEN
56]
to the water. "Fluker." says1 that
numberless times he has seen the half-
wild and half-starving pariah dogs
fishing on the shores of the lakes of
Egypl and the Suez Canal. He adds
that a friend of his at Ismalia had a
setter dog which became very expert at
catching mullets, which she promptly
ate.
That tlogs fish for sport, for the fun
of fishing, may strike the leader as
very unusual, hut the testimony is
clear and convincing. Chronologically
the accounts are as follows.
Thomas Tod Stoddart2 tells us that
attached to St. Mary's Loch Club in
Scotland was a dog, a cross between a
collie and a Scotch terrier, which used
to post itself on the shallow run
between two lochs in order to watch
the schools of perch which during the
spring came in there to spawn. "And
when an opportunity occurs, Gipsy
will be observed to make a sudden dash
towards the bottom with its head, and
generally secures a fish, which it
carries to land and forthwith kills."
Furthermore, if an angler had trouble
in landing a trout . the dog on command
would plunge in and. seizing it in its
jaws, would bring it ashore. Neverthe-
less, it would never eat a fish unless
cooked.
In Yarrell's British Fishes,3 L836edi-
tion. Volume II, page 56, then' is
quoted, from a manuscript left by
< lolonel Montague, t he story of a water
spaniel that caught all the carp in its
master's ponds and because of its mis-
deeds was to be killed. However, a
gentleman living some distance away,
owner of a famous trout fishery, begged
that the dog be given him. for he be-
'Fluker." Fishing in Egypt. Alexandria, [1918?],
pp. 87-8
Stoddart, Thomas Tod. Tht An of Angling at
iced in Scotland. Edinburgh, L835, p. 119.
Xarrell, Wm. .1 History of British Fishes 2 vols
2nd K<l . 1841, Vol. II. p. 105; 3rd Ed., 1859, Vol. I.
p 283
lieved that such a wily and agile fish
as a trout could not be caught by any
dog. The spaniel, however, soon con-
vinced his new master that even the
trout were no match for him. What
was then done with this troublesome
fisherman is not stated.
Further, Yarrell in the second edi-
tion of his work (1841, Vol. II, pp. »'>!>
70) quotes from a letter written by the
Earl of Home to the effect that his
uncle had a Newfoundland dog that
became an expert fisher of salmon by
attending the fishermen at work below
a near-by mill dam. The dog used to
take position at the opening in the
dam made to allow salmon to ascend
and catch them as they attempted to
pass through. So skillful did he become
that "he has been known to kill from
twelve1 to twenty salmon in a morning,"
which he placed together on one side.
And now follows a most interesting-
thing. It would seem that the dog was
so successful that he actually threat-
ened to diminish the supply of salmon
in that stream, for we read that "The
then Earl of Tankerville instituted a
process against the dog. . . This case
was brought before the Courl of Ses-
sions and the process was entitled 'The
Earl of Tankerville versus a Dog, the
property of the Fail of Home." .Judg-
ment was given in favor of the dog."
The geologist. .1. B. Jukes.1 records
the exploits in Newfoundland of a dog
that evidently fished for the fun of it.
We Shall let Jukes tell his own story:
I le [the dog] sat on a project ing rock.
beneath a fish Hake or stage, where the
fish are laid to dry, watching the water,
which had a depth of six or eight
feet, and a bottom which was white
with fishbones. On throwing a piece
of codfish into the water, three or four
heavy, clumsy-looking fish, called in
'Jukes, J. B. Excursions in and about- Newfoundland
•luring th, Years 1839 and t8/,0. London, IM'.'. 2 vols.
Vol. I, pp. I<H 92
562
X ATI' HAL HISTORY
Newfoundland "Sculpins," with great
heads and mouths, and many spines
about them, and generally about a foot
long, would swim in to catch it. These
he would "set" attentively, and the
moment one turned his broadside to
him, he darted down like a fish-hawk,
and seldom came up without a fish in
his mouth. As he caught them, he
regularly took them to a place a few
yards off, where he laid them down:
and they told us that, in the summer,
he would make a pile of sixty or sevent y
a day just in that place. He never at-
tempted to eat them, but seemed to be
fishing purely for his own amusement.
Jukes watched this dog for a couple
of hours and noticed that when the
fish became shy and did not come up.
the dog would put his right fore foot (;t
white one) in the water and would
paddle it about, .hikes' guide told him
that the dog did this to ''toll" or
entice the fish. But our author was
never able to decide whether this was
so or was the result of impatience.
Cornwall Simeon1 in 1860 relates, of
a Scotch terrier attached to a shooting
and fishing lodge in Ross shire, that
above all things he loved to go out in
the boats with the anglers, and that
he always manifested the greatest
interest in their catches. In the after-
noon after the work of the men was
over, the dog would do some fishing
on his own account. Taking his stand
on the large stones which served as a
landing place, he would watch for cod-
fish which came up seeking the offal
that was thrown overboard after the
day's catch had been prepared for the
table. Simeon states:
Although he generally saw them
when they were some little distance
from the shore, yet if they seemed to be
coming pretty straight towards him, he
rarely made any demonstration until
they were1 well within reach and he had
1Simeon, Cornwall. Stray Notes m, Fishing and
Natural History. Cambridge [England], 1860, pp. 12S-
32.
a fair chance at them. Then he went
in with a rush. There was a tussle, a
diving, a gripping, and a blowing, and
then gradually he emerged, struggling
with and dragging after him the un-
wieldy and reluctant form of a big
helpless-looking cod .
To the great disgust of the dog, his
captures were, however, always thrown
back. The keeper reported that the
animal would also catch salmon in the
same way. The picture reproduced on
p. 559 of this article is from the title-
page of Mr. Simeon's book.
George R. Jesse2 quotes as follows
from an unknown writer in the Sport-
ing Magazine concerning a dog which
apparently fished for sport only:
A dog which, some years ago, was
at the White Hart Inn at Salisbury
[England], took his daily walk around
the canal surrounding the Close, in
search of minnows, which he seized
with wonderful avidity. When few or
none were visible he scratched up the
gravel [in shoal water in the canal]
for a considerable extent, and then
patiently took his station till some un-
fortunate gudgeon came in sight [at-
tracted by the freshly turned gravel],
on whom he pounced with all the fero-
city of a hawk secure of its prey.
Richard Jefferies3 gives an interest-
ing account, too long to be quoted
verbatim here, of somewhat similar
actions on tin1 part of a pointer belong-
ing to him. Some fish — roach, tench,
perch, and a small jack — were kept for
a time in a large stone trough from
which cattle were wont to drink. After
a time this trough became foul and
while it was being cleaned, the fish
were transferred to a large shallow
tub. Here they were distinctly visible,
and after watching them for some hours,
the dog put her head under the water,
removed them one by one and laid
2Jesse, George R., Researches into tin History of the
Hritiish Dog, etc. 2 vols., ills. London, 1866.
Mefferies, Richard. Thi Gamekeeper at Home. 2nd
Ed., 1880, p. 54.
DOGS AS FISHERMEN
563
them unmutilated on the grass.
Jefferies put them back in the tub and
watched the dog immerse her head and
grope around until she found a fish:
then out came her head and the fish
was placed on the ground. This she
did time after time and for fish after
fish, the jack giving her the most
trouble hut eventually being always
caught.
The next day she renewed her fishing
exploits and soon became so expert that
she did not miss a fish. When, how-
ever, these were removed to the deeper
water of the trough, she no longer
molested them as the trough was too
wide and the water too deep for her
unless she became completely im-
mersed. No attempt was made to
teach her; she acted throughout on her
own initiative.
Hut some critic may object that
these accounts are apocryphal or at
any rate not attested by a naturalist of
standing. To this it may be answered:
in the first place, that these diverse
accounts, spread over a number of
years, coming from men who must be
accredited as honest, are themselves
corroborative and convincing proof;
and secondly, that there will now be
given an account from the pen of the
veteran naturalist, W. II. Hudson,
who tells of the following incident in
his autobiography.1
It seems that, when a boy. he was
one day on the water front at Buenos
Aires as the tide was coming in. He
noticed a man and dog approaching.
Presently the dog left his master and
bounding up to one of the outermost
rocks, not yet washed over, where
Hudson was standing, took position
there and gazed intently into the water.
"Suddenly he plunged in. quite dis-
Budson, W. H, Far Away and Long Ago; I Hixtnrp
U . Early Lift New N ork, l'»l v. p UN
appearing from sight, but quickly re-
appeared with a big shad of about
three and a half or four pounds in
weight in his jaws. ( 'limbing on to the
rocks, he dropped the fish, which he did
not appear to have injured much, as it
began floundering about in an exceed-
ingly lively manner."
The dog repeated this performance
five times, evidently for the mere sport
of the thing as his master paid no atten-
tion to him. Tlie rising tide washed
the fish back into the water, and by and
by the man whistled to the dog. which
bounded off to join him.
Somewhat intermediate between in-
dependent action and deliberate co-
operation are the accounts next to be
given, in that the dogs acted in a sense
as conscious helpers to their masters.
The first account of this character is
from the pen of Pierce Egan,2 who tells
of a Newfoundland dog that on one
occasion was observed to fish in the
liver Clyde. A codfish about eighteen
inches long was leaping out of the water
and thus came to the attention of the
dog. which "at a favorable moment
plunged into the ( !lyde and disappeared
for a short time. He then made his
appearance with the fish in his mouth
and delivered it to one of the servants
[of his master] with very few marks of
violence upon it."
Sir John Richardson,3 quoting from a
correspondent of his, gives the follow-
ing interesting note regarding the
habits of the sail fluke (one of the flat-
fishes) and the fate that overtakes it: "It
does not take a bait, and he only once
saw it caught in a net. but it comes
ashore spontaneously, with its tail
erected above the water, like a boat
Egan, Pierce. Book of SporU "»■/ Mirror of /. fi
. i London, L832, i>. 284.
'Richardson, John. "Singula) Account of th< 5
Fluke." Zoologist, I860, Vol. 18, pp. 6993 94. Usou
2nd Supplement to Yarrell'a B it hi >■ . 1849 ed.
[citation aol vi rified].
564
\ ATI HAL HISTORY
■
• A)
A spaniel that lor many years supplied the Peres Cordeliers d'Etampes with crabs and
fish is here seen bearing to his masters a characteristic contribution for the larder. So skillful
was this dog and s() meritorious were his services that a local poet celebrated his exploits in
Latin verse
under sail, whence its name. This it
generally does in calm weather, and on
sandy shores, and the country people
near such places [in Scotland] train
their dogs to catch it." The fluke,
left on the beach by the receding wave,
burrows in the sand, from which it is
dug out by a dog.
Ernest Menault in his Intelligence of
Animals (English translation. New
York, lS(i9) quotes from the Histoire
d'Etampes to the effect that a clever
spaniel served the Peres Cordeliers
d'Etampes for many years as a pur-
veyor of crabs and fishes. Indeed
Menault states that so celebrated was
this animal and so many capital dinners
had he provided for the friars that in
1714 a local poet celebrated his exploits
in Latin verse. The figure with which
Menault illustrates his account is
reproduced above.
In a book by an anonymous writer,1
published in 1865, there is an account
of a still more remarkable kind of fish-
ing by a dog, namely, that on the sands
of the seashore left exposed by the
retreating tide. A party of English
gentlemen were watching the various
methods of fishing carried on at low
water at a certain point on the coast of
Normandy, when they saw an old
woman pass by equipped with a fish-
basket and a pickax and accompanied
'Campbell, J. T. Editor. Lift in Normandy. Sketches
of French Fishing, etc. Edinburgh, 1865. 3rd. Ed., pp.
DOGS AS FISHERMEN
.">(>.">
by a dog. They followed her out on
the beach to a spot where the sands.
instead of being smooth, were covered
everywhere with little mounds.
"Go and seek, good dog Trompette !"
said the old lady. . . The dog started
off, hunting in all directions. In a
(matter of a minute he stopped at one
of the little lumps, and began to
scratch and whine like a terrier at a
rat-hole. "See, he has one," said the
woman, as she ran towards the dog.
brandishing her pick-axe. When she
reached the place, she looked to see
which way the hole ran, and then began
tearing up the sand, which rose in
lumps at every blow. After eight or
ten strokes out tumbled a conger eel
about the same size as those in her
basket.
This she killed and put in her basket
and cried, "Seek again, Trompette!"
This the dog did and in five minutes
they had caught five large conger eels.
Enquiry elicited the fact that a young
dog was trained by being taken out
once or twice with an experienced
animal: thus instructed by example,
it would soon learn to hunt quite well
itself.
The instance last mentioned has
prepared the reader for the cases, now
to be cited, of dogs serving as aids to
fishermen in their business. That
man should instruct dogs to this end
is after all not so strange. He has
trained dogs to hunt for him. to drive
birds into a net, to catch and bring to
him disabled birds, and to dive and
hunt for otters. The first statement of
I lie use of a dog for fishing is from an
old book on fishing by James Saunders1
dating back to 1724. His circumstan-
t i ; 1 1 account is as follow- :
In Devonshire I have observ'd how
they fish with a Dog. a way 1 have
never mel with anywhere else, but it is
in one particular Case, which i> thus.
Saunders, James Tlu < omplt il Fisherman, being .1
I'in.ii and particular Account of nil tin several "■•■,
Fishing mm- practised in Europe. London, I7lM
they make Pallisadoes and cross Stakes
at the Tail of a Mill, the cross Pieces
are set pointing inward.- like a Mouse
Trap to one another, and the Point>
so close together, that when the Tide
comes up. the Fish slide insensibly
between the Points, but cannot find
their way out again when the Tide
ebbs again: so that they are left in the
Dock of the Mill Tail, where the sides
being walled or wharf t with Stone, and
the Mill shut down at the higher End.
the cross Rails standing athwart the
lower End, and pointing so near to one
another as above, the Fish are left
within, in about a Foot or Foot and a
Half of Water only.
When the Tide is thus out. the Fish
which are generally Salmon in the
Season, and Salmon Peall when the
Salmon Season is over, are all to be
seen: then they place a shove Net at
the end of a Pole, at the lower end of
the Dock or Mill Tail, and turn in a
Dog. who is bred to the Trade, at the'
upper End, and he drives all the Fish
into the Net. and so dextrous are they
at their business, that if a Fish gets
into a little Hole or under a Stone, as if
it were unwilling to be driven on to its
Ruin, the unlucky Curs will wrack them
out with their Feet.
The next account is contained in a
letter written by William Hamilton
from Portrush, Ireland, in 1784,2 and
records an incident that occurred on a
ride from Portrush to the Giant's
Causeway. As it is the basis of a
number of other accounts, it will be
quoted here in full:
We had occasion to ford the river
Hush, near the sea: and as the fisher-
men were going to haul their net. we
stopped to see their success. As soon
as the [their] dog perceived the men to
move, he instantly ran down the river
(if his own accord and took post in the
middle of it on some shallows where he
could occasionally run or swim, and in
this position he placed himself, with
all the eagerness and attention so
1 1;. n, Mr. 11. Win Letters Concerning tin' Northern
Coast oj tin County of Antrim . . n, //,,
Natural History oj thi Basaltes, etc. Dublin, 1790
Pari I. pp. Ill 12. Also in Pinkerton's Voyages,
1809, Vol. III. p. 887
566
NATURAL HISTORY
strongly observable in a pointer dog,
who sets his game; . . . the fish, when
they feel the net, always endeavor to
make directly out to sea. Accordingly
one of the salmon, escaping from the
net, rushed down the stream with
great velocity, toward the ford, where
the dog stood to receive him at an
advantage. A very diverting chase
now commenced, in which, from the
shallowness of the water, we could
discern the whole track of the fish,
with all its rapid turnings and windings.
After a smart pursuit the dog found
himself left considerably behind, in
consequence of the water deepening,
by which he had been reduced to the
necessity of swimming. But instead of
following the desperate game any
longer, he readily gave it over, and ran
with all his speed directly down the
[bank of the] river, till he was sure of
being again to seaward of the salmon,
where he took post as before in his
pointer's attitude. Here the fish a
second time met him, and a fresh
pursuit ensued, in which, after various
attempts the salmon at last made
its way out to the sea notwithstanding
all the ingenious and vigorous exer-
tions of its pursuer.
In this instance the dog seemed to
have had two objects in view; either
to catch the fish or to drive it back into
the net. And though he failed on this
occasion, the fishermen reported that it
was not unusual for him to run down
and catch the fish, and that he was of
the greatest assistance in turning the
fish back into the net.
This account is reproduced with
slight changes in Edward Jesse's
Gleanings in Natural History, London,
1838, pp. 70-1; in Yarrell's British
Fishes, London, 1836, Vol. II, p. 24:
and in Frank T. Buckland's Familiar
History of British Fishes, London,
1873, pp. 132-33.
Yarrell1 also writes that a correspon-
dent of his assured him that in Glamor-
'Yarrell, Win. A.
Ed., 1841, p. 59
.1 History of British Fishei
ganshire dogs were used in the manner
above indicated to drive salmon into
the net. And another correspondent
wrote him that he knew a poacher in
Devonshire who after setting a tram-
mel net at the lower end of a pool in
the river, would send his dog (which he
had trained to dive like an otter) in at
the upper end to drive the fish into the
net. The like use of a dog in south
Wales is vouched for by a writer sign-
ing himself A. Guest.2 The details
need not be given as the procedure was
essentially like that recorded in the
accounts given above.
In closing, incidents of this use of
dogs are cited from the narratives of
travelers among a very degraded and
primitive race of people in a far-off
part of the world, namely in the Straits
of Magellan. In 1768, John Byron3
and the ship's company of the "Wager"
suffered shipwreck on the coast of
Patagonia. After enduring fearful
hardships from cold, hunger, and lack
of clothing (which eventually killed off
all but a mere handful of the men),
the survivors were forced to call on
the wretched inhabitants of the coun-
try to aid them in fishing — the sea
being practically their only source of
food. Then they found that the natives
made use of their dogs to drive the fish
into the corner of an inlet or bay, where
they were easily caught. Byron's
fullest statement is as follows:
. . . and [they] then went out upon
another kind of fishery by the means of
dogs and nets. These dogs are a cur-
like looking animal; but very saga-
cious, and easily trained to this business.
Though in appearance an uncomfort-
able sort of sport : yet they engage in
'Angler's Notebook and Naturalist's Record, Serifs I.
London, 1880, p. 10.
'Byron, John. The Narrativt of tht Honorabh John
Byron Containing an account of the gnat distresses
suffered by himself and his companions on the coast of
Patagonia . . . also a Relation of the Wager Mm, ,,;
War. 2nd Ed., London, 17fiS. pp. 56, 127. and 134
DOGS AS FISHERMEN
567
it readily, seem to enjoy it much, and
express their eagerness by barking
every time they raise their heads above
the water to breathe. The net is held
by two Indians, who get into the water:
then the dogs, taking a large compass,
dive after the fish, and drive them into
the net; but it is only in particular
places that the fish are taken in this
manner.
Captain Fitzroy1 had read By ron's
narrative and when surveying in the
Straits of Magellan about 1836, he was
on the lookout for this interesting
phenomenon. However, he did not
see the Fuegians carrying on such a
method of fishing, nor could he obtain
hearsay evidence for the existence of
such a practice. Nevertheless he gives
full credence to Byron's account, for
he observed native dogs on otter hunts
swim, dive, and pursue their prey most
eagerly.
Darwin, who visited the region in
the "Beagle," makes no reference what-
ever to this method of fishing in his
Voyage of the Beagle. But there is
one other writer who substantiates
the statements of Byron. Marin2
says that in the lateral channels open-
ing out of the Straits of Magellan,
the Fuegians use dogs to aid them in
fishing and particularly in hunting for
the otter. It must be confessed, how-
ever, that the account has to do mainly
with the pursuit of the latter, the dogs,
according to Marin, diving after the
otters and following them under rocks
.iiid amid the recesses of marine
vegetation.
It has never been my good fortune
to witness such interesting incidents
;is those here chronicled and hence
this article lacks the personal touch.
■Fitzroy, ('apt. Robert. Narrativi of tht Surveying
Voyages of II. M.S. "Adventure" "»</ "Beagle" . . .
/W«-.W [nn] . . . (Iii South, ,-n Shuns ,,( South Ameri-
" Vol. II, "Proceedings of the Second Expedition,"
1831-36, p. 187.
:Marin, Aylic. .1" Loin Souvenirs ,/, I'Am&riqui
in Sud et ilis Isles Marquesas. Paris and Lyons,
1891, p 117.
However, since I began gathering
material for it, there has come to my
knowledge a series of experiences which
I am fortunate in being able to sel
forth in conclusion. These were re-
lated to me by Mr. Guy V. Ferguson,
now a resident of Xew York ( Jity, but
in his boyhood days a fellow country-
man of mine in western North Caro-
lina. I have known Mr. Ferguson long
and well, and I also know the locality
wherein the incidents related took
place. Full credence can be given to
this recital.
The largest stream in my native
county of Haywood is Pigeon River, so
named because of the great prevalence
on its banks in former days of the pas-
senger pigeon. About ten miles north
of my home town, Waynesville, the
river receives a tributary from the east,
Crabtree Creek, and about one mile
from this point of junction Crabtree
Creek in its turn receives an affluent,
Rush Fork, formed of brooks rising on
the flanks of Crabtree Bald, a mountain
about 6000 feet high. One half mile
up Rush Fork, Mr. Ferguson was born
and spent his boyhood days, and there
the incidents related took place.
Both the river and the larger creek,
flowing through miles of farming
country, are, and were even at that
day, somewhat turbid, while the shorter
Rush Fork is clear and sparkling. Into
this small stream every spring there
come to spawn fishes of the "sucker"
tribe, hog-suckers, white-suckers, and
red-horse. Now in that day and
time our country was full of game and
our streams were full of fish, and hence
every farmer's boy had a dog, generally
a good hunter, and in the case of Mr.
Ferguson's dog "Fred," a good fisher-
man as well.
In the spring, when the fish began
to run up in the small creek,
568
NATURAL HISTORY
Ferguson and his brother would sally
forth with "gigs," or three-pronged
Neptune's tridents, to strike these fish,
and with them almost always went the
dog. Frequently they went at night
carrying torches, for then the fishes
were more easily caught. In case a
stricken fish succeeded in tearing him-
self from the gig and made an attempt
to get away, or in case one scared by the
approach of the hoys and dog darted
ahead on the shoals, the dog would
leap forward and often catch it. Pres-
ently he became very expert, and in
time began to fish for himself.
The chief sphere of operations of the
two boys was in the fertile "bottom"
(alluvial) land lying immediately along
the creek. Here, day after day. when
the boys went to work, the dog would
come also, to chase ground squirrels
and dig out moles, and eventually to fish
forhimself in the near-by si ream. In the
creek, the water on the riffle- was onlv a
few inches deep and in the pools rarely
more than a foot and a half in depth,
and here the dog had great sport. Not
infrequently his master would hear a
considerable commotion in the stream,
joyous barkings and loud splasbings,
and on running to the spot would find
the dog chasing the fishes or perhaps
coming out with one in his mouth.
His biggest catch was a carp about
eighteen inches long which had been
carried in some flood from a pond into
the liver and had at a later time,
probably during a heavy rain, made its
way up into this small creek; subse-
quently, the falling waters had left it
behind in a pool. It was just about all
the dog could do to handle it.
Here, as in so many of the cases
cited, the dog was fishing for pine
-port— the quadruped striving foi
the same end as his biped master
and accomplishing it in his own
wav.
&li^»*
«**^v^
Watchful waiting, with aggressive intent.— This picture is
reproduced from Richard Jefferies' volume. The Gamekeeper a!
//<,,,,, ]ssi) . The pointer found diversion in removing the fishes
from the tub and in repeating the performance when they wen
]>ur back in the water (see pp. 562-63
A XESTWARD FLIGHT
A cicada killer on the wing bearing her inert prey to the burrow she has dug in the soil
Hanking the pathway. From a painting by Mrs. Edna L. Beutenmiiller
A Wasp That Hunts Cicadas
My WILLIAM M. SAVIN
Illustrations from phol igraphe by the author
DURING the early days of August,
1922, in a meadow near my
summer home in New Jersey,
the cicada killers, Sphecius speciosus,
had made a settlement, consisting of
more than two score independent nests.
With few exceptions these burrows
were placed within an area of six hun-
dred square feet. Close by ran a brook
and along its hanks within fifty feel of
the nests grew several trees from which
the wasps were accustomed to fly with
their captives held clasped against the
underside of the body. Conditions
were, therefore, most favorable for the
study of these wasps.
The female of Sphecius speciosus
devotes herself to the capture of
cicadas, which she stints and paralyzes
and subsequently carries to her nest to
<t'vv(> as food for the larva that will
hatch from the egg that she lays on this
prey. Many cicadas doubtless fall
victims to these persistent huntresses.
One day within twenty minutes the
wasps were seen bearing eighl cicadas
to their several burrows in the settle-
ment.1
In the "round (preferably clayey
soil) the wasp mother excavates a
tunnel having a diameter of about an
inch. This slopes gently downward for
six inches and then usually makes a
turn at righl angles, in the long tun-
nels a number of such turns occur.
There is a greal variation in their
length: some run only a foot, others
four feet. The majority of those in this
settlement extended for about two feet .
'Am Mr. William T. Davis has pointed oul (Bulletin
„( thr Hr„ol:h/,i Kntiimolo'iiciil S,„,,t,/. Vol. XV, No. .",,
December, 1920) Spht dus speciotui \ an indiscriminate
collectoi of cicada and will often place more than on<
Bpecies in t Ik- same bui row .
Frequently a number of branches are
projected more or less forward from a
central point in t he I unnel, each branch
terminating in a round cell about one
and three-fourths inches in diameter.
The termini observed were always
slightly nearer the surface of the
ground than were the tuniieb. This
afforded better drainage and in many
instance.- musi have prevented the
stored food from becoming moldy
through an accumulation of water in
the cells.
When excavating the t unnel the wasp
walks out backwards, dragging the dirt
and placing it loosely in front of the en-
trance. Sometimes the pile of dirt is
about afoot in diameter. As the wasp
trails through this dump heap, she leaves
;i groove, the presence of which is in-
dication that work on the nest or in
connection with its provisioning is still
under way. For several days, while
these nests were under observation, it
showered and the grooves were effaced,
making it impossible to determine off-
hand whether the tunnels had been
completed and the cells stocked.
Each cell is stocked with one or two
cicadas, only one egg, however, being
laid per cell. Among the cells un-
covered in these burrow- the greater
number contained two cicadas. The
female of Sphecius speciosus is larger
than t he male and it has been suggested
that the Supply of two cicadas is left
as food lor the larva thai will meta-
morphose into a female wasp, the single
cicada being sufficient food for the
Ian a I hat will emerge a- a male wasp.
( )n one occasion I found in a cell
three cicadas that were somewhat
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A WAS]' THAT HUNTS CICADAS
571
smaller than usual. Possibly the
mother was absent-minded in provid-
ing the extra one, or again the fact that
the prey was undersized may have in-
fluenced her to make up through
number what the individual captures
lacked in bulk.
The egg hatches in two or three days
and the emerging larva disposes of the
edible part of the cicada within a week
or more. It then spins a cocoon about
itself, requiring two days to finish the
work. The cocoon is made of silk
mixed with dirt, which is evenly
distributed; it is dark brownish in
color and crusty. The lai va rests with-
in the cocoon until the following spring
when it undergoes pupation, emerging
as an adult wasp before the appearance
of the cicadas in midsummer.
Stocking the nests with cicadas is
no easy task. As the weight of the
victim is about twice that of its captor,
the burdened wasp is unable to make
extended flights on the level; conse-
quently she flies obliquely from a tree
to the burrow. In many instances the
wasp is obliged to drag a cicada up a
tree to a point of vantage before under-
taking her downward flight to the nest .
The captive cicadas were for the
most part borne from a linden tree,
Tilia americana, about fifty feel dis-
tant across the brook. Some of the
wasps before hunting engaged in whal
were evidently practice flights between
the tree and their respective burrows.
Occasionally they would visit the nest
site without a captive cicada, remaining
outside of the tunnel. In such cases
the wasp would fly about the entrance
in increasingly larger circles, the out cl-
one having a diameter of about thirty
feet. This probably gave the insect
some impression of the surroundings of
the burrow to assisl her in her ret urn
flight.
Again, starting at a burrow, a wasp
would fly five or six feet in a direct line
toward the linden tree. Returning to
the burrow she increased the next flight
by five or six feet. A number of such
flights were made until she went from
the burrow to the tree in one flight.
Each flight was at an angle of about
forty-five degrees.
In bearing a victim from the tree to
the burrow a wasp would often alight
at the entrance and at once drag the
cicada into the tunnel. At other times
the insect would land a foot, or more,
from the burrow among the grasses.
The obstacles in her path caused her to
flounder about considerably and it was
with great difficulty that she reached
the nest. On one of these occasions the
wasp came across a ragweed. Ambrosia,
about eighteen inches in height. She
dragged the cicada, ventral side upper-
most, to the top of it and flew to the
burrow two feet distant. Dragging
the victim along the ground is evi-
dently burdensome and the cicada
hunter apparently embraces the slight-
est opportunity to fly to her burrow
from an elevation.
On two occasions when we dug into
the burrows, the proprietress was dis-
covered within. ( )ne of the two wasps
thus surprised was engaged in making
her tunnel, twelve inches of which she
had completed. When she was un-
covered, she flew out but not at us.
Although our destruction of the bur-
row had left an excavation a foot
square, thereby changing the appear-
ance of the surroundings, the wasp
returned to her well-nigh demolished
tunnel and resumed her work, extend-
ing for another foot the passageway
with its several branches, the terminal
cells of which she stocked with cicadas.
The other wasp had completed a four-
foot tunnel and was apparently de-
572
XATURAL HISTORY
positing a cicada in the end cell when
we came upon her in the course of our
excavation of the burrow. I judge by
the noise she made that she was
greatly annoyed: she flew away and
did not come back to the nest. ( >n our
return to the site we found in the
excavation a cicada which the wasp
had probably taken from the cell and
dropped there. Xo egg was laid on it.
< )n two occasions we tried to secure a
wasp as she alighted near her burrow
with a cicada by placing a jar above
her and gently lowering it. In each
instance, when the jar was within about
an inch of the was]), she abandoned the
cicada and flew away but not toward
us. A wasp with her prey was then
easily secured with a net.
At times these wasps, it would
The dark hole shown in the picture is the entrance to the burrow of the cicada killer.
When excavating the tunnel the wasp drags the dirt out into the open, walking backward.
The laver thus formed is sometimes nearly a foot in diameter
Frequently the huntress stocks a cell of her burrow with two cicadas for the
voracious larva that is to be the beneficiary of her prowess. In the above picture
the hatched larva mav be seen on the side of the cicada to the left
After the larva has reached a certain stage of developmenl thanks to the
nourishment obtained through the circular openings it has made on the ventral
side of the two cicadas, it foresakes the remnants of the feasl and spins a cocoon
The five smaller
cocoons (left) were
derived from cells
in each of which
the wasp mother
had left only a
single cicada. The
five large cocoons
' below) were tak-
en from a like
number of cells
each of which had
been stocked with
two cicadas
When spinning the cocoon, the larva mixes quantities of earth with the silk, giving
it the appearance of having been made of mud. A dozen or more pores occur close to-
gether on one side of the cocoon, and it has been suggested that their function is to aid
in the respiration of the larva
A cocoon of the cicada killer which has been opened to show the larva resting within
— its head in the large end. The larva remains in the cocoon until the following spring
when it undergoes pupation and later emerges as an adult wasp
574
.4 WASP THAT HUNTS CICADAS
o / o
seem, keep watch over their burrows
from a distance. Once at nightfall,
thinking the wasps would not lie about
and that it would be a favorable time
to dig into the burrows, we visited the
nests. When we 1 cached the settle-
ment, no wTasps were in evidence, nor
was the sound of a cicada heard. After
working for about five minutes, how-
ever, a number of wasps appeared
and flew about us as well as the bur-
rows with more show of excitement
than when we had worked among them
in the daytime.
The cicada killer, Sphecius speciosus,
does not seem to live up to her reputa-
tion for ferocity. During these ob-
servations, covering several days, not
once did the wasps administer a sting.
Like other solitary wasps they seem to
prefer to conserve their poisonous
fluid for injection into their captives.
Not always docs all run smoothly for the larva' of the cicada killer. Sometimes
the burrows become excessively dam]) and the cicadas placed there turn moldy. They
are thus rendered until as food and the larva", deprived of their sustenance, die.
At times a fatality seems to befall also the adult was]) when in the Imrrow, and she
too may then become moldy, as indicated in the case of t he was]) on the left of the picture
Colquechaca's highest peak with an abandoned mining town at its base
The Treasure House of Spain
THE FAMOUS NEW-WORLD MINES OF ORURO, COLQUECHACA, AND POTOSI
By EDWARD W. BERRY
Professor of Palaeontology, Johns Hopkins University
HISTORY and fiction both abound
with references to King Sol-
omon's Mines, although these
were really insignificant compared
with those of the Emperor Charles the
Fifth, or of his son King Philip, which
were wrung from the Incas by a
handful of war-hardened adventurers,
whose achievements, even when shorn
of romance and the exaggerations of
the early chroniclers, still seem more
like fiction than sober history.
Imagine the little band of fortune-
seekers led by the swineherd of Estre-
madura. Francisco Pizarro, sweltering-
through the humid morasses from
Xombre de Dios to Old Panama, and
then transported to the wind-swept
Andean heights with their thin air, and
the record of their achievements is
sufficiently remarkable to offset many
of their crimes. Grant the abjectness
and lack of spirit of the Indian popula-
tion— the natives are unassertive today
and must have been so in the past.
Nature was seemingly a more relentless
foe than the Indians, and the difficulty
in overcoming it was scarcely real-
ized in Prescott's clay, nor can the
obstacles encountered be fully appre-
ciated by any one who has not traversed
the old trails. Thanks to the Inca
custom of establishing supply houses
along the routes, the danger from
famine was reasonably remote, but the
passes are inconceivably high to those
accustomed to the passes of the Alps or
Rockies. That which we traversed in
going from Huancavelica to Santa
Inez was 16,500 feet, or higher than
any peak in the United States. The
cold is intense, fuel is wanting, and the
576
THE TREASURE HOUSE OF SPAIN
577
effect of the rarified air is sometimes
remarkable. I have seen horses drop
dead because of it, and when you con-
sider the armor-laden cavaliers and the
burdens that their lowland-bred horses
were obliged to carry, it is strange that
any of the animals survived.
There was still another adverse
factor. Hardy though the Conquista-
dores were, they were prone to exces-
sive dissipation whenever this was
possible, and men so constituted are,
according to my experience, the first
to feel the effects of altitude. In a
trip I made over the Oroya Railroad in
1919 it was not the party of Americans
on the train who were affected with
"soroche" or mountain sickness, but
the natives who presumably, as is their
custom, had spent their last night in
the City of Kings (Lima) in over-
indulgence.
Pizarro's band found much gold in
Peru, but this huge amount, wrung as a
ransom from the unfortunate Ata-
hualpa, had been accumulated by the
Incas through several centuries of
washing the gravels of the Andean
streams, particularly those of the
eastern range, and this was no gauge
of the amount to be quickly won by
mining operations, as the Spaniards
soon found to their sorrow. Their
search for gold was disappointing, for
although it is present in streams all
along the Andean front, and in scattered
places elsewhere, modern operations
have not proved commercially success-
ful to any considerable extent, largely
because of the low grade of the placers
as compared to the excessive cost of
production in such inaccessible regions.
In the Montana jungles it is not an
uncommon thing to come across min-
ing machinery of all kinds, rusting and
overgrown, that was brought by hand
over the heart-breaking upland trails,
only to be abandoned when funds and
health gave out.
What the Empire of the Incas lacked
in gold resources, however, it amply
made up in silver. This metal is
abundant in what is now Peru and
Bolivia, and in the eastern and the
western Cordillera. The bonanza
silver region of Colonial South Amer-
ica was located in what was known
as Charcas, or Upper Peru, now the
Republic of Bolivia. Three localities
furnished the bulk of the silver that
poured thence into Spain's coffers, and
offered rich pickings for Drake and
other buccaneer admirals of Queen
Elizabeth, as well as for the host of
pirates that subsequently infested the
Spanish Main, of whom Morgan was
perhaps the1 most notorious.
These three localities of Upper Peru
were Oruro, Colquechaca, and Potosi,
and of these the last far outranks any
other in the whole world. Oruro, which
was the youngest and least important
of the three, is situated on the high
plateau of Bolivia, or Altaplanicie. as
it is called, which here is only 12,250
feet above sea level, but in a region too
arid for agriculture1. The town itself
is now a most ordinary place, consisting
mostly of one-story adobe houses, but
it is a considerable railroad center and a
place of much business. It is 115 miles
southeast of La Paz, the present
metropolis of Bolivia, and the old trail
from Lima to Buenos Aires is here
marked every kilometer by huge
adobe monoliths. Considerable mining
of silver, tin, and copper is carried on in
the surrounding hills, but the scarcity
of water makes it necessary to do the
milling at Machacamarca some miles to
the southward near LakePoopo. Oruro
now has only about one third the popu-
lation that it had in the ( 'olonial Period
and derives its chief importance from
578
XATCRAL HISTORY
-^
A native woman and her donkey plodding over the mountains. Much of upland Bolivia
is of this arid character
the fact that it is a trade center and
shipping point for the hinterland, the
prospective mineral and agricultural
wealth of which is incalculable.
World-famous Potosi is about mid-
way on the old trade route between
Lima and Buenos Aires. Since 1912 it
has been possible to reach it by train
from Rio Mulato, a station on the
Antofagasta-La Paz line 108 miles
distant. The single train makes one
round trip a week,1 reaching Potosi
Saturday night and returning the
following Tuesday. At Condor the
roadbed reaches the marvelous height
of 15,814 feet, but the route is high
without being otherwise notable, and
the climate is so arid that glaciers are
wanting, and the high mountains with
their subdued slopes suggest an over-
grown hill country, largely without
crags or scenic effects. Were it not for
shortness of breath or other unpleasant
reminders of the altitude, the traveler
would not realize that it is the gable of
South America.
'During the last year or two the train has been
making four trips a week.
I )n our 1919 trip, however, we chose
to go the way that Gonzalo Pizarro,
the first proprietor of Potosi, went, and
were eleven days on the trail in making
the 102 miles from the town of Uncia
by mule, although, to be sure, we were
not in the saddle all of that time.
Uncia, which is at the present time the
largest tin-producing camp in South
America, is situated east of the divide
of the eastern Andes, and about forty-
five miles from Machacamarca on the
railroad. A mountain of igneous
material intruded through the Devo-
nian shales carries rich tin veins, and
the two companies that work them
from the two sides of the mountain
have an annual production valued at
nearly $50,000,000. Uncia in August
has the wind and dust of a typical
March day in the United States, not
enhanced to the imagination by the
thought of the innumerable germs.
Because of the cold nights one does
not rise in the Andes until the sun
strikes one's lodging, except under the
necessity of an early start for a long-
day's mule ride. Consequently one
THE TREASURE HOUSE OF SPAIN
579
does not see many sunrises, or that
most curious effect assumed by moun-
tains in the diffused light of early
dawn, when they seem to be cut out of
cardboard and unreal as in a play.
One is prone to think of the earth's
surface as parceled out into regular
zones of vegetation and animal life
from the equator to the poles, as they
arc in the geographies, and it is difficult
to become accustomed to following an
upland trail in a vegetationless Arctic
cold, withal under a tropical sun, reach
a great gash in the earth's crust, and
switchback down three thousand or
four thousand feet into a hot valley,
where, if there is water, there is a rich
and varied vegetation, with humming
birds, flocks of parrakeets, and every-
thing normal to the Equatorial Zone.
Such a place was the dirty Indian
tambo of Morocacha. where we
lunched the first day. The tambo is the
official wayside inn for man and beast .
but mostly for beast, and is a survival
of the rest houses of the Incas. Night-
fall brought us to Pocoata, another
tiny Indian town, nestled in an out-of-
the-way valley. We had covered
forty-eight miles in one day — our
South American record. A letter to the
corregidor or prefect's representative
in Pocoata, spared us the tambo and
secured for us a bed on the dining-
room floor of the corregidor's residence.
A short day's ride brought us to Col-
quechaca, the second treasure house of
( 'olonial days.
Sittiated at the head of a south-
wardly-facing valley, amid a group of
peaks all of which rise to heights of
more than 16,000 feet, the town is
small and mean. A thousand feet
higher than Potosi, it never attained
the wealth, size, or importance of that
place. It straggles along a narrow
valley; consequently the only approxi-
mately level streets are those paral-
leling the stream, and these are con-
nected by alleys of steps six or eight feet
wide, forthere are no wheeled vehicles in
t hese Andean towns, and mules find steps
of human construction easier of trav-
erse than mam' of the mountain trails.
:*
The plaza .-it Maragua, one of the remote little Indian vallev town
The main street of Colquechaea backed by its symmetrical peak. — Three hundred years
ago Colquechaea was well known for its rich silver mines. Mementos of its former days of
prosperity are the roofless stone walls of many an old house, three fourths of the town being
composed of habitations that are today deserted. In several of the principal streets these old
houses are being re-thatched and whitewashed, and in years that are perhaps not far distant
the community may again rise to prominence as a mining center
»
*-.*.-**'
,j»>. ?
— " - ■ *~
Tin washing in the Tarapaya Valley below Potosi. — The Spaniards valued only the precious
metals, and in their time tin was neglected. But today the tables are turned, and tin is claim-
ing the attention of the miner in the very region where silver was formerly the chief attraction
THE TREASURE HOUSE OF SPAIN
581
Three hundred years ago Colque-
chaca was a thriving town, noted for
its rich silver mines and with a large
population. The roofless stone walls
of the former habitations still comprise
three-fourths of the town, and there
are two more ancient and smaller
towns now entirely abandoned, higher
up among the peaks. Colquechaca was
noted for the richness of its ores —
pockets and shoots of ruby silver
occurring plentifully at irregular inter-
vals in the otherwise rather lean veins.
The mountain mass around Colque-
chaca forms an area of igneous rocks
about eight or ten miles in diameter,
which was intruded through the sedi-
mentary red sandstones and shales,
and it is a part of the same series
of intrusions that follow the eastern
Andes all across Bolivia from north to
south and that are the source of the
silver and tin minerals for which that
country is famous. The colonists
mined only the silver, but recently a
considerable amount of tin concen-
trates has been produced. The dis-
trict probably has a great future but
its immediate past has been one of
decay. The San Bartolome tunnel,
which starts at the upper end of the
town and penetrates for a mile into the
mountain mass, struck a vein with
phenomenal silver riches, one which
was once worked over a vertical range
of about two thousand feet. With the
decline in the price of silver toward the
close of the last century this, the
largest of Colquechaca's mines, was
allowed to fill with water, and all of
the workings, extending for several
hundred feet below the tunnel, have
been flooded for more than a generation.
Evidence of former greatness is seen
in an immense pump room with its old
Cornish pump, and the roomy chapels
and shrines, all hollowed out of the
solid rock. Along several of the main
streets of Colquechaca the houses have
been re-thatched and whitewashed, and
the town is becoming reanimated. It is
one of the highest mining towns in the
world, cold and inhospitable, prone to
snow squalls and electrical storms.
Autos can now reach it over the valley
trail from Challapata on the railroad
about eighty miles away, and Sucre,
the old capital of the republic, is only
about sixty miles by trail to the south-
east. Potosi lies about one hundred
miles to the southward of Colquechaca,
and to reach it requires four days on the
trail, stopping at unheard-of Indian
towns nestled in far-away deep valleys,
as out of the world as if they were on
another planet.
To me Potosi will always remain the
most interesting town in South Ameri-
ca— historically, architecturally, and
scientifically. For years I had looked
forward to visiting it, and the sym-
metrical cone of its silver mountain,
visible from the divides two days'
journey away, stimulated the imagina-
tion of the present-day traveler much
as it must have done that of the
greedy Spaniards of old, whose ghosts,
in our imagination, constantly haunt-
ed the trails. One seemed to live
again with Gonzalo Pizarro and amid
the countless dramas of the past.
There is no spot in South America that
offers more material for the novelist
than this city of romance and the trails
leading out to the coast and northward
across the mountains to Sucre, and I
can only hope that some future [banez
will rise up and make them forever
famous.
The trail to Potosi makes its final
plunge down from the upland into the
Tarapaya Valley twenty-eighi kilo-
meters below Potosi, and from here
onward the road is good, leading as it
582
X AT URAL HISTORY
does to Miraflores, where there are
famous hot baths — relics of some
former igneous intrusion. In a land
where hot water is too scarce ever to be
wasted in washing, hot springs are a
boon. Someone has said that the
traveler in South America will feel so
much cleaner than the natives that
baths will seem unnecessary. This is,
of course, a libel, but it is not surprising
that with frost (very night and no fuel
except taquia, the droppings of the
llama, and yareta, a resinous mosslike
plant (Azorella) any attempt at clean-
liness might easily prove fatal, and
extreme aridity makes it possible not to
take too many risks of this sort.
Prescott writes picturesquely of Inca
aqueducts and baths, but so far as my
experience throughout the limits of
their former empire indicates, the Incas
never bathed — at leasl their descend-
ants never do, and the aqueducts of
fiction are mainly irrigation ditches,
the building of which is the one art in
which the mountain Indians really
excel, and the "'baths" are invariably
storage reservoirs.
The broad trail winds up the Tara-
paya Valley between 40° dip slopes of
red sandstone. At San Bartolome the
trail turns to the eastward through
a picturesque gorge, which the Rio
Potosi has cut through the red beds,
and swings up past San Antonio anil
( nntumarea — the latter an Inca town —
to historic Potosi near the head of its
valley, backed by the Kari Kari
Mountains and flanked on the right
by its historic Cerro, or mountain.
Potosi is hilly, although not so much
so as La Paz; nevertheless it is regu-
larly laid out. Its plazas are nota-
ble despite the fact that the climate
precludes trees. Its architecture is
especially picturesque even though
many of the ancient dwellings, churches
and other public buildings have been
allowed to fall to pieces. All of the
better houses are at least two stories in
height, and mostly of adobe, which,
however, has been supplemented with
much stone. Varying combinations of
tower, hanging balcony, ornamental
cornices, barred windows, and Moorish
metal work and stone carving, with the
variously gabled and invariably tiled
roofs, give an artistic quality and an
individual character to each building.
reminiscent of Grenada or Seville,
and this similarity is rather enhanced
by the pronounced sag of the more
ancient rooftrees under their weight of
red tiles. The Court of Lions at the
Alhambra cannot compare with the
Cerro-backed plaza shown in the
illustration on page 584.
Sufficient water for industrial pur-
poses has always been a problem here
as elsewhere in Peru and Bolivia, and
at the height of the city's prosperity
twenty-seven artificial reservoirs, some
of them of immense size, were con-
structed among the moraines that
stretch like fingers down from the Kari
Kari Mountains east of the city, to
impound the summer rains. There are
also thirty-two aqueducts of ancient
date, many of which are now in a state
of dilapidation.
About the year 1460 the Inca.
Huayna Capac, paid his first visit to
this region, and in journeying from
Cantumarca to Porco — the latter a
near-by region which was worked by
the Indians for its silver several cen-
turies before the coming of the
Spaniard, as is attested by the pre-
Spanish slag dumps — got his first view
of Potosi. which the Quichua Indians
called " Sumac-orcko," or Beautiful
Mountain. The Inca, so runs the
legend, was impressed with the idea
that a mountain of such grandeur must
THE TREASURE HOUSE OF SPA IX
583
surely contain precious metal, and
accordingly ordered that it be mined.
In obedience to the emperor god the
Indian miners made preparations to
tunnel into its flanks but were warned
away by the Achachila. or spirit of the
mountain, and since that time it has
been called Potosi, or mountain of
great noises — doubtless in allusion to
the terrific electrical storms that play
around its peak in summer.
Tradition states that the Spanish
discovery of silver at Potosi was acci-
dental. An Indian from Porco, search-
ing for a stray llama and camping on
the mountain for the night, found the
smelted ore in the remains of his cam])
fire the next morning. Similar apocry-
phal stories are told of all great mines
and inasmuch as there is not a trace of
anything on Potosi Mountain that
would furnish fuel for even a modest
camp fire, we may well discredit the
legend. At any rate, the discovery of
silver at Potosi was undoubtedly due to
its proximity to the Porco silver mines,
and active mining at Potosi com-
menced in 1545. The surficial ores,
which were naturally the first to be
mined, were found to be phenominally
rich, the friar, Jose de Acosta, estimat-
ing that the production from 1545 to
1572 amounted to $250,000,000.
The mineralization is really remark-
able— it is said that any hand speci-
men of the 15, 000-foot cone will assay
at least a trace of silver and the actual
ores from the innumerable veins con-
tain small amounts of gold anil copper
along with the larger amounts of silver
and tin. Strangely enough the ad jaceni
peaks consisting of the same rock
totally lack the metallic ores. The
Spaniards were interested in precious
metals solely, consequently tin and
copper were produced only in sufficient
quantities for the amalgams used in
making utensils and the innumerable
church bells, which no hamlet in the
Andes, however remote, lacks. It is
only in recent years that iron from the
outside world — for there is none here —
has replaced bronze in the native
mining industries.
Most of the silver, some say all of
it, was recovered by the amalgamation
process, the mercury for which came
from the scarcely less famous quick-
silver mines of Huancavelica in the
Peruvian Andes nearly one thousand
miles away. The tin which is asso-
ciated with the silver was allowed to go
down stream in the tailings and the 375
years' accumulation of these has
formed rich alluvial tin deposits where-
ever the channels of the Rio Potosi or
Rio Tarapaya widened out and formed
play a deposits.
In these effete modern days of in-
dustrial civilization tin is a greater
desideratum than silver — consequently
Potosi is now more of a tin than a
silver camp. Some idea of the value
of the tin can be gathered from the fact
that it is found profitable to wash over
the old mine dumps high up on the
mountain in the rude quimballales, or
jigs, with water brought up from town
in five-gallon gasoline cans by mules or
burros.
A crown tax on the silver produced
was imposed in 1556 and this brought
great sums into the monarch's war
chest, and helped to pay for the Spanish
Armada and the wars in the Low
< ountiies. With the working out of
the rich oxidized surface1 ores there
was a falling off in revenue and the
viceroy, Toledo, was sent out from
Spain in an endeavor to improve the
situation. Indians were enslaved from
as remote regions as Ecuador and many
thousands, particularly those from the
low-lying countries, quickly worked
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586
X AT URAL HISTORY
their lives away in the company of
countless llamas. Chroniclers, prone
to exaggerate, give the number of
Indians that were worked to death in
the mountain as S, 250,000.
In 1739 the crown tax was reduced
from 20 to 10 per cent. This is clear
evidence, not of the beneficence of
the monarch but of the increasing
difficulty from water and the mounting
costs of working at depths. These
depths had in some cases reached 1700
feet below the surface and there were
no other means of taking out either the
ore or the water except on the backs of
Indians. Gradually the lower level-
became flooded, the protracted struggle
for independence, which commenced
in 1809 with resulting interruption of
mining hastening the process, so that
in the nineteenth century production
was much less than in the sixteenth
century.
Many and conflicting estimates of
the amount of silver obtained at Potosi
during Colonial times are extant.
On the basis of the royal tax collected,
which amounted to 8575.780,000 be-
tween 1545 and 1809, as shown in
various audits of the royal treasury,
the production has been figured at
85,594,000,000. an average of more than
821,000,000 pei- year for 264 years.
Even allowing for exaggeration, and
dividing this huge sum by two or three.
the result is still the enormous total of
$2, 000,000,000 or 83.000.000.000 for
the entire period, and this does not take
into account the very large amount
exempt from taxation that went into
church service — the massive silver
candlesticks and altars still to be seen
in the cathedral at Sucre testify to
the use of the metal in this manner.
Among these are four of an original
set of twelve, each of which is more
than six feet tall and so heavy that it
cannot be tilted by one man unaided;
and in its prime there were sixty
churches in Potosi alone. Neither do
these estimates take into account the
amount which evaded the tax through
being smuggled out of the country.
There was a regular trade in contra-
band silver and the amount was suffi-
cient to give the name of La Plata, or
Silver River, to the estuary of the
Parana and Uruguay on the east coast
of South America, and all of this came
from Bolivia, and most of it from
Potosi.
Forty-eight years after its founda-
tion, that is in 1595, or twenty-five
years before the Pilgrims landed at
Plymouth, it is said that Potosi had
1 60,000 inhabitants. This is doubtless
an exaggeration — the ruins of today
do not indicate more than half of this
number in the town itself. It is quite
within the range of probability, how-
ever, that at the height of its prosperity
in the sixteenth century upwards of
100.000 individuals inhabited the dis-
trict. At any rate, Potosi was, for
more than a century, the largest city
in the Western Hemisphere. Charles
the Fifth conferred on it the title of
villa imperial, and lovely Sucre, founded
a few years before Potosi, wTas so en-
riched by the silver from Potosi that
it was called the City of Silver (Ciudad
de la Plata) up to 1840, when the
modern name of Sucre was adopted in
honor of that famous general of the
War of Independence.
Naturally such a profusion of wealth
resulted in the most extravagant dis-
plays and elaborate fiestas, in fine resi-
dences, churches, and public works.
All of the wood used in construction
had to be brought from the eastern
lowlands a great distance away, and
anyone who has seen the enormous
beams in the old mint, or Casa National
THE TREASURE HOUSE OF SPAIN
587
de Moneda, can picture the toiling
swarms of sweating Indians that were
required to transport them over the
difficult mountain trails. It is related
that one Quiroga, who worked the
< otamitos mine, paid a crown tax of
$21,000,000, and from his profits built
the cathedral of San Francisco, where
his tomb may still be seen. Most of
the architecture in Potosi is distinctly
Moorish in type, notably the open
arcade or flying arches that enclose the
east side of the main plaza.
There are three thick old volumes
full of tales of Potosi, and the rec-
ords of litigation that resulted from
the old Spanish mining law, which is
still in operation at Potosi, would fill a
library. Each year, it is said, rival
parties smother a few Indians with the
fumes made by burning the aji, or native
pepper, which some facetious traveler
has called the national flower of Bolivia.
In the old days rival companies went
even further, and at least one rich
mine was entirely destroyed by blasts
set off by an unsuccessful litigant.
The Mountain, or Cerro Rico de
Potosi, to give it its full name, lies
south of the town, and its summit is less
than three miles from the central
plaza. It is a perfect cone of a coarse,
igneous rock known as rhyolite, but
now so covered with mine dumps from
the more than one thousand tunnels
on its flanks that the original rock is
entirely hidden except at the peak,
which attains 15,381 feet, not quite
half a mile above the town, which has
an elevation of about 13,000 feet.
The Cerro truly dominates the town
and the surrounding country, as it did
Colonial history, and its beautiful
ever-changing tints are visible in that
arid climate for long distances.
High up on its western flanks it
carries tilted lake beds of volcanic
ashes, and these are filled with the
relics of a rich subtropical vegetation.
This proves not only that the igneous
intrusion that is responsible for the
silver-tin minerals occurred very late
in geological time, but that when this
one-time lake was filling with ashes
blown hither from the far-off volcanoes
of the western Andes, the country was
more than a mile nearer sea level than
it is at present. At that time the
moisture-laden winds from the Amazon
basin still swept over what is now
Bolivia and made it a forested country
— the haunt of the mastodon, sloth,
horse, and other extinct animals,
whereas all is dessication now and not
even a mule can crop a meal.
The history of Potosi and of the
silver city of Sucre, some forty-seven
miles to the northeast (eighty-eight
miles by trail), furnishes a superb
moral for political economists. I
suppose that the original operators in
the mountain were for the most part
what might appropriately be termed
the scum of Spain. Sucre, or Charcas,
as it was originally called, was founded
in 1538 or 1539 by one Pedro Anzures,
Marquis de Campo Redondo, by order
of Francisco Pizarro. It lies in a
genial basin about 4000 feet lower than
Potosi and hence is a delightful place.
The ambition of most Potosi operators
was to acquire such wealth as would
enable them to live in luxury in an
appropriate establishment at Sucre.
Thus that place came to be known as
La Plata, which name it retained for
three hundred years.
Sucre early had many and rich eccle-
siastical establishments— at the present
time with a population of from 20,000
to 30,000 there are thirty cathedrals,
convents, and other Church institu-
tions, and their wealth passes belief.
The University of Chuquisaca was
588
XATl'RAL HISTORY
chartered the year that the Pilgrims
landed at Plymouth and is, next to the
University of San Marcos at Lima, the
oldest in the Western Hemisphere. It
once had a great reputation and drew
students from as far away as Buenos
Aires, but it is now the Colegio Junin.
and a colegio is not a college but :i
secondary school.
Today Sucre is the cleanest, most
attractive, most Spanish, and mosl
cultured city of the Republic. The
head of the Church and the Supreme
Court — those two most conservative
organizations of society, are still in
Sucre, but all of the other machinery
of government is at La Paz. I know of
no more impressive instance of the
influence of wealth in advancing civili-
zation, or in changing in the course of
generations irresponsible adventurers
with no respect for law or any form of
restraint into conservative citizens,
cultivators of literary, historical, and
legal studies, supporters of libraries,
schools, geographical societies, and a
medical school.
Such changes are perhaps a common-
place of history, but nowhere do they
stand out as dramatically or more
clearly than among the gente decente,
or aristocrats, of Sucre. Potosi's silver
made all of this possible, and Potosi's
mines are not only the oldest mines in
the world that have been continuously
in operation, but they have also pro-
duced more riches than any other
known mine, and Bolivia may well take
pride in them and picture the historic
( Vrro on its postage.
"The Most Wonderful Plant in the World"
WITH SOME UNPUBLISHED CORRESPONDENCE OF CHARLES DARWIX
By FRANK MORTON JONES
IN lSo7 Charles Darwin received a
letter from his American correspon-
dent, Asa Gray, enclosing one which
Doctor Gray, in turn, had received
from William M. Canby, of Wilming-
ton, Delaware. The subject of the
Canby letter was the American insec-
tivorous plant, Diomea, Venus's-fly-
trap; and Darwin's reply says,1 "This
letter fires me up to complete and
publish on Drosera, Diomea, etc., but
Letters of Asa Gray. Edited by Jane Loring Gray.
Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1893.
when I shall get time I know not."
Though he had also written,'- "I care
more about Drosera than the origin of
all the species in the world," five years
elapsed before Darwin was able to re-
sume in earnest his work on insectivor-
ous plants; then, recalling the Ameri-
can botanist as a source of information
in regard to Diomea, and admittedly
confusing Mr. ( 'anby's home, Wilming-
ton, Delaware, with the habitat of the
*The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin. Edited by
Francis Darwin. Published by D. Appleton & Co., 1899.
Jf if*
<V;
rrAL .
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a-t
fSfafi
/UsuZSL
Dated from Down, Beckenham, Kent, February 111. 1873, this letter from Charles
Darwin to the American botanist, William M. Canby, begins with the admission. "I find
that 1 erred in supposing that the leaves never opened a second time. I did suppose that
vou resided near the habitation of the Dionea [Dionsea], which I look at as the most won-
lerful plant in the world"
589
590
NATURAL HISTORY
plant, Wilmington, North Carolina, he
wrote requesting further information,
and especially that field observations
should be made on the insect-catching
habits of the plant in its native home.
Within the last few months, in a
half-forgotten chest in the attic of Mr.
Canby's home, this Darwin-Canby
correspondence of fifty years ago,
relating to Dionsea ("which I look at as
the most wonderful plant in the
world"), has been found. These let-
ters, with the published letters of Dar-
win and Gray of the same period and
regarding the same subject, typically
illustrate Darwin's intuitive, almost un-
canny, facility in seizing upon appar-
ently minor characters of structure or
behavior and in finding there signifi-
cances hidden from the observers upon
whose evidence he builds his edifice of
inference and deduction; and they
most forcibly call to our attention the
paucity in our literature of direct and de-
tailed field observations on Dionsea, —
if not "the most wonderful plant in
the world" yet undeniably among the
most remarkable of all our native
flora.
Dionsea muscipula, Venus 's-fly trap.
belongs to the same plant family as the
more familiar Drosera, the sundews;
but while some species of Drosera are al-
most world-wide in their distribution,
Dionsea, represented by its single
species musdpula, is confined, if one
excepts hothouse specimens, to a nar-
row strip of about fifty miles along the
coast of North and South Carolina;
and even within these limits its dis-
Diontea is not a conspicuous plant, for its leaves rise, at most, only a few inches above
the sand, where they are often half-hidden by other herbage
'THE MOST WOXDERFUL PLAXT IN THE WORLH" 591
Only when the slender flower stalk raises its cluster of modesl white flowers above the
level of the leaves, is the discovery of Dioruea always possible without prolonged search
tribution is strictly localized, for it
seems to be very particular in the selec-
tion of its growing place.
To the Qon-botanical observer, un-
troubled by problems of comparative
morphology, the "leaf" of Dionaea is
borne on a flattened or winged petiole;
the broadly rounded halves of the leaf
are set at an upward angle to the mid-
rib, and the outer edge of each half
bears more than a dozen evenly spaced
linger-like spikes; the slightly concave
disk of each leaf-half bears three (some-
times more), fine, short, tapering
bristles, which are the "triggers" to
set off the trap; for the whole structure
592
NATURAL HISTORY
is a trap for the capture of insects.
Touch one of the trigger hairs twice.
In this photograph one half of the leaf has
been removed, to show (list inct ly the marginal
spikes, the three trigger hairs, and the
slightly concave and densely glandular area
forming the digesting and absorbing surface
of the leaf
or any two of them in close succession
(gently, even with a hair) and like a
closing hand the halves of the leaf clap
to, the marginal fingers interlace, and
if the capture be of nutrient material
uin insect), or if it continues its
struggles (for the leaf responds both
to chemical and mechanical stimula-
tion), the leaf-halves press more and
more closely together, the innumerable
glands which stud their upper surface
pour out an abundant ropy secretion,
which I >:itlies the captive in a digestive
juice, and when days later the leaf
reopens, the insect has been reduced to
a mere ehitinous shell from which all
the softer parts have been dissolved
out and a 1 isoi lied for the nourishment
of the plant.
This is the usual (and apparently
justified) interpretation of the activi-
t ies of Dionsea. The mechanism of the
closing of the leaf; the conditions
under which the digestive liquid is
poured out and nutritive material
a 1 )s< >rl »( ■( 1 : even the minute electrical dis-
turbances set up in the leaf in closing-
all these have been made the subject
of extended research; but it was in
reference to none of these that Darwin
wrote ( 'anltv. I n t he closing movement
of the leaf one detail had puzzled him.
When the trigger hairs are touched and
the leaf claps to, it does not at first
close tightly; the fingers interlace
but do not close to their bases, and a
row of crevices remains through which
for a time a small insect might squeeze
out Darwin's son actually observed
a small ant make its escape in this
manner. But after the first quick
closing movement, if a capture is
actually made, the marginal fingers
soon tighten their grip, the leaf edges
are pressed into closer contact, and
eventually even the form of the im-
prisoned insect, under the pressure
THE MOST WOXDEKFCL PLANT IN THE WORLD- 593
L
m
MM
Why does the leaf of Dionaea, in its first quick closing movement, leave a row of crevices
between the "lingers," through which a small insect may make its escape, and then very gradu-
ally close these orifices? It looks as though the small insects were given an opportunity to escape;
but why?
exerted, becomes visible as it bulges
out the thin walls. In explanation of
these peculiarities of the closing move-
ments of the leaf Darwin had a theory :
but his sickly greenhouse plants ("I
cannot make the little creature grow
well," he wrote1 Hooker) did not
furnish conclusive evidence of its cor-
rectness; so his queries to his Ameri-
can correspondent were, "How many
times, successively, does a single leaf
capture and digest prey? Wha1 sized
insects do they capture?" Canby
replied, writing from memory, six
years after his observations had been
made: "As to the specific point about
the plant capturing large or small
insects, the answer is that so far as I
am aware it catches everything it can,
large or small. . . . As far as I can
remember, any insect from the size of
si small fly, say a line or two in length, to
1 More Letters of Charles Darwin. Edited by Francis
Darwin. Published by D. Appleton & Co., 1903
a beetle or other insect of nearly the
length of the leaf would be closed upon
and . . . devoured. As to the pro-
portion of 'large' or 'small,' I can-
not distinctly remember: but after
what I have written it would be fair to
suppose that within the limits men-
tioned above it would probably be
almost the proportion of insects in the
neighborhood of the leaves, except that
insects which habitually fly, as a class,
would probably be less liable to cap-
ture than those which crawl. . . Xow
about the leaves becoming callous and
unexcitable after 'catching' an insect.
I have several times known leaves to
devour insects three successive times.
never more than that, and then they
were the most vigorous. Ordinarily
twice, and quite often once, was
enough to render them unserviceable."
This reply was not conclusive, and
on February 17, 1873, Darwin wrote
Canby: "I find that I erred in sup-
594
NATURAL HISTORY
/
^
**
/)
The captures of fifty mature leaves of LHonaea consisted of Hymenoptera (wasps and large
ants), 10; Diptera (flies), 9; arachnids (spiders), 9 (one with an egg sack); Coleoptera (beetles),
9 (each distinct as to species); Orthoptera (grasshoppers, locusts, roaches), 7; Hemiptera (pre-
dacious bugs and leaf hoppers), 4; Lepidoptera (caterpillars), 2. The average length of the fifty
victims was 8.6 mm., or about one third of an inch
posing that the leaves never opened a
second time. . . If you do visit the
proper district I slid be very much
obliged if you \vd open a dozen oldish
leaves to see what sized insects they
capture. I am aware that a very
minute insect wd start the leaf, but I
suspect that they wd generally escape
through the apertures at the bases of
the spikes before they completely
interlocked."
And again on May 7 of the same
year Darwin wrote: "I thank you
very sincerely for the leaves, of which I
have examined the [captures] with
great interest. The results support
my anticipation that the leaves are
adapted to allow of the smaller fry
escaping. Eight of the fourteen leaves
had caught beetles of relative consid-
erable size. There were also a good-
sized spider & a scolopendra. Three
of the leaves had caught ants. I wish
the leaves had been of full size, but I
think mv results may be trusted."
The examination of the captures of
fourteen small leaves, then, is the prin-
cipal basis upon which Darwin builds
his theory of the significance of the
initial partial closing of the leaf of
Dionsea. In Insectivorous Pla?its he
reviews this evidence, concluding, "It
would manifestly be a disadvantage to
the plant to waste many days in re-
maining clasped over a minute insect,
and several additional days or weeks
in afterwards recovering its sensibility;
inasmuch as a minute insect would
afford but little nutriment. It would
be far better for the plant to wait for a
time until a moderately large insect
Avas captured, and to allow all the little
ones to escape; and this advantage is
secured by the slowly intercrossing
marginal spikes, which act like the
large meshes of a fishing net, allowing
the small and useless fry to escape."
Before the appearance of Insectivor-
ous Plants Gray wrote to Canby thus : '
^Letters of Asa Gray. Edited by Jane Loring Gray
Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1893.
•THE MOST WOXDERFUL PLAXT IN THE WORLD"
595
"Conundrum? Why does the Dionsea
trap close only part way, so as to cross
the bristles of edge only, at first, and
afterwards close fully? Darwin has hit
it. I wonder you or I never thought of
it. . . Think what a waste if the leaf
had to go through all the process of
secretion, etc., taking so much time,
all for a little gnat. It would not pay.
Yet it would have to do it except for
this arrangement to let the little flies
escape. But when a bigger one is
caught he is sure for a good dinner.
That is real Darwin! I just wonder
you and I never thought of it. But he
did." Gray was right, and "That is
real Darwin!" But is it true? Darwin,
after examining the captures of four-
teen leaves gathered in the field, writes,
"I think my results may be trusted.'*
Perhaps by these methods his theory
of this significance of the leaf behavioi
is not susceptible of absolute proof;
but it seemed worth while, by further
direct observation upon the plants in
their native home, and by the examina-
tion of a large number of leaves which
had made captures, to determine
whether an actual sorting out of visit-
ing insects by size does take place.
On May 31, 1921, Dionsea was
found in full bloom, in abundance, and
in fine condition, within a few miles of
Wilmington, North Carolina. It was
an easy task to gather fifty well-
developed leaves with captures; these
were opened carefully, and their cap-
tures were dropped into alcohol, for
measurement and approximate identi-
fication at leisure. Of the fifty, only
one was less than 5 mm. in length, and
only seven, less than 6 mm.; ten were
10 mm. or more in length, with a niaxi-
inuin of 30 nun. We may then safely
conclude that the habitual captures of
mature leaves range from the large- 1
insect the leaf is able to close upon and
hold, down to those approximately
one quarter of an inch in length; and
that insects materially smaller than
this, if they spring the trap, usually
take advantage of the opportunity
afforded by the partially closed leaf
and make their escape.
One capture not tabulated deserve-
special mention. "When one leaf was
opened, its contents were foimd to be a
single wing cover of a large beetle
(shown in the center of the plate of
captures) and an ant much smaller
than any of those captured by the
other leaves examined. It is not diffi-
almosl devoid
become more
bases of the mar-
narrow outer glan-
glands?) seems to I"
tractive to insects; ami
king ins «ct exceeds in
tance from the baited area
hair, it usually traverses the
leaf without springing the trap:
so in this way, also, the leaves ef-
fectively sorl oul their captures by size
The disk of the leaf of
limit;/ 'i is closely studded
/ with secreting and ab-
sorbing glands, often
distinguishable a- in-
numerable purple dots;
toward the outer leaf-
margin is a narrow band
i<\' glands, which again
numerous toward the
ginal spikes. This
dular area (nectai
the region at-
unless the vis-
length the dis-
to a trigger
596
NATURAL HISTORY
cult to picture the minute ant. des-
perately tugging the wing cover across
the leaf, bumping into the trigger hairs,
and refusing to desert its booty until
the time for possible escape had passed.
With this evidence of the size of the
actual captures of the leaves, it was
desirable to determine what insects
could be observed upon the Leaves,
subject to capture; and parts of two
days were devoted to this with some
unanticipated results. Ants were the
only insects frequently noticed upon
the leaves. Nearly all of these ants
belonged to small species, 3 mm. or Less
in length, and consequently smaller
than any of those captured by the fifty
leaves. None was actually observed
to set off the trigger hairs, but we re-
peatedly sprung the leaf traps with
slender grass stems without disturbing
the ants, each leaf closing upon its
visiting ant. which crept out after the
expiration of a few seconds, either
between the crossed fingers, as Darwin
had surmised and recorded, or at the
end of the leaf, where also a slight
crevice remains after the first closing
movement: and none failed thus to
make its escape in time to elude the
slow tightening and closing of these
apertures.
The plants inn sorting out their
captures by size: but to accomplish
this not one method, but two. were
employed; and the second and un-
recorded method with respect to these
small ants was the more effective.
Most of these little ants (sometimes
two of them on a single leaf) were
observed to occupy a uniform position
on its upper surface, their heads close
to the bases of the marginal spikes.
As they moved slowly across this belt
of the leaf, they made frequent and
prolonged pauses, during which, their
mouth parts were observed under the
lens, to be in motion against the
surface of the leaf. A larger and
winged hymenopteron was observed
to be engaged in the same performance.
Obviously, they were feeding upon
some attractive exudation of the leaf.
The behavior of visiting insects is
entirely convincing to the observe]
that a baited area extends across the
leaf on its upper surface just within
the bases of the marginal spines.
This baited marginal band is so situ-
ated upon the leaf surface that a visit-
ing insect in length too small to extend
from tin bait lo tin trigger hairs, usually
does not spring the trap. Whether or
not these conditions are to be inter-
preted as adjustment- to that end. the
effect of this arrangement, in con-
junction with the peculiarities of the
■•losing movement by which small
insects are given an opportunity to
escape, is to limit the usual captures
of the leaves to insects approximating
one quarter of an inch or more in
length.
Living plants of Dionsea were ex-
hibited in England more than 150
years ago, even prior to the first pub-
lished description by Ellis 1 1775). The
voluminous Literature of research upon
this plant has increased rather than
decreased our recognition of its almost
unique interest, and is at least proof
that Diomea still withholds answer to
some of its more fascinating problems.
As a hothouse plant it continues to be
fairly familiar both here and abroad,
but its survival in its restricted native
habitat should not be left to chance.
Let us hope that means for its preserva-
tion may be found, and that for all the
future we may have opportunity to
"look on Dionsea as the most wonder-
ful plant in the world."
Elephants mounted for the Field Museum in 1907-08 by ( !arl E. Ak<
How Elephants are Mounted
A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF TAXIDERMY
By FREDERIC A. LUCAS
Dr. F. A. Bather, deputy keeper of geology, British Museum, in noticing in the Museum's Journal of Great
Britain the statement that Director Lucas prepared for the Fifty-third Annual Report of the American Museum,
expressed the wish that Mr. Akeley's new method of mounting elephants, which is applicable also to other large
pa< hyderms or short-haired mammals, had been described.
That it was not was due partly to the fact that it did not at the time occur to Director Lucas to write a di>-
quisition on taxidermy, and partly from a desire to make the report as brief as possible. It is hoped that the
present article may serve as a record of how various elephants have at various times been mounted by various
preparators and that Mr. Akeley may in short time be able to prepare a detailed account of his method fur the
guidance of others.
M
OUNTING an elephant is not
only the largest but in many
ways the most difficult prob-
lem with which a taxidermist can be
confronted, and it is interesting to note
the various ways in which the problem
has been met and what appears to be
its solution. Just when the firs! ele-
phant was mounted I know not, but
some time before 1813 one was on ex-
hibition in Bullock's Museum, London:
unfortunately we have no record of
the method employed in mounting it.
This is all the more regrettable because
it must have been one of the earliest.
possibly (he earliest, example of a
'This specimen is shown in an aquatint of Bullock's
Museum, and is noted in the Companion to Bullock'"
U ■ am issued in 1813, but while the eighth edition of
the Companion, 1810, devotes three pages to the "Arti-
ficial Forest," which includes a lengthy description of
the rhi of an elephant .
597
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HOW ELEPHANTS ARE MOUNTED
599
mounted elephant, though as Hanno
brought to Carthage skins of the
gorilla (?), some ambitious Roman
may have preserved the skin of one of
Hannibal's elephants.
Xot long after the above-mentioned
date, however, in 1817, we have a
detailed account of the mounting of
one of these big pachyderms for the
Jardin du Roi — now Musee d'Histoire
Xaturelle — and what is more, we have
a picture of how it was done. Capt.
Thomas Brown, whose Manual of
Taxidermy1 ran through more than
twenty editions has given a rather de-
tailed account of the method employed
by Lassaigne, the preparator; he tells
us that:
The model which was to fill the skin was
made as perfect as possible in its shape. To
insure this, models were made of half the head
in plaster, as also a fore and hind leg. This
structure was made of linden wood, and so
ingeniously constructed by M. Lassaigne,
that almost the whole parts could be separated.
He opened a panel on one side of the body,
whereby he introduced himself into its in-
terior, so that he might make its parts more
perfect within. Even the head and proboscis
were hollow, which rendered this stupendous
model so light that it could be moved from
one part to another with comparative ease.
The model being completed, the alum water
in which the skin had been all the time im-
mersed, was now taken out and made boiling
hot, and in that state poured on the skin,
which was then allowed to soak in the warm
liquor for an hour and a half, when it was
taken out still warm and placed upon the
model, which they accomplished with some
difficulty. But judge of their mortification
when it was found that the model was rather
too large. To diminish the wood-work they
foresaw would rim the risk of putting its
parts out of proportion. It then occurred to
them, that the best tiling to be done under
'What has become of all the copies of Brown's Man-
na!.' Apparently it was the most popular book on
taxidermy e\ er printed, for MrC'ormick note> t bal I here
were twenty English editions and several reprints in
the United States. And yet it is dill tub to gel a copy;
there is none in the library of the Manchester Musi iim,
whereof Brown was director for several years, none in
the library of the Zoological Society nor in that of the
British Museum.
these awkward circumstances, was to take
off the skin again and reduce its thickness
with knives; they removed all the internal
thickenings which came in their way. In this
operation five men were occupied for four
days, during which time they cut out one
hundred and ninety-four pounds weight of
the internal surface. During this process tin-
skin had dried, and required again to be im-
mersed in cold soft water; after allowing it to
remain twenty-four hours to soak, it was then
put on the model and found now to cover it
completely; the edges were brought together,
and secured with wire nails deeply driven
home, and large brads. Except at the edges,
the nails and brads were only driven in half-
way to keep the skin down to the different
sinuosities and hollows until dry, when they
were again all pulled out.
The alum with which the water was
saturated gave the skin an ugly gray appear-
ance, in consequence of its becoming crystal-
lized. But this was soon remedied, by first
rubbing the skin with spirit of turpentine,
and afterwards with olive oil.
By the admirable and well executed con-
trivance here adopted, a specimen has been
mounted with all the appearance of life,
which, with a little attention, may resist for
ages the influence of Time's destroying hand.
It is the only specimen of an Elephant in
Europe worth looking at, all others being
great misshapen masses, completely devoid
of all appearance of nature.
M. Didier tells us1 that after the
lapse of a century the specimen is
absolutely intact: in fact, it is the
most prominent feature in the post-
card giving a general view of the large
exhibition hall of the Musee d'Histoire
Naturclle. This durability is the more
remarkable, for the -kin was alum-
tanned and in our climate a specimen
so treated is apt to go to pieces in a
few years; some credil must be given.
therefore, to an equable climate and
unheated exhibition halls.
This was not the earliest use of a
wooden manikin for Mr. Didier records
that during the reign of Louis XVI a
quagga was so mounted by some artist
W Art (It la Taxidermii an AY' Sti '• p. 11.
600
NATURAL HISTORY
whose name has apparently not been
preserved, but it seems to have been
the first instance of the employment of
such a manikin on a large scale. It is
to be noted also that Charles Willson
Peale mounted some of his short-
haired mammals over manikins or
forms carved out of wood, doing this.
he tells us, to reproduce the muscles as
thev would be in life.
The wooden manikin <>!' Jumbo, tin- mosl
celebrated elephanl of modern times
Why, it may be asked, did not Peale
devise the simpler, quicker method of
modeling in papier-mache and thus
anticipate Akeley? This conundrum
cannot be answered definitely but it is
possible — even highly probable — that
lack of materials had much to do with
it. There was no wire cloth in those
days, paper was scarce and costly,
and plaster, we imagine, had to be
imported; shellac was unknown — even
nails were expensive as they were all
made by hand and they were clumsy
affairs at best. I rememl >er well my con-
tempt for English hand-made "sprigs"
and my longing for machine-cut brads
when I wras doing a little carpentry in
1869. The modern preparator has no
idea of the handicaps under which his
predecessors labored; if he had, he
would perhaps marvel at what they did
accomplish.
Just about a life span later, in 1886.
Jumbo, the most celebrated elephant
of modern times, was mounted by
( ritchley and Akeley over a wooden
manikin in a manner very similar to
that practiced in 1817 — thus does
history repeat itself. It is to be noted
that in the case of Jumbo it was neces-
sary to provide for rough handling as
the mounted skin and skeleton for more
than a year formed part of the attrac-
tions of the "greatest show on earth"
and Jumbo's "counterfeit present-
ment" wns drawn around the arena
,i^ a pari in the procession of which he
was once the chief ornament. The
-kin and skeleton of Jumbo, once so
closely united, have been in death
widely separated the mounted speci-
men forming the central feature of the
museum at Tufts College, while the
skeleton, with its original mountings.
is on exhibition at the American Mu-
seum.
Still another method was adopted by
Doctor Hornaday for the mounting of
Mungo, a small African elephant be-
longing to the Barnum "Shows," that
died accommodatingly in Washington
in 1882, shortly after Doctor Hornaday
had become connected with the United
States National Museum. In this
instance a manikin of excelsior was
built about a skeleton of wood and
iron and over this, faced with clay to
take the imprint of wrinkles, was
placed the skin. Mungo is still to be
seen in the United States National
Museum.
Later, in 1907-08, the pair of
African elephants in the Field Mu-
seum was prepared by Mr. Akelej-,
who used in this case still another
THREE STAGES IX THE RE-CREATION OF MTJNGO
The illustration in the upper left of the page shows the wood-and-iron core of the manikin
I«> this framework excelsior wrappings were added, so thai the manikin mighl have the necessary
bulk and fullness of contour as indicated in the picture in the upper right. In this picture the
wooden skull and protruding backbone may be readily differentiated from the parts thai are of
lighter construction material. The completed elephanl is shown below.
Mungo, like the more famous Jumbo, was one of the elephants thai contributed to the snec
tacular appeal of the ;<greates1 show on earth." h, 1882 Mungo died and passed from the circus
arena into the possession of the United States National Museum, where the mounted elephant still
attracts the attention of visitors as the living animal once drew the gaze of the circus crowds
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604
NATURAL HISTORY
method, that of the manikin modeled
in plaster on a framework of wood
and wire cloth, in which were repro-
duced all the muscles and larger
wrinkles of the living animal. The
skin was fastened to the manikin by a
thin layer of plaster, mixed with glue to
make it dry slowly, and in this were
modeled the finer details. A modifica-
tion of this process, used by Mr.
Akeley and also by Mr. Turner with
great success in mounting large mam-
mals other than the elephant for the
United States National Museum, con-
sists in modeling in papier-mache* on a
framework of wood and wire cloth
that roughly approximates the form of
the animal to be mounted. From the
readiness with which changes can be
made in such a manikin during its con-
struction, it is particularly applicable
to skins without measurements.
In 1914 when Mr. Akeley began
his group of elephants in the American
Museum he started with a new plan,
that of modeling the skin of the ani-
mal over clay in which all folds and
wrinkles could be impressed., backing
the skin with plaster and transferring
it to a frame of lattice work, whose
interstices would be filled with wire
cloth and papier-mache.
This plan was carried out only with
the little Toto, for while working on
this, Mr. Akeley conceived still another
method, so that while the lattice frame-
work was actually made for the female
elephant, it was used only as an arma-
ture1 for the clay model — presently to
be described — and this specimen was
modeled in separate halves. For the
information of the reader not versed in
methods of collecting and in the ait of
taxidermy — for it is now an art — it
may be said that such bulky beasts as
elephants are skinned in sections, the
head being cut off in one of the deep
neck wrinkles, and each side skinned
and treated separately.
The new and latest method, as
worked out by Mr. Akeley in the in-
stance just referred to, consists in
modeling the animal in clay, placing
the skin on this clay body, and working
directly on the skin, impressing its
folds and wrinkles into the yielding
clay. This of course insures accuracy
of form and detail. If the clay form is
not correct, the skin will not fit it,
while the wrinkles must be put in
exactly where they occur. It is not a
matter of adjusting the skin to the
manikin, but of adjusting the manikin
to the skin, and any mistake in model-
ing is glaringly apparent. The skin,
like Gaul, is divided into three parts,
the head and the two sides, but they
are assembled on the clay figure,
though details of the head and trunk
are executed later.
When the modeling has been com-
pleted, the body is covered with a
plaster jacket, the sides are separated
and laid flat, and the clay is removed.
The skin is then lying in the plaster
jacket, or rather jackets, and when it
is dry, it is shellacked and lined with a
thin layer of papiei-mache, backed
with wire cloth, strengthened where
needed with light wooden braces. The
two halves are then assembled, the
head placed on the body, the skin
treated with a thin coat of wax.
This is the merest outline of the
process, and takes no account of the
details of skin preparation and the
technique of the various elements of
the process or of the engineering prob-
lems involved in the construction.
Mr. Akeley's latest method seems the
final word in mounting big pachyderms,
combining as it does accuracy of form
with strength, lightness, and. above all,
durability in the finished pieces. It is
HOW ELEPHANTS ARE MOCXTED
605
slow work but the time-consuming part
of the task can be done by compara-
tively unskilled assistants, and the
result is a specimen that will not only
give the thousands who will never have
a glimpse of Africa an opportunity to sec
what an elephant really looks like, but
that also will serve as a criterion of size
and stature after all large elephantshave
been blotted from the face of the earth.
Fin/* coronat opw
The central figure in this group of elephants from the Musee
d'Histoire Xaturelle of Paris is the specimen mounted by Lassaignein
1817. The making of the manikin of t his elephant was rather novelly
celebrated as indicated in the picture on o. 598.
The Department of Fishes, American Museum
ITS AIMS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
By BASHFORD DEAN
Honorary Curator of Ichthyology
THE department of ichthyology
is one of the newer departments
of the American Museum, dating
from 1909, when it branched out of the
department of invertebrate zoology,
bringing with it the reptiles and amphi-
bians which until then had remained in
care of the1 older department. The
writer, who had been in charge of fossil
fishes in the department of vertebrate
palaeontology since 1904, was the first
curator of the new department, which
was to care for both recent and fossil
fishes. As the department of ichthy-
ology and herpetology it remained until
1920, when the amphibians and rep-
tiles were set apart as the department
of herpetology under the curatorship
of Miss Mary C. Dickerson.1
The personnel of the department of
ichthyology has been as follows:
Bashford Dean, Ph.D., professor of verte-
brate morphology at Columbia University,
curator from 1907-14. and honorary curator
since 1914.
Louis Hussakof, Ph.D.. assistant and as-
sociate curator, 1909-13; curator. 1914-16.
John T. Nichols, A.B., assistant, and since
1910 associate curator.
O. P. Hay, Ph.D., assistant curator of fos-
sil fishes, 1903.
C.R.Eastman, Ph.D., editor of the Bibli-
ography of Fishes, 1914-17.
E. W. Gudger, Ph.D.. editor of the Bibliog-
raphy of Fishes since 1919 and associate
since 1921.
Arthur W. Henn, A.B.. associate bibliog-
rapher in connection with the Bibliography
of Fishes, 1916-22.
The earliest materials of the depart-
ment of ichthyology wen1 scanty.
'In a later issue of Natural History will be printed
an account of the department of herpetology.
an aggregation of uncatalogued dried,
alcoholic, and stuffed specimens, which
had been housed in one of the basement
rooms of the Museum. As the exhibi-
tion of fishes, there had been shown up
to that time little more than a few
stuffed specimens together with a case
of casts, which had come to the Mu-
seum from the United States Fish Com-
mission in the days of Commissioner
Band. The newly organized depart-
ment laid out a far-reaching plan of
development. It aimed to exhibit in
its galleries representatives of all of the
principal "roups of fishes, fossil as well
as living. • It designed a series of
habitat groups which were to show the
visitor how fishes live and move and
have their being. It planned many
exhibits to show the development of
typical fishes from the earliest stages
of the egg until the young have at-
tained adult form. It outlined case
exhibits planned like genealogical charts
to tell even a casual visitor where
the earliest backboned animals came
from and how in time they developed
into modern fishes. It had in mind to
clear up mooted points through study
in the laboratory of material obtained
by expeditions sent to many parts of
the world. It had, finally, the wish to
bring together effectively a knowledge
of all the extensive literature, old and
new, which concerned fishes, so that
anyone who here sought information
could obtain it with minimum effort
in the least space of time. In twelve
years these lines of development of the
department have led to encouraging
results.
THE DEPARTMENT OF FISHES
•507
A model of the jaws of the huge Carcharodon angustidens, sel with actual tossil teeth.
There were do human beings to devour when this mighty relative of the existing white shark
swam the seas
The Collection of Fossil Fished
The departmenl firsl succeeded in
obtaining from Columbia University
as a quasi-permanen1 loan the collec-
tions of fossil fishes brought together
by the greatest American palaeich-
thyologist, Prof. John S. Newberry, con-
stituting, in fact, almost his life work.
Iiese include
ded the fossil fishesof North
America with Dearly all bis described
and figured specimens, many of them
of great value for popular exhibition.
So it came aboul that the department
was soon able to install a gallery in one
of the conier rooms of the Museum
which reviewed the past history of
608
XATl'RAL HISTORY
fishes and showed the impressionable
visitor veritable monsters of ancient
sens. This collection was amplified not
long after by the fossil fishes which had
been brought together by Professor
( "ope, whose private museum President
Osborn had triumphantly secured for
the American Museum. With these
two accessions, rounded out by careful
purchases and by the material col-
lected by several expeditions, the de-
partment was able to illustrate the
early fishes of the world in a way second
to that of no museum on this side of the
ocean and excelled by but few foreign
museums. To house1 this collection,
catalogue it , and systematize it, proved
no small undertaking for the young
department.
It was in connection with this work,
and for the purpose of giving popular
instruction, that there was prepared
an interesting series of restorations and
models, and a case built to resemble an
aquarium with models of fossil fishes
therein. At this point we may note
the restoration of Dinichthys, a giant
"fish" that lived in the Devonian seas
of Ohio, and a life-size model of the
jaws of the big-toothed Carcharodon,
the "man-eating" shark of the past, set
with actual fossil teeth gathered from
the phosphate beds of South Carolina.
This extinct shark is the most formid-
able fish known; it reached a length
probably of eighty feet. In the interest
also of the collection of fossil fishes
weii' undertaken the expeditions to
Canada, Ohio, and Kentucky; these
expeditions, as well as the purchase of
much of our material, were made pos-
sible by generous gifts to the depart-
ment by Mr. Cleveland II. Dodge.
THE EXHIBITION OF RECENT FISHES
In the preparation of a large popular
exhibition of typical forms of living
fishes the department found its great-
est difficulties. In the first place, fishes
are among the most unsatisfactory
creatures to mount for general view,
and even when they were satisfactorily
prepared, there was to be had in the
overcrowded Museum but little space
in which a suitable series could be
shown. We were able at length to
share a gallery with the department of
birds. We also utilized a back hall
that led to certain of the Museum
workshops. We were not entirely dis-
heartened, however, for we had room
in which to exhibit some fishes that
from the viewpoint of popular interest
or as representatives of great struc-
tural groups had special claims to
attention. Here we placed on view
stuffed specimens or models from
materials which we gathered from many
sources. In our limited space we had
hard work to show even a few of these
monsters of the sea which public ex-
hibition ever demands. To obtain
them, several expeditions were sent
out. to Florida especially. These
undertakings yielded excellent results
tor the enrichment of our gallery, so
that now the visitor may see in lifelike
poses and colors casts of sawfishes and
swoi'dfishes, sharks of various kinds,
the giant devilfish (Manta), the great
sea sunfish (Mala), and even the great
pike-like Arapaima of the Amazon,
the largest living member of the bony
fishes of the world.
The former exhibits were in a degree
diagrammatic, for who can picture a
fish adequately from a dried specimen
or from a paint i « 1 cast ? Habitat groups
were needed which would show typical
fishes in their natural surroundings,
breeding, brooding, or feeding. But
here, again, we encountered numerous
difficulties. Few museums had at-
tempted such a work and a new tech-
THE DEPARTMENT OF FISHES
609
nique had to be developed before the
visitor could be given the illusion of
viewing under-water life. The careful
attention given to this subject by Mr.
Dwight Franklin, then in the Museum's
department of preparation, enabled us
to take the first steps in the direction
of portraying groups of fishes ade-
quately. From that time, thanks to
young fishes being born of good size.
adult in form, and quite able to tend
for themselves. < >f great popular
interest is a case representing certain
fishes from the deep sea which like the
luminous beetles known as fireflies
have evolved their own sources of
light. In these models, phosphorescenl
organs have been imitated by artificial
A detail from the group of luminiferous fishes thai exist in the sunless black depths of the
sea. Models prepared and mounted by Mr. F. F. Horter under the supervision of Dr. Louis
Hussakof
the devoted work of Mr. F. F. Horter,
we continued to add important
"habitats" to the series. We now
illustrate the life habits of representa-
tives of all the more important groups
of fishes, from the lowly lampreys
through the sharks and ganoids, in-
cluding the bony gar pike ( Lepisostt us),
the long-nosed Polyodon, or spoonbill
sturgeon, and the bowfin (Amiatus
minis i up to certain modern fishes.
Of striking interest is a group showing
a blue shark, lolling in Gulf Stream
waters, surrounded by a brood of
young. 'Hie ee<is of this shark, like
those of most modern sharks, hatch
within the bodv of the mother, the
lights, which appear intermittently,
very much as. it is believed, they occur
in the depths of the sea. We have not
as yet been able to show a series of our
local fishes. By courtesy of Director
Lucas, some of the more prominent of
them have, however, been mounted in
special cases near the Museum elevator
apart from the main collections.
THE \i:\\ HALL OK FISHES
The new hall of fishes, which will be
opened probably in the spring of 1925,
will, in the nature of things, mark an
epoch in the usefulness of the depart-
ment. Hitherto, as above indicated.
the exhibition of fishes has had but a
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NATURAL HISTORY
/
/ /y ,/liiilU
~4H ^K9^m3f ^StSt*^ J^ «<* . »* »«-* v ^"'
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pfc—
Stanley Falls of 1 he ( JongO River, where the famous fisheries are located
very inadequate space for display.
The new gallery will give ample scope
for a great exhibition,— one which will
compare with the exhibitions of fishes
in London or Paris.
The new hall will be 138 feet Long by
63 feet wide and 19 feet high, illumi-
nated admirably on the1 long sides of
the loom by thirteen windows, each 9
feet wide by X1, foot high. With this
space at our disposal we plan an exhibi-
tion which will give the inquiring visitor
a resume of our knowledge of fishes
from all points of view, aiming to be
instructive, entertaining, and inspiring.
It should appeal to the average museum
visitor, in furnishing a picture of the
wonder and beauty of fishes of many
kinds, great and small; from the depths
of the sea to the surface; of brooks,
creeks, rivers, and torrents; of coral
reefs and Gulf Stream; of rocky pools
and sandy reaches. It will show fishes
preying and preyed upon; mimicking
and poisonous forms; the habits and
instincts of fishes; their manifold types
of breeding and development. These
themes, carefully chosen, may be set
forth in suitable habitat groups, ar-
ranged along the sides of a corridor
that will pass down the middle of the
great hall. This corridor, screened
from the daylight by its ceilingward-
reaching walls will depend for its
lighting wholly upon the artificial
illumination supplied by the groups,
which will appear as great aquaria
but picturing dramatic moments in the
lives of fishes not ordinarily seen in
the usual aquarium. Such types of
groups we have already, in a measure,
prepared. By such a procedure our fish
gallery will be provided with two areas
of exhibition: the central corridor,
which has just been described, and the
peripheral or surrounding gallery , which
THE DEPARTMENT OF FISHES
613
■i
Photograph by Mr. Herbert Lang
Here important collections were made by the American Museum Congo Expedition
will provide space for exhibition ap-
proximating 320 feet in length and
13 feet in width, having on one side
the great windows of the hall and on the
other the wall of the central gal-
lery. This wall will he an admirable
place for the installation of cases, for
it will be brilliantly lighted by the
windows opposite to it. Along this
space will be introduced a number of
cases dealing with the natural history
of fishes, and here we plan to arrange m
series of exhibits to show:
1 - The fishes arranged according fo their
natural classification and importance.
(2) The structure and physiology of fishes.
(3) History of fishes, showing the fossil
forms and leading up to the existing types.
(4) The development of fishes.
(5) The maladies of fishes.
(6) The same and commercial fishes of the
world.
(7) Tin' means of capture of fishes.
(8) The commercial products of fishes.
Throughout the entire hall the effort
will be made to divide up the themes
for exhibition on a pro rata basis, so
that he who visits it may. even after
a short stay, carry away with him more
than a general idea of the system of
fishes. The outer gallery will appeal to
the student, the statistician, the angler,
the merchant; the inner "aquarium"
will surely be an inspiration to those
visitors who are old-fashioned enough
to be fond of natural history.
STUDY COLLECTIONS
The study collections of the depart-
ment have increased notably during
the past thirteen years. Three times as
much material is now at hand as was
available in 1010, and our catalogue
includes S000 cards. The bulk of our
accessions are fishes from the West
Indian fauna obtained in Florida by i lie
Fabbri "Tekla" Expedition (1910),
t)14
NATURAL HISTORY
The yacht "Tekla," in which Mr. Alessandro Fabbri, accompanied by bis brother, Mr.
Ernesto Fabbri, and Mr. John T. Nichols, of the American Museum, cruised the Florida Keys in
1910, obtaining extensive collections of characteristically West Indian fishes for the Museum
A devilfish, or Manta, being towed behind the ''Tekla'
fishes from the west coast of Mexico
by the "Albatross" Expedition (1911),
under the leadership of Dr. Charles H.
Townsend, and from the fresh waters of
equatorial Africa by the American Mu-
seum Congo Expedition (1915). Addi-
tions of lesser importance have been
made from the Arctic, the north and
THE DEPARTMENT OF FISHES
615
south Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the
eastern, central, and western Pacific,
the East Indies, and the fresh waters of
North America, South America, and
Asia. There have been no acquisitions
from the Red Sea or Indian Ocean, our
greatest faunal hiatus.
The study collection exhibiting the
anatomy of fishes has also increased
notably. Several scores of fish skeletons
have been prepared and indexed for
class use. They are, in fact, under con-
stant requisition, especially for certain
courses in the post-graduate department
of Columbia University that are given
in the Museum by Prof. W. K. Gregory.
The laboratory work of the department
has yielded not a few discoveries.
These appear in several Memoirs of the
American Museum, which deal with
fossil as well as with living fishes; also
in a number of smaller tracts, which
report the results of our expeditions
and describe 70 odd species and (i
genera new to science among recent
forms, and in the case of fossils about
40 species and 10 genera.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FISHES
Our most important work, the one
which we hope will ever remain as a
landmark in ichthyology, is the Bib-
liography of Fishes.
Students of fishes everywhere have
<?&
,.'y
>$**
long needed a comprehensive catalogue
of the vast literature in their field.
To meet this need, the department has
from the beginning aimed to complete
and publish a comprehensive bibliog-
raphy, which should include an index
by the aid of which a searcher would
have at his finger tips in minimum time
all the information that exists concern-
ing fishes of every kind, living and
extinct, of all parts of the world,
whether this information be published
in English or in any other language.
The first two volumes of this bibliog-
raphy appeared respectively in 1916
and 1917, and jointly contained about
.")(), 000 references arranged under
"Authors." A third volume complet-
ing the work and including an elabo-
rate subject index of more than 350
pages is now in readiness. Its com-
pilers aimed to digest the subject
matter of ichthyology in such a way
that it would be available not only to
technical students of the fishes, but to
popular inquirers as well; also to the
student of diseases, of parasites, of
general physiology; to the archaeolo-
gist, the historian, the chemist, the
teratologist, the embryologist, — in a
word, to anyone whose inquiries are
concerned directly or indirectly with
any subject related to the great group
of fishes.
^
*
&* ,«. *0
<&'
Photograph by Walter Beasley
PHOTOGRAPHING A SPEEDING RACE HORSE
No difficulty seemed too great for Mr. Chubb to overcome when he was making
studies preparatory to mounting the skeleton of "Sysonby," the famous race horse now
on exhibition at the American Museum. From a seat suspended fifty feet above the
ground, Mr. Chubb took photographs of a race horse speeding below, that he might have
accurate records of the motion of the spine and muscles in action. The studies were so suc-
cessful that the same method was used later when the skeleton of the trotter ' Lee Ax-
worthy" was presented to the Museum
Mounting Horse Skeletons to Exemplify
Different Gaits and Actions
A GLIMPSE BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM
By A. KATHERINE BERGER
Assistant Editor of Natural History
NOT so very long ago the osteo-
logical exhibition in a museum
was merely a collection of sets
of hones carelessly put together. No
attention was paid to scientific mount-
ing of the skeleton nor was any attempt
made to express the living animal in
action. As a result these exhibits de-
feated the very purpose for which they
existed. They offered no incentive
to the student or to the public even to
visit, much less to study and make
comparisons between, the different
types of animals represented.
For instance, to convey to the spec-
tator, through the mounted skeleton of
a horse, some idea of the nicety of
adjustment of every hone and the posi-
tions assumed by it in relation to other
bones during pulling, racing, trotting,
and walking, is no easy task, and before
accurate results are achieved, an
amount of study, patience, and care
is required little dreamed of by the
casual observer.
For more than twenty years Mr. S.
11. Chubb, of the department of com-
parative anatomy in the American Mu-
seum, has devoted all his attention to
revolutionizing osteological preparation
of Museum specimens. In the Museum
collections is a nearly completed series
of mounted skeletons of the Equidffi
in which Mi'. ( !hubb is si riving to repre-
sent with scientific accuracy and in life-
like pose every possible type of horse.
There is a giant draft horse and, from
practically the same stock, although
representing another breed, the Shet-
land pony. The big horse has been
developed through many generations
for extreme size, whereas the Shetland
Photograph by Walter Beasley
A closer view of Mr. Chubb in the swinging
seat, the lens of his camera pointed do^ award
in readiness t<> photograph the horse in action
pony has been reduced in size by man's
selection and breeding. A heavy type
of horse is shown in the position
assumed when drawing a load. In
contrast, there is the remarkable horse
" Sysonby." known as one of America's
most famous race horses, beautifully
mounted to show the running gail char-
617
618
NATURAL HISTORY
Photograph by S. H. Chubb
Bird's-eye view of a trotting horse in action. -The white line on the back shows the
curving movement of the spine, while marks <>n the hips indicate the shifting angle of the
pelvis with each step in the progressive movement
acteristic of his kind. The pure-blood
graceful Arabian, believed to be de-
scended from an entirely distinct wild
species, is represented in the skeleton
of "Nimr"; and now the skeleton of
"Lee Axworthy," the champion trotting
stallion of the world (his record being
1.58b) is to be added, practically com-
pleting the series of domestic horses.
There are only two wild types on exhi-
bition. One of these is a wild ass, or
kiang, known as the north Asiatic wild
ass, a different species from the African
ass from which our domestic ass is
descended. The other wild type is the
Grant zebra. This series will not be
complete until all species of zebras and
asses are on exhibition.
"Lee Axworthy," raised on the Wal-
nut Hall Farm in Kentucky, was owned
by the Pastime Stable, a concern con-
sisting of four or five men, and was
stabled at Castleton Farm, Lexington,
Kentucky. The American Museum is
largely indebted to Mr. D. M. Look, of
New York, owner of ( lastleton Farm,
for the skeleton of this famous trotter.1
Mr. Chubb is finding the mounting of
the skeleton of "Lee Axworthy" a
most interesting study, as it gives
opportunity to compare the bones
brought into action in the fast trot
with those employed in the more
natural running gait of the race horse
"'Sysonby."
A slight idea of the painstaking care
with which every contributing detail
is studied and worked upon until
scientific accuracy is attained, may
be gained from some of the ac-
tivities in connection with the pre-
paration and mounting of the skeleton
of "Sysonby." To represent properly
the changing curves of the spine of the
race horse when he is running his fast-
est, Mr. Chubb conceived the idea of
making photographic studies of a race
horse's back in action. Accordingly an
arrangement of ropes was prepared and
'It is to the lute Watson B. Dickerman that the
American Museum is indebted for funds to mount the
skeleton of "Lee Axworthy" and for opportunities
to study trotting horses in action. See Natub w. His-
tory, July-August, 1923, page 423.
MOUXTIXG HORSE SKELETONS
619
fastened at one end to the roof of the
American Museum and at the other to
an adjacent tree. A swinging scat
suspended from the rope and steadied
by guy ropes afforded an unobstructed
vantage point for the accommodation
of Mr. Chubb and his camera. A race
horse was borrowed for the occasion.
( Certain points of the animal's anatomy,
previously determined upon by Mr.
Chubb as best marking the constantly
changing curves of the spine and the
shifting of the muscles in action, were
outlined with white patches which
would be clearly visible in the photo-
graph. Even the shadow of the horse
cast by the sun at right angles was
taken into consideration to help por-
tray in profile the position of the horse's
feet and body at the moment of expo-
sure. All being ready. Mi1. Chubb was
hoisted fifty feet above the ground, and
the horse was raced back and forth
below him while he took photographic
studies of the horse's back.
This new and unusual method of
photography, also used in the case of
the "Lee Axworthy" skeleton, resulted
in a series of studies which proved of
great value in establishing accuracy of
bone adjustment when the skeleton
of "Sysonby" was ready for mounting.
These studies were supplemented by
frequent visits to race courses where
many observations were made of horses
in action.
There is much to be done from the
moment the skeleton is dissected to the
lime the bones are finally mounted.
Sometimes these tasks are very time-
consuming j eleven months were re-
quired to prepare the skeleton of
"Sysonby " for exhibition.
The writer had an opportunity to
witness a pari of the preparation of the
skeleton of the 1 rotter "bee Axworthy,"
listening the while ;i> Mr. Chubb ex-
plained the process in progress at the
time. Mr. Chubb was seated at a long-
table busily engaged in scraping from
the sternum of the skeleton fragments
of flesh and soft tissue that still ad-
hered to the bone. Near him on the
floor were several jars containing water
in which were immersed various parts
of the skeleton.
"I save the sternum or breastbone
for the last/' he said, "because it re-
quires more time. The bones are con-
nected with ligaments and tendons
which must be removed before the
actual cleaning and drying can pro-
ceed. To hasten the decomposition of
the soft tissues, the bones are placed in
vessels containing water that is kept
at 100 degrees.
"When sufficiently decomposed the
ligaments and tissues are removed and
all that remains after dissecting is
scraped away as clean as possible. If
the surface of the bone dries too
rapidly, it contracts and splits, while
the inside is still wet. Slow drying is
preferable and will prevent such injury
by permitting the entire substance to
dry evenly. The next step is to free
the bones completely from all grease,
that they may become spotlessly clean
and pure in color before they are ar-
ticulated."
Immersing the bones in benzine and
exposing them while in this medium to
daylight and sunshine for a number of
weeks will accomplish the desired
result most successfully. Under Mr.
Chubb's supervision tanks have been
constructed of galvanized iron. Around
the upper edge of each tank are special
grooves into which slides a close-fitting
cover of glass, effectually sealing the
tank against the entrance of rain water
and at the same time preventing evap-
oration of the benzine. The holie> are
put iii the tanks and covered with
Photograph by S. //. Chubb
The trotting horse, "Lee Axworthy," in the first stages of reconstruction. — In this
stage every detail is subjecl to more or less modification, until the adjustment carries out
the action Mr. Chubb has in mind to portray. Note the position of the bones in the fast
trot as compared with the running gaif of the race horse below
Photograph by Walter Beasley
The reconstruction of the '"Sysonby," skeleton nearing completion.— When the bones are
finally in satisfactory position and securely fastened, the threads, screws, suspending cords,
and other temporary accessories are removed
MOUNTING HORSE SKELETONS
621
benzine, the "lass covers are moved
into place, and the tanks arc then
carried to the roof of the Museum,
there to remain in the sunshine until
the hones are pronounced ready for the
next step. The benzine must he
changed two. three, or possibly four
times during this period, because it
becomes saturated with the grease and
loses its efficacy, anil the hones easily
get discolored, gummy, and dirty if
left too long in the greasy benzine.
The whole process may take from six
to eight weeks, depending upon the
amount of sunshine and the size of the
bones.
"After the benzine process." said
Mi. Chul)!). "the hones are ready for
mounting. First, I get a steel rod as
nearly as possible fitting the opening
and extending the length of the neural
canal of the spinal column. This rod
1 must shape to the curve of the spine.
Then the vertebrae are hung tenta-
tively in place. Next. I gradually
study the hones of the legs, which 1
fasten together temporarily so that any
change can easily he made in the angle
of the joints. The legs are suspended
by looped cords passed over the heads of
small screws, which are inserted in the
bones at various points. The other
ends of these cords are passed several
times over horizontal rods above. To
these free ends are attached small
weights sufficiently heavy to prevent
slipping, thus affording easy and con-
venient adjustment. Now comes the
delicate task of getting the hones into
the position which seems to suggest the
action I have in mind, and seems to do it
in a perfectly alive and satisfactory way.
'letting the ribs in position is a long
operation. I take a very small piece of
pliable steel rod and fasten to it the
several ribs, each by means of a rubber
band. Then 1 study the little articu-
lations. Finally, when they are all
satisfactorily placed, I devise a perma-
nent brace to fit the ribs and hold them
enduringly in place. Every step.
meanwhile, is checked up and corrobo-
rated by constant comparison with a
great number of photographs.
'"As I get the adjustment nearer ami
nearer perfection, I see errors in this
part or that which were not obvious
when the bones as a whole were out of
position. It is simply a process of
eliminating the errors until the whole
becomes perfect. When all is right, I
drill small holes where the bones come
in contact with each other, and into
these holes drive steel wires just tight
enough to hold firmly but not tight
enough to break the bone. Where
then1 are many little 1 tones, wires are
driven in from opposite directions to
bind all together as firmly as possible.
These wires are driven down just a little
below the surface of the bone, and the
small holes which result from this oper-
ation are filled up later with plaster."
In studying the trotting modifica-
tions found in the skeleton of "Lee
Axworthy"' Mr. Chubb remarked that
these might possibly be found in a
race horse, but they were not evident
in the skeleton of the race horse "Sv-
sonby." On the front pastern (but not
in the hind) of the skeleton of " Lee
Axworthy'- was a slight depression in
the bone due to extreme movement of
the pastern joint in the trotting action.
Said Mr. ( hubb, "I can imagine that
this might become adaptive and prove
of great advantage in that particular
action, but we cannot say that it has
gone far enough at present to be of
great consequence."
NOTES
ASIA
President Osborn's Trip to Asia.
President Henry Fairfield Osborn, accom-
panied by Mrs. Osborn, sailed August 18
from Seattle on the S.S. "Madison"' bound
for Shanghai. As this issue goes to press, he
is homeward bound to assume his administra-
tive duties and scholarly researches at the
American Museum. While in Asia he took
a prominent part in the activities of the
Third Asiatic Expedition. He made a trip
to the Gobi Desert to supervise the work
in progress there, and had an opportunity
to examine the fossil beds and to further
the success of the expedition by placing
at its disposal his extensive experience as
an organizer and bis thorough grasp of pahe-
ontological problems. It was during his
sojourn in the East that the Museum re-
ceived word of the astoundingly large total
of dinosaur skulls and skeletons obtained bj
the expedition and of the discover} of the
dinosaur eggs.1
President ((shorn narrowly escaped the
earthquake in Japan by leaving Yokohama
August 30 for Kobe, fie did not learn of the
disaster until the ship on which Mis. Osborn
and he were sailing was emerging from the. Japan
Sea, for inly then was communication n stored.
Prof. T. I). A. ( 'ockerell, an honorary fellow
of the American Museum, on the other hand,
viewed the catastrophe from the harbor of
Yokohama. He writes;
"We had about five days in Yokohama,
and were on the 'Empress of Australia,'
just about to sail, when the earthquake
occurred. It was terrific, and with a strong
wind blowing, soon all Yokohama was
ablaze. The town was utterly destroyed. The
loss of life must have been very great. We
especially regretted the death of Mr. .lenks.
1'. S. Vice Consul, one of the finest men anil
ablest officials we had ever met. We soon
had the ship filled with refugees, and they
were coming on all night and the next day.
On September 2, the ship and all of its pas-
sengers and crew came near burning up. as a
great tank of oil in front of the Standard Oil
building got afire, and the oil came drifting
toward the ship at a great rate. The steamer
was disabled and moved off with difficulty,
but she was slowly turned round and out of the
way. For about twenty minutes the matter
■See Natural History, September-October |>. 536.
622
was in doubt, and we saw the oil just where
we had been shortly before. The next day
we were hastily transferred to the "President
.Jefferson.' "
From M<u j. main to Bangkok. — Mr.
Arthur Vernay, joint leader of the Faun-
thorpe-Vernay Indian Expedition of 1923.
sailed from New York early in October to
penetrate another zoological area of Asia in
the interests of the American Museum. He
and hi- associates will start from Moulmain,
made famous by Kipling, for Karkareik.
where elephant transport for the jungle will
lie secured. From there four months will
probably be consumed in travel before the
party, which will scour the intervening coun-
try, strikes the Meping River and secure-
boats for the trip to Bangkok, its objective.
The territory to be penetrated is a ragged.
steeply mountainous one. where there are no
human habitations and where the members
of the expedition will have to depend on their
own efforts to supply their wants. Mr.
\ ernay will be accompanied in his exploit by
two British Army officers Col. F. Percy-
Smith, who will devote himself to the smaller
mammals, and Major ('. H. Stockley, D.S.( >..
who with Mr. Vernay will engage in the
collect ing of the larger game. The expedition
is fortunate also in having as one of its mem-
bers Mr. Willoughby Lowe of the British
Museum, who will give especial attention to
the birds of the region.
The particular quest of Mr. Vernay in the
area of Siain thai will be traversed is the
Schomberg deer. Antlers of this animal have
from time to time been brought out of the
interior by native hunters, but little is known
regarding it. It has been assumed thai the
region harbors also a tortoise of vast size.
What has been alleged to be the track of
one of these reptiles has been seen, but the
creature itself, if it exists, has up to the pres-
ent eluded observation. Perhaps it will be
the good fortune of the expedition to bring
hack definite word regarding it.
The unusual success that attended the
recent expedition of Mr. Vernay and Colonel
Faunthorp" augurs well for the outcome of
the new undertaking. During the months
that were devoted to hunting in India and
Burma 129 specimens of mammals, represent -
ing 42 species, and 250 birds, representing
125 species, were obtained, not to mention
NOTES
623
reptiles and other forms of life. The expe-
dition received the most generous assistance
from the Viceroy of India, Lord Reading,
from Sir Harcourt Butler, Governor of Burma,
and from the native princes and officials in t In-
several areas visited. In the present expedi-
tion the King of Siam, as well as the Gover-
nor of Burma, is taking a cordial interest
MAMMALS
The Museum's Expedition to Ecuador.
That the regions of Ecuador selected for in-
vestigation by Mr. H. E. Anthony, associate
curator of mammals of the Western Hemi-
sphere, American Museum, are yielding in-
teresting specimens in abundance is evidenced
by a statement in a recenl letter from Mi-
Anthony to the effect that he and his asso-
ciate in the expedition. Mr. (!. H. H. Tate.
have been obtaining mammals at the rale of
more than four hundred per month. The
comparatively rare C&nolestes, a genus of
marsupials the nearest relatives of which
dwell in Australia, is always prized by collec-
tors in Ecuador and Colombia. Mr. Anthony
has succeeded in obtaining an unusually large
series of this animal. < )n three different nights
specimens were obtained of the rare fish-eat-
ing rats, and three weasels were part of tin-
bag of a single day. Deer and wolves were
among the larger game taken. Finally — an
augury perhaps of similar achievements still
in store — the collecting of a single morning
totaled fifty-seven mammals.
New Gexera Among the Congo Mam-
mals.— Among the mammals new to science
discovered by the Congo Expedition, under
the leadership of Mr. Herbert Lang and Dr.
James P. Chapin, are two of exceptional
interest. They belong to groups currently
considered as well known, that is the
African genets and the African monkeys.
It is to lie expected that new species will be
found among the material from any region
not previously represented in the collections
of scientific institutions; but forms so distinct
as to require generic differentiation are
scarce among the Larger mammals.
The unique fishing genet, Osbornictis pis-
iinini, named by Dr. •). A. Allen in honor
of President Henry Fairfield Osborn of the
American Museum, was discovered by Mr.
Lang along one of the numerous shallow
streams which meander through the rain
forest of the northeastern Belgian Congo.
This genet is the size of a large cat and has
a chestnut-brown fur, and a dark, bushy
tail. That one of the civets should take ex-
clusively to fishing for its livelihood is sur-
prising, as they generally show the feline
abhorrence of water. Externally the chief
adaptation to this particular pursuit is the
bare lower surface of the feet. But the sharp,
arrow-shaped premolars and other peculiari-
ties of the dentition indicate that the animal
is well able to dispatch such elusive and
slippery prey as small catfish and mormyrids.
The other discovery -that of a primate — is
of especial interest. The specimen con-
stitutes a new genus and has been described
recently by Mr. Lang as AUenopithecus in
honor of the late Dr. J. A. Allen. In size it
resembles the famous Gibraltar monkey, so
named because individuals of this species live
along the rocks of the impregnable citadel.
But although AUenopithecus resembles the
Gibraltar monkey in general proportions,
having a short, thick body and muscular
limbs, it is not tailless. Of interest is the
fact that it forms a link among the Lasio-
pygidse between the more terrestrial baboons
and the numerous arboreal guenons. This,
the first monkey collected by the expedition,
was shot by Doctor Chapin just before night-
fall, when the steamer was made fast at the
edge of the jungle along the Congo River
near Bolobo, and was the first wild monkey
he had ever seen alive, a most auspicious
beginning for a large expedition which was
favored by luck throughout its six years of
exploration in the Belgian Congo.
Mr. George G. Goodwin of the depart-
ment of mammals, American Museum, spent
t he month of August ami part of September in
the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec, hunting and
trapping the smaller mammals, of which be
obtained a total of 21)0 specimens, represent-
ing 22 specie- and including water shrews,
pigmy shrews, mink, and other fur bearers.
Prom Montreal to Ste. Anne des Monts he
went by automobile, making camp two miles
beyond the town on the banks of the Ste.
Anne River. Thence he traveled as far as tin
rough ground would permit by wagon, but
was finally compelled to transfer his equip-
ment to a whcelless platform of boards, a
raftlike conveyance that, drawn by the horse,
managed to ride over the -wells of ground and
I he wreckage of fallen trees that frequent l>
barred tin- way. Pater even this conveyance
had to be discarded and the journey to the
base of Mt. Albert in the Shickshock Range
624
NATURAL HISTORY
was made on foot. The region is a rough and
rocky one, where the mountain trees — for the
most pari spruce and balsam -have poor
roothold and are frequently torn from their
anchorage by the strong wind. Swift moun-
tain streams, that rush past the islanded
bowlders that attempt to obstruct their
course, are the haunt of the salmon, the bold
leaps of which were a sight to lie remembered.
A Rare Siberian Martin. The American
Museum has been fortunate in receiving as a
gift from Mr. John B. Deane, of the Far East-
ern Commercial Corporation, the skin of one
of the rarest and most beautiful of martens
Charronia flavigula borealis). Although this
form was discovered as long ago as 1862 by
Gustav Radde in the Bureja Mountains of
the Amur region of northeastern Siberia, few
specimens have found their way to museums.
Equal in size to an American fisher (Marti*
pennanti), it is classed among the largest
of the martens, the tanned skin presented to
the Museum measuring three feet, six inches
from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail
vertebra'. The longer, darker hair of the
body has that distinctive metallic golden
luster to which so many fur bearers owe their
high rating in the pelt market. The deep
yellow of the throat, broken up by snowy
white, and Hanked toward the upper parts
of the neck by black, the exceedingly long
bushy tail, and the dark limbs make the
animal ornamental in the highest degree.
\> sometimes happens, shortly after this valu-
able skin was presented, the American Mu-
seum received another skin, of the closeh
related southern Indian form. This skin
was acquired through the Faunthorpe-Vernay
Indian Expedition, which has tilled in so many
gaps in the Museum's collections of Asiatic
mammals.
OI'I IKK MUSEUMS
The Expedition ofthe Field Mi seum t<>
Chile and other parts of South America re-
cently returned to Chicago after an absence
of nine months. During the early stages of
the expedition much attention was given to
Chiloe and other islands off the coast. The
northern half of Chiloe is quite thickly settled,
but the southern half is wild, uninhabited,
and from a zoologist's standpoint very inter-
esting. The weather favored the members of
I he expedition and they were able to coast in
small boats to the most desirable points.
About four hundred specimens of birds and
mammals were obtained during the sojourn
at Chiloe. Of the birds, many marine forms
were collected by Mr. H. B. Conover, who
accompanied the expedition at his own ex-
pense; among the mammals there were, in
addition to those known to the natives, some
they did not recognize.
Perhaps the most interesting mammal ob-
tained at Chiloe was the tiny deer known as
the Pudu, of which there are only a few speci-
mens in American museums.1 It is the small-
est of the deer family, that is, of the true deer
that shed their horns annually. The largest
male obtained by the expedition weighed only
twenty-four pounds and had horns just
three inches long. It stands about seventeen
inches high at the shoulder.
In addition to collecting five specimens
of this deer in Chiloe the expedition secured
the smallest of the South American foxes.
Darwin noticed this species on his famous
voyage but since then it has remained com-
paratively unknown. Even the natives of
Chiloe doubted its existence and one well
educated man on the island who had a copy
of Darwin's volume on the voyage of the
" Beagle" wis rather inclined to insinuate that
Darwin had told a fairy story about the fox.
Happily Dr. W. H. Osgood, who headed the
expedition, was able to vindicate Darwin
by capturing a specimen in a trap which he
set for the purpose.
Other mammals obtained were a marsupial
related to Csenolestes, otters, spotted cat. a
small series of the coypu (an aquatic rodent
almost as large as a beaver), and mice.
Among the frogs and toads collected at
< luloe the most interesting species was
Rhinoderma darwinii, the male of which
carries the eggs and the little frogs, when
they emerge, aboul with him in his vocal
pouch, which stretches hack into a lymph
space between the abdominal muscles and
the skin. Doctor Osgood gently squeezed a
Rhinoderma that he had captured and the
batrachian opened its mouth, showing it full
of tiny little ones that had been forced up-
ward through the pressure.
While the visit to the island of Chiloe had
very notable results, the work of the party in
several other localities proved equally inter-
esting. While at Santiago, Doctor Osgood
examined the collections of the Museo
Xacional de Chile with especial reference to
!A specimen of the Chilean Pudu is in the American
Museum, and specimens of the Ecuadorian Pudu nrc
in that institution and in Philadelphia.
NOTES
625
the types of mammals described by Doctor
Philippi. He was able to make satisfactory
identifications of most of these forms, the in-
adequate description of which has, heretofore,
been a difficulty in the study of Chilean
zoology. In pursuance of a general policy of
establishing relations with the museums of
southern South America, he called at the
Argentine museums in La Plata and in Buenos
.Aires, and later visited the Brazilian mu-
seums in Sao Paulo and Rio de .Janeiro.
The southernmost station in Chile reached
by the expedition was the Rio Nireguao,
latitude 45° 20' South, a shorl distance north
of Lake Buenos Aires. Doctor Osgood and
Mr. Conover reached this point by crossing
the Andes from the coast via the Rio Aysen.
In this area, great herds of the guanaco are
found on the pampas. The ostrich-like rhea
is abundant. Most impressive of all are the
vast numbers of waterfowl of all kinds in the
lakes and marshes.
Mr. Conover is especially interested in the
game birds of the world, his private collect ion
being deposited in the Field Museum. The
game birds secured by him, more than three
hundred in number, form one of the most
valuable and interesting parts of the collec-
tion made by the expedition.
Subsequently Doctor Osgood and Mr.
Conover went to Buenos Aires. While in the
Argentine Republic, Doctor Osgood made
two short expeditions, one to the typical
pampas country southwest of Buenos Aires,
and one to the mountainous province of
Jujuy, on the Bolivian border.
The Museum's work in Chile will be con-
tinued throughout the warm season of L923-24,
by Mr. ('. ('. Sanborn, assistant in the
division of birds. During t hi' ( 'hilean winter,
Mr. Sanborn collected in the northern part
of that country.
REPTILES AND BATRACHIANS
Collecting Specimens ion a Gila
Monster Group. Mr. Arthur 1. Orten-
burger, assistant curator of herpetology,
American Museum, spent the summer in the
neighborhood of Tucson. Arizona, collecting
reptiles in the foothills of the near-by Santa
< 'atalina Mountains. In this area it was hoped
that there mighl lie obtained material for a
group of the Gila monster, the conspicuously
marked lizard of our Southwest the onlj
venomous lizard in the world and the fact
that fifteen specimens were taken i of which
eleven were shipped back alive proves that
the hope was well justified. Although incap-
able of fast locomotion — the fat drooping
body being a rather cumbersome load for the
shorl legs —the lizard is one to be approached
with caution, for at close quarters it will
lunge at its antagonist with the rapidity of a
snake. Practically all of the specimens cap-
tured were encountered on the broad level
shelves that form a kind of terrace on the
sloping canon sides.
By far the most prevalent snake in the area
was the desert diamond rattlesnake. Crotallts
atrox. Of this reptile more than forty speci-
mens were taken, not to mention three speci-
mens of the more uncommon species Crotalus
molossus, and one specimen of the very rare
( 'retains tigris. It is a common belief that the
rattlesnake invariably sounds its warning
upon the approach of a potential antagonist,
yet of the forty-five rattlesnakes obtained by
Mr. Ortenburger only two took the trouble
to give notice of their presence and. even
when definitely attacked with a discharge of
dust shot to facilitate capture, not more than
one in five would give a challenging dry buzz.
It is interesting to note that the black whip
snake, Masticophis pin us, formerly assumed
to be merely a melanistic phase of the western
red racer. Masticophis flagellum frenatus,
was actually more prevalent in the region than
tiie latter.
The most important observations concern-
ing habits were made on the spadefoot toad.
represented in the area by two species,
Scaphiopus couchii, and S. hammondii. It was
noted that these amphibians -which derive
their common name from the fact that they
are armed on the underside of the hind foot
with a horny projection, which is of aid in
digging— spent their days ensconced in the
dry soil, in which they burrow, but after
nightfall would free t hem-elves of their sand}
covering and make their way with active
leaps toward the puddles of stagnant rain-
water. The male spadefoot bleats like a
lamb, and it was this unwonted sound in a
region comparatively deserted that first led
to its detect ion.
In all. 1607 specimens were collected, in-
cluding sixteen tortoises, a reptile one does
not think of as a dweller of the desert.
AUSTRAL) \
\i HIEVEMENTS OF THE EXPEDITION OF I UK
American Museum. The recent return of
626
NATURAL HISTORY
Mr. H. C. Raven from Australia makes
opportune a review of the work of the Mu-
seum's Australian expedition as a whole.
The expedition, consisting of Dr. Wil-
liam K. Gregory and Mr. Harry C. Raven, the
latter in charge of field work, left New York
in May, 1921. The first object was to open
up relations of friendly cooperation with
Australian museums and naturalists; the
second was to secure a representative study
collection of the Australian fauna, especially
the mammals; the third and most important
was to obtain material suitable for exhibition.
The expedition has been very successful in
the attainment of all of these objects.
While in Australia Doctor Gregory ar-
ranged a number of exchanges, which during
the past two years have been largely consum-
mated. The American Museum has sent to
several Australian museums accurate replicas
of the great skull of Tyrannosaurus, original
limb bones of the huge Brontosaurus, model
restorations of Camarasaurus, complete and
beautifully executed models of two Indians of
the Plains, a life-size replica of the skeleton
of the greal fossil amphibian, Eryops, a series
of Professor McGregor's restorations of pre-
historic men, and other material.
On their part the Australian museums have
sent the American Museum a replica of the
skeleton of the giant marsupial Diprotodon,
an original skull of the so-called marsupial
lion, Thylacoleo, original remains of Diprotodon
and other extinct marsupials, an extensive
series of casts of type specimens of extinct
marsupials described by Owen, and some fine
slabs containing fossil ganoid fishes of peculiar
type. Models of Australian aboriginals with
accessories for a group are also promised.
The Australian naturalists have been more
than generous in helping the Museum to fill
the gaps in its collection of mammals, and
have sent a number of very important and
rare marsupials not hitherto represented. Of
scarcely less value has been the exchange of
scientific ideas and information and the
I in miise of continued cooperation.
Mr. Raven's field work, which extended
from August, 1921, to February, 1923, was
highly successful in spite of the difficult condi-
tions at present confronting foreign museum
collectors in Australia. Through the liberal
policy and active cooperation of the directors
of several Australian museums and govern-
ment officials he was enabled to secure permits
to collect a limited and specified number of
specimens in Queensland, New South Wales,
and Tasmania. For such active and timely
cooperation and assistance Mr. Raven is
deeply indebted to the following gentlemen:
Dr. Thomas Storey Dixson, president, Dr.
Charles Anderson, director, Mr. Charles
Hedley and the entire staff of the Australian
Museum at Sydney; Prof. Launcelot Har-
rison, Sydney University; Dr. A. H. Burckitt.
of the School of Medicine, of that institution;
Mr. A. H. Chisholm, of the Sydney Daily Tele-
graph; Mr. Ellis S. Joseph. Sydney; Mr.
Harry Burrell, Sydney. Mr. A. S. Le Souef,
Taronga Zoological Park; Mr. Heber Long-
man, director of the Queensland Museum
and Mr. M. J. Colclough, of that institution;
Mr. William (bay, North Queensland; Prof.
I". Wood Jones, University of Adelaide; Mr.
H. H. Scott, curator of the Victoria Museum
and Art Gallery, Launceston; Dr. Ray
McClinton, Launceston; Prof. T. T. Flynn,
and Colonel Thomas, University of Tasmania ;
Mr. E. Buries, manager of the Arthur River
Sawmill, Tasmania.
Mr. Haven will give some account of his
experiences and of the highly interesting
Australian mammals in a later issue of
Natural Histokv. But here it may be said
in a word that as a result of his work the great
majority of the genera of Australian mam-
mals are now represented in the collections of
the American Museum. This would convey
no idea, however, of the excellent character
of the material for study and exhibition
brought back by Mr. Raven. Besides the
beautifully prepared skins of mammals, he
has an unusually complete series of skeletons
and an even more valuable collection of
anatomical preparations and entire animals
preserved in alcohol. In addition to these
he has a small but representative series of
bird skins and a valuable collection of birds
preserved for dissection. Considerable em-
bryological material was also obtained, as
well as photographs of living animals and
Dotes on their habits.
Plans for exhibits in the proposed Australian
section have been adopted and the work
of the preparators is well under way. A
temporary exhibit of some of the material
secured by the expedition has been installed
in the hall of woods and forestry.
Dr. E. (). Hovey's Travels and Obser\ a-
tio.ns. — In a letter written under date of
September 4 from West Maitland in New
South Wales, Dr. E. O. Hovey, the represent a-
NOTES
621
tive of the American Museum ai the Second
Pan Pacific Scientific ( !ongress, held in Sydney
and Melbourne, speaks appreciatively of the
work done by the Congress and of the hos-
pitality shown the visiting delegates by their
colleagues in Australia. Not a few of the
American Museum's major undertaking- in
recent years have been devoted to the Pacific
and regions contiguous to it, and Doctor
Hovey was privileged to present to the gather-
ing accounts prepared by Professor ( (shorn
and Dr. W. D. Matthew, regarding the Third
Asiatic Expedition and a statement by Dr.
Robert C. Murphy concerning the Whitney
South Sea Expedition. Doctor Hovey also
delivered a paper, which he wrote by request,
on the rocks of the volcanic Caribbees, and
finally he presented an abstracl of an article
by Dr. Chester Reeds on varve clays and
other seasonal records of geologic time, a
subject elucidated by Doctor Reeds in the
July-August issue of Natural History.
In addition to attending the Congress and
paying visits, under the friendly guidance of
Australian men of science, to the local mu-
seums and universities. Doctor Hovey has
been able to inspect in their company certain
geologic sites of interest. Near Adelaide he
viewed the Pre-Camhrian (or Cambrian
and the Permocarboniferous glacial deposits.
He spent three days in the famous mining
district of Broken Hill, entering three of the
great mines. On his way from Broken Hill
to Sydney he stopped to visit the Jenolan
caves, famous for their beauty of dripstone
formation and the magnificance of their
chambers. The great copper mine at Mt.
Lyell on the west coast of Tasmania was
another objective.
Among the excursion.- of special promise to
which Doctor Hovey alluded in his letter
was one contemplated to the Greal Barrier
Reef. Doctor Hovey expressed the hope that
this trip, made possible through the generous
action of t he government of Queensland, would
enable him to secure corals from the reef as
well as other forms of marine life of interest
to the American Museum.
Among those to whom Doctor Hovey is
under special obligations for friendly helpful-
ness and hospitality are Prof. E. W. Skeats.
Sir Douglas Mawson, Dr. L. K. Ward, Prof.
R. L. .lack. Mr. Charles Hedlev. and the
Governor of Queensland. Hut indeed the list
would have to be greatly extended to give
recognition to all of those who in one way or
another enhanced the interest or contributed
to the value of Doctor Hovey'- trip.
BIRDS
The Forty-first Stated Meeting of
the American Ornithologists' Union was
held at the Museum of Comparative Zool-
ogy, Cambridge, October 9-11. Forty-three
papers were presented before the gathering.
and of these twelve were contributed by the
members of the scientific staff of the American
Museum. Dr. Frank M. Chapman presented
the first paper of the opening session, entitled
"The Arrangement of a Study Collection of
Birds." A paper on ••Midsummer Song
Sparrows," prepared jointly by Mr. John T.
Nichols and Mr. Rudyerd Boulton on the
basis of a statistical study of banding data.
was contributed to the Bird Banding Session
on < Ictober 10.
Five of the six papers that made up the
program of the Technical Session were of
Museum authorship. In their order of pre-
sentation they were: "The Forms and Repre-
sentative- of Caloneclris kuhli" by Dr. R. C.
Murphy, "Remarks on Thraupis sayaca
and Its Allies" by Mrs. Elsie M. B. Naum-
burg, "Life Zone Problems of the New York
City Region" by Mr. Ludlow Griscom, "Re-
marks on the Classification of Birds," by Mr.
\V. DeW. Miller, "Criteria for the Determina-
tion of Sul ispecies in Systematic < )rnithology
by Dr. Frank M. Chapman.
On the afternoon of October 10, Dr.
James P. Chapin presented a paper on " Birds
of the Kasai District, Belgian Congo," fol-
lowed in close succession by a "Report on
the Progress of the Whitney South Sea Expe-
dition" delivered by Dr. R. C. Murphy.
The closing day of the meeting was -ini-
tialized by several interesting papers, among
them being three from members of the Ameri-
can Museum: "Notes on American Oyster
Catchers" by Dr. R. C. Murphy, "Notes on
the Summer Birds of Newfoundland" by
Ludlow Griscom, "Mutation vs. Evolution
by Environment in Birds" by Dr. F. M.
Chapman.
Dr. Jonathan Dwight. research associate in
North American ornithology in the American
Museum, was elected president of the Union,
and Dr. Joseph Grinnell, of the University ol
California, and Dr. Alexander Wetmore, of
the Biological Survey at Washington, were
elected respect ively lir-t and -ecolid vice
presidents. Dr. T. s Palmer and Mr. W.
628
X AT URAL HISTORY
L. McAtee were re-elected respectively
secretary and treasurer.
VERTEBRATE F( )SSI LS
Fossils from the Siwalik Hills of
India. — The collections made, through the
generous gifts of Mrs. Henry C. Frick, in
1922 by Mr. Barnum Brown, associate curator
of fossil reptiles, American Museum, in the
Tertiary formations of the Siwalik Hills of
India are now being unpacked and catalogued
for study. They include a splendid series of
skulls of fossil elephants and mastodons,
rhinoceroses, hippopotami, giraffes, antelopes,
deer, three-toed horses, and other animals of
this magnificent extinct fauna, first discovered
ninety years ago and described by Falconer,
Cantley, and other English writers. Among
the most interesting specimens are three jaws
of anthropoid apes, whose exact relations to
their modern descendants, or possibly to man,
will be a subject for careful and painstaking
study. Fossil specimens of the higher anthro-
poids are exceedingly rare finds in the Tertiary
formations, and are of extraordinary interesl
because they are the nearest known relatives
of man existing that far back in geologic
time. We may yet discover among them
species that we can regard as his direct
ancestors. Plaster casts of nearly all the
known specimens of these Tertiary anthro-
poids have been secured by the Museum,
but these are the first original specimens
to figure in an American collection if one
excepts the fossil tooth from Nebraska de-
scribed as Hesperopithecus.
Field Work in Western Nebraska.
A fossil-hunting expedition from the Ameri-
can Museum, in charge of Mr. Albert Thom-
son, has been operating in western Nebraska
during the summer. The expedition has now
completed its work and eleven cases of fossil-
have arrived at the Museum. Most of the
work was in and around the Snake Creek
Fossil Quarries, where a very interesting ape
tooth, the only one known from the Xew
World, was discovered recently. Mr. Thom-
son reports that the expedition could not
find any more ape teeth, but secured a large
series of skulls and jaws of three-toed horses,
camels, deer, and other extinct animals. The
best specimen, he states, is the skull and jaws
of a gigantic camel, much larger than the
modern Bactrian camel. This is the sixth year
that the Museum has worked these (marries,
which have vielded many thousands of skulls.
jaws, teeth, and hones, belonging to [more
than 110 different species of animals.
ANTHROPOLOGY
The Creation Story Among the Navajo.
—By means of a fund given for the pur-
pose by Mrs. Dorothy Straight, Dr. P. E.
Goddard, curator of ethnology, American
Museum, made a field trip to the Navajo
Indians during the latter part of August and
t lie first three weeks of September. The
Navajo are by far the largest American tribe
of full-blooded Indians, numbering about
30,000. To a remarkable degree the changes
in their mode of living since the coming of the
Spaniards in 1540 have been spontaneous.
< Jomparatively few Navajo have as yet come
under the direct influence of missionaries or
schools. Taking over sheep, they became
pastoral but did not entirely give up their
pre-Spanish agriculture. From the wool of
the slice]) they developed blanket weaving
originating many designs. The growth and
spread of culture as the result of such new
contacts is the prime interest of ethnology.
The Navajo, perhaps in part because of
their numbers, have a most interesting un-
written literature. Much of this is already
known through Dr. Washington Matthew's
Navajo Legends. There are among the
Navajo many schools of "priests," or singers,
to u>e the native term. Each school seems to
have a special narrative of events regarding
the beginning of things, starting with a lower
first world inhabited chiefly by insects. As
the narrative1 unfolds, an explanation is given
of the origin of the ceremony conducted by
these priests. There exist, therefore, among
the Navajo numerous versions of the origin of
the world which are in many particulars
inconsistent.
During the field trip Doctor Goddard was
able to secure from Indian informants a good
deal of the creation story which he recorded
in Navajo text. This assures its preservation
in a more accurate form than is possible
in a translation. The Franciscan Fathers
of St. Michael's have issued an excellent dic-
tionary of the Navajo language but no texts
except songs have been printed.
Dr. Gladys A. Reichard of Barnard College
took part in the trip under the auspices of the
Southwest Society, paying especial attention
to the social and family life of the Navajo.
It is planned to continue the work next
summer with the same Indian informants.
NOTES
629
one of whom is a man of much influence. He
l- interested in the recording of his accounts of
the origin and growth of the Navajo tril ■ -
that his grandchildren may read them rather
than learn them orally.
Biological Laboratory at Colo Spring
Harbor
The biological laboratory at Cold Spring
Harbor is being taken over from the Brooklyn
Institute of Art and Sciences by a corporation
i uganized for the purpose. A 1 >< >ard of manag-
ers, consisting of fifteen individuals, has been
formed and among the biologists appointed to
this board is Dr. G. Clyde Fisher of the Ameri-
can Museum. The laboratory was organized
by Dr. Bashford Dean and directed by him
■ luring the first year of its existence. For a
third of a century, during the summer-, ii
has offered courses and has furnished oppor-
tunity and material for research in the
biological sciences. Following Doctor Dean,
Dr. H \Y. Conn was director for a number of
years, and Dr. Charles B. Davenport, who
succeeded him. has been at the head of the
institution for about a score of years. Coinci-
dent with the change in management Doctor
Davenport has retired from the direct orship,
and one of the first acts of the new board was
to nominate Mr. Reginald C. Harris to serve
as director until the transfer to the new cor-
poration i- consummated.
ERRATA
Through an error in the pagination indi-
cated in a footnote on page 507 of the Sep-
tember-October issue of Natural History
inadequate credit was given, on the one hand,
to Miss Mary Cynthia Dickcrson for the
series of pictures illustrative of her work in
nature photography that found place in that
issue and, on the other, to Doubleday, Page
and Company for their courtesy in permitting
the reproduction of these photographs. The
pictures that accompanied the symposium of
articles headed •"Mary Cynthia Dickcrson"
were all, exclusive of the frontispiece, taken
by Mis- Dickerson.
FISHES
The American Society ok Ichthyologists
wt> Eerpetologists held it- eighth annual
meeting on October 12. at the Museum of
Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Massa-
chusetts. Dr. G. K. Noble, associate curator
of herpetology, American Museum, gave an
illustrated lecture entitled "Observations on
the Habits of Some Local and Exotic Am-
phibia." At the business session Mr. John T.
Nichols, associate curator of recent fishes,
.American Museum, was elected president of
the society for the ensuing year. In view of
his multifarious responsibilities Mr. Nichols
a-ked to be relieved of the editorship of
Copeia, the magazine of the society, and
accordingly Dr. E. R. Dunn was chosen editor
in his stead. It is due almost entirely to the
initiative of Mr. Nichols that Copeia came
into being, and had it not been for his ability.
energy, and devotion in maintaining its
standard throughout the year- of his connec-
tion with it — a connection which has been
coextensive with its existence — it would have
failed to take the rank it now holds among
scientific publications.
A Monument to Alfred G. Mayor. — A
fitting memorial in honor of Alfred G. Mayor
(whose death on June 24. 1922, was reported
in the July- August number of Natural
History for that year, p. 3S0j has been
erected on Loggerhead Key. Tortugas,
Florida, between the old and new buildings
of the Marine Biological Laboratory of the
Carnegie Institution of Washington. The
memorial was designed by Mrs. Mayor, well
known for her work as a sculptor, and was
paid for by contributions from those who had
enjoyed the hospitality of the -tat ion when
Doctor Mayor presided over it. The inscrip-
tion on the tablet, which is of bronze, fas-
tened to a -haft of concrete reads as follows:
ALFRED • GOLDSBORo M LYOH
WHO • STUDIED- THK • HIoI.o ,1 • 01 • HANI • SEAS • AND
HERE • FOUNDED • A • LABORATORY • FOR • RB8EABI H
FOR • THE • CARXE HE INSTITUTION • DIRECTING ■ IT
FOR • XVIII • YEARS • WITH • . o\-[ i 3 • SUCl ESS
BRILLIANT - VERSATILE ... - • UTTERLY
FORGETFUL • OF ■ -ELK ■ HE • W AS • THE • BELOVED- LEADER
•>t ■ \LL- THOSE- WHO- WORK ED- WITH- HIM -AND- WHO -ERECT
[•HIS -TO- His • MEMORY • HORN ■ M I>< < < I X\ III
DIED • M. UXXI1
Thanks to the devoted labors of Mr. John
Mills, the chief engineer of the station, the
monument is assured a permanence which
nothing short of an earthquake can put in
jeopardy. Mr. Mills dug through the coral
sand that covers the surface of the Tortugas
until he reached the oolitic lime-tone that
form- the foundation of the island. Iron
pipe- wen- then driven a- far into the rock as
was possible and around these metal supports
tin' concrete structure, only a portion of which
show- above the -urt'ace. \\a- reared. The
monument is thus literally anchored to the
bed n.ck.
630
NATURAL HISTORY
Natural BTistory is indebted to Mr. Frederick G.
Kuhlkin for the privilege of reproducing this photo-
graph of the final phase of the recent eclipse of the sun.
which Mr. Kuhlkin took at Sheepshead Bay, Long
Island, with a No. .'i kodak through an amber-colored
screen that had been smoked with a match. The lens
was an anastigmat 7 7 and the exposure was '••:. of a
second
A Capture of \ Whale Shark. -In the
issue of Science for September 7. 1923, Dr.
E. W. Gudger, associate in ichthyology,
American Museum, gives an account of a
whale shark, captured June !>. 1923, by Mr.
(Maude Nolan off the Florida Keys. Various
hard parts of this shark, the fourth specimen
of Rhineodon to he recorded from the
Florida coast and the fifth from the Atlantic
Ocean, were obtained for the American Mu-
seum. A sketch of the fish, made by Mr. L. L.
Mowbray, accompanied by careful measure-
ments and an exact description, will make
possible the construction of a life-size model
of the huge shark, which is more than thirty
feet in length, for the new hall of fishes.
Doctor Gudger has contributed also to the issue
of The Fishing Gazette for August IS. 1923,
an article entitled '' Fish Smelling and Tasting
of Iodoform — An Explanation."
mind, but in the next instant, standing in
front of the group, one's attention is absorbed
by the insects themselves.
Like other butterflies the Baltimore has its
three ages (or four if the egg stage be included i
but they are more wonderful in their contrasts
than are the seven ages of man. On a leaf is
shown a yellow mass of newly laid eggs; on
the under side of another leaf is a compact
cluster of red. Few would at first thought
connect the two, yet the red formation repre-
sents the matured eggs, from which the cater-
pillars are about to emerge. The caterpillars
of this butterfly overwinter, and evidence of
the winter shelter, or hibernaculum, in which
the cat< rpillars shown in the group have spent
the cold months, is afforded by a brown and
shriveled cluster of dry leaves held together
by silken strands of the insects' spinning.
The spiny caterpillars themselves are shown
in characteristic attitudes, either crawling over
the leaves or pendent from them, ready to
pupate. On some of the plants are the whitish
chrysalids with their dark and orange mark-
ings, and from one of these a butterfly has
just crawled and is resting with folded wings.
( )n the broad leaf of a skunk cabbage another
Baltimore is seen with its wings spread wide, —
a position frequently assumed by this butter-
fly.
Within the space of a few square feel is
thus presented the life cycle of this insect,
which, although one of the lesser creatures of
earth, presents many phases of interest to
observing eyes. The group was prepared,
under the supervision of Dr. Frank E. Lutz,
from field studies made by Mr. F. E. Watson.
The insects were mounted by Mr. Charles
Wundcr; the background was painted by Mr.
Albert Operti. The representation of the
habitat is due to the skill of various members
of the department of preparation, especially
Messrs. Coleman, Peters, and Rector.
INSECTS
The Baltimore Group. — In the hall of
insects, American Museum, there has recently
been installed a group representing the life
history and characteristic environment of the
Baltimore butterfly, Melitsea phaeton. As one
approaches the group from the right, one
glimpses through a vista in the vegetation a
representative marsh scene, with the iris
lifting its purple tops, the skunk cabbage with
unfolded leaves, and a frog alert and ready to
leap. The setting has been flashed upon one's
LOWER IX VERTEBRATES
The Underwater Paintings of Zarh H.
Pritchard. — Through the generosity of
friends of the American Museum the depart-
ment of lower invertebrates has received a
splendid gift, consisting of five paintings of
undersea life by the noted submarine painter.
Mr. Zarh H. Pritchard. These form the first
installment of a series of twelve, the remainder
of which, it is hoped, may be acquired in
the future. These exquisite examples of Mr.
Pritchard's work were painted by him from
NOTES
631
sketches made on waterproof canvases and
represent submerged vistas of living corals in
the lagoons of Pacific islands, especially those
of the Society Group. To secure them, Mr.
Prit chard put on a diver's suit and descended
into the unusually transparent waters of this
region, producing pictures from a viewpoint
hitherto known only to divers. He has de-
picted in oils the delicate hues of the living
corals and the graceful arches and caverns
which underlie the coral reefs, as they appear
suffused with the iridescent light which pene-
trates the coral depths.
These paintings are now on temporary ex-
hibition in the Darwin hall of the Museum.
It is intended to give them a permanent place
in the new hall of ocean life, which is now being
erected. There they will form part of the
setting for the gnat West Indian Coral Reef
Group, which has been projected as one of the
striking exhibits in this hall.
Two of the paintings were donated by Mr.
Arthur Curtiss James, one by Mrs. William
K. Vanderbilt, otic by Mr. Paul M. Warburg
and Miss Bettina Warburg, and one in
memory of Mr. John Wood Stewart, who with
Mr. Pritchard went down into the beautiful
depths of the coral reefs of Pagopago in
January, 1917. Mr. Pritchard's work has
been exhibited many times, both at home and
abroad, while examples from his brush are to
be found in the collections of the late Prince
of Monaco and in many other art collections
in Europe, America, anil Japan.
Dredging off i he < Jontinental Shelf. —
Dr. Roy W. Miner, curator of lower inverte-
brates, American Museum, spent a part of the
summer at the Harpswell Laboratory on
Mount Desert Island, Maine. In company
with Dr. lliic Dahlgren, the director of the
-tat ion, he made dredgings at the edge of
Frenchman's Bay on the continental shelf, in
water attaining a depth of about thirty fath-
oms. With the material scooped from the
ocean bottom it is Doctor Miner's intention
to construct an exhibition group of Terebratu-
lina, in which in addition to these hinged lamp
-hells there will be shown the representative
marine forms such as sea stars, actinians,
sponges, and ascidians, that share possession
of the dim depths of the ocean with them.
Doctor Miner was accompanied by Mr.
Chris Olsen of the Museum's department of
preparation, who made sketches of the forms
obtained withspecial reference to reproducing
them as model.-. In addition to Doctor Miner
another member of the scientific staff of the
Museum. Mr. Frank J. Myers, research asso-
ciate of Rotifera, availed himself of the facili-
ties offered by the station for investigation.-.
He made studies of the pond life of Mount
Desert Island, with special reference to the
rotifers. About 250 species of rotifers, in-
cluding twelve new to science, were recorded.
Unusual opportunities are afforded the
student of marine life at the Harpswell
Laboratory, as set forth in an article that
Doctor Miner contributed to the issue of
Natural History for January-February.
1922, pp. 46-55. Ten research rooms and a
lil nary of more than 2000 volumes are given
over entirely to investigators working in their
chosen subjects. The equipment includes
salt-water aquaria with cold fresh sea water.
A collector is attached to the laboratory
whose duty it is to secure the animal and
plant forms that may be required. For sea-
going purposes there is a gasoline boat
with equipment for collecting in deep water.
During the past summer the staff of the
laboratory started a biological survey of the
waters about Mount Desert Island.
CONSERVATION
Saving the Redwoods of California. —
A signal triumph has been won by the Save
the Redwoods League of California in the
passage by the Legislature of that state, and
the signature by Governor Richardson, of the
Bill introduced by Assemblyman Rosenshine
and warmly sponsored by the League and its
officers, — John C. Merriam, president, Joseph
D. Grant, vice president and chairman of the
Board of Directors, Robert G. Sproul, trea-
surer, and Newton B. Drury, secretary.
Under the terms of that Bill the state board
of forestry is authorized and directed to under
take a survey of the state forest lands with a
view to designating those suitable for con-
version into public parks. Control will rest
with this body to acquire wooded land within
the selected areas •'either by gift, donation,
contribution, purchase, devise, or proceedings
in eminent domain." Through this far-
reaching measure it Will be possible lo acc|uire
tracts of great beauty and interest for the
enjoyment and inspiration of the citizens of
( 'alifornia and visitor- to I hai state.
An instance of t he practical operation of the
Act is supplied through the recenl gift of Mrs.
Zipporah buss, who has set an example for
632
XATCHAL HISTORY
other public-spirited citizens to follow in pre-
senting to the state of California an unusually
fine tract, 166 acres in area and containing
30,000,000 feet of redwood in addition to ot her
timber. The tract is given in memory of her
husband, Mr. Joseph Russ, a pioneer of 1852.
as a memorial to the pioneers of Humboldl
County.
The Wild Flowers of New York State.
— Everybody loves the wild flowers but in
our thoughtless acquisitiveness we are en-
dangering many species. When we pluck
a flower, we rob it of its opportunity to mature
its seed and so to perpetuate itself. Thorn-
ton W. Burgess in his recently issued Flower
Book for Children tries through that amiable
fellow student Peter Rabbit to restrain the
child from destroying the bright flowers that
attract him. But adults too need restraining,
and laws are necessary to supplement teach-
ing. Several states already have laws forbid-
ding the plucking of rare and interesting plant
forms; it is with the hope of enrolling New
York among the states enforcing such restric-
tions that at a recent joint meeting, of
the Torrey Botanical Club, the New York
Bird and Tree Club, the American Fern
Society, and the Wild Flower Preservation
Society of America, a committee was ap-
pointed, of which Dr. G. Clyde Fisher of the
American Museum is a member, to draft a Bill
for consideration by the New York Legisla-
ture, to the end that some of our state plants
that are in danger of disappearing may be
preserved for the enjoyment and interest of
future generations.
Since the last issue of Natural History
the following persons have been elected mem-
bers of the American Museum, making the
total membership 7090:
Life Members: Mksdames Dorothy Ryle de
Bernard, John Harden Dorn; Messrs.
Louis Bamberger, Gtjjt Cary, Robert
Goelet, and Goodhue Livingston, Jr.
Sustaining Members: Mesdames Elbridge
Adams and A. Wentworth Erickson.
Annual Members: Mesdames Elenore
\mend, Mary V. Beach, Morris Bern-
hard, M. D. Blitzer, A. O. Choate, Rus-
SEL S. COUTANT, F. P. GaRVAN, Wm.
Greenough, Elvertsen Hastings, W. A.
McFadden. Walter Rowland. Joseph T.
Tracy, Charles Wolf; the Misses x\1ar-
garet Deyo, Grace Greenleaf Lyman,
Parker McCormick, Hyacinth A. Sut-
phen; Doctors Joseph H. Abraham,
Henry W. Berg, Caroline A. Black,
George Draper, Henry Alsop Riley;
the Reverend F. J. Byer; Messrs. Harry
Abberbock, Wm. Hall Allen, Leon S. Alt-
mayer, Felix Arnold, William B. Bell,
David Bernstein, Samuel D. Bloomberg.
Bayard Dodge, R. H. Ives Gammell,
Robert J. Goodenough, Harold V. \\
Halsey, Edward Thorne Holland, George
H. Hudson, John Kean, Robert Winthrop
Khan, Charles P. Kelly, Walter H.
Kcikhn, Theodore H. Lamprecht, John-
Walton Livermore, A. Moore Mont-
gomery, Albert Moyer, James J. Pilliod,
Wilbur M. Redman, W. Attmore Robin-
son, H. Pendleton Rogers, Trygve Rovel-
stad, C. Adrian Rubel, Richard J. Scoles,
Henry Seton, John G. Townsend, Edward
H. Wood, Jr., and Morris Ycssim.
Associat( Members: Mesdames Edgar H
Bright, Eldridge M. Fowler, Francis B.
Sears, Samuel R. Whiting; the Misses
Louise H. Coburn, Anna E. Klumpke,
Sara F. Sadler; Colonel Cecil Stewart;
Professor Doctor K. D. Van Oort; Doc-
tors R. P. Burke, A. H. Cordier, Leonard
H. Cretcher, Joseph T. de Grange, J. A.
Gorman, H. G. Kugler, Ernst Lehner, H.
H. Morris, Alice A. Robison, Ivar Sefve,
J. Versluyns; Professors Alessandro
Ghigi, Hikoshichiro Matsumoto, Gui-
seppe Sergi, Harris H. Wilder, Edward H.
Williams, Jr.; Messrs. A. W. Anthony,
Jr., Phanor Breazeale, Edmund Breese,
Elisha Brooks, D. S. Bullock, Armon
Burwash, Donald Carlisle, H. Day
Cushman, Richard H. Day, Thos. G. Far-
rell, Francis A. Foster, C. E. Gosten-
hofer, W. R. Grandy, Rasmus Hanson,
Alfred S. Harkness, Jr., Gardiner Haw-
kins, Walter H. Hoffman, Napoleon S.
Hoskins, Albert D. Hutzler, Frederic
T. Jencks. Joseph L. Lackner, George
Langtry, Handel T. Martin, Paul C.
Miller, Edward Norris, Henry" J. Nunne-
macher, Jas. M. Ostergaard, George J.
Rankin, W. D. Redwood, John MacBeth
Richard, Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr., G. C.
Roe, Roger Kemper Rogan, Harry R.
Snyder, Jr., Elihu B. Taft, Samuel W.
Weis, and Frank C. Willard.
QH
1
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