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by Edward G. Nash, Managing Editor 



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k% JAMES HOOKS, who delivers the mail at Field Museum, 

 has delivered many thousands of interesting, curious — even 

 bizarre — letters and packages over the years. Field Mu- 

 seum scientists are called to give advice in many fields, some 

 of them quite unexpected. Hymen Marx, Associate Curator 

 of Reptiles and Amphibians, for instance, recently gave some 

 advice to a young lady employed as a "Go-go" dancer in 

 Texas. The lady used a Boa Constrictor in her act. She 

 wanted to know how to tame it and keep it from biting. 

 Mr. Marx was able to recommend a popular book on snakes 

 by a former staff member, Clifford Pope, and also suggested 

 that a reticulated python, which "will reach coverage size, 

 and has a much milder and gentler disposition," would be a 

 better candidate for work in the performing arts. 



Articles in the Bulletin often prompt letters of great in- 

 terest, and few have provoked more comment than a story 

 by Eugene Richardson, Curator of Fossil Invertebrates, 

 called "The Tully Monster" (Bulletin, July, 1966). Rich- 

 ardson told of a worm-like fossil of uncertain relationships 

 which had been found in the Pennsylvanian (280 million 

 years old) deposits of Mazon Creek, Illinois. He had previ- 

 ously described it scientifically in the weekly journal Science. 

 with an official name, TuUimonstrum gregarium, named for 

 Francis Tally, Lockport, Illinois, who had brought in the 

 first specimen. It was such a strange animal that the 

 author was unable to assign it to a phylum, which disturbed 

 his sense of order — it would upset any systematic biologist. 



The aniinal ranged in size from 2J^ to 14 inches, "at 

 one end of the dirigible-like body was a spade-shaped tail; 



from the other extended a long, thin proboscis with a gap- 

 ing claw; across the body near the base of the proboscis was 

 a transverse bar with a little round swelling at each end, 

 outside the body." 



The response to this little animal, which may have eaten 

 fossils so indistinct that Richardson could not even assign 

 them to a kingdom and simply termed them "Blobs," was 

 immediate and extensive. Many of Gene Richardson's 

 friends took the time to write with helpful comment. One 

 doctor noted the Tully Monster's "impish benevolent, al- 

 inost Schmoo-like, expression on its cuddly frame." An- 

 other correspondent insisted that Gene had the animal 

 backwards, and that what appeared to be fins on the tail 

 were in actual fact ears on the head. "This view is rein- 

 forced by the obvious resemblance of TuUimonstrum to a 

 certain black dog I know who has ears like that." A Nor- 

 wegian woman pointed out that the whole thing sounds 

 funny to Norwegians because "tull" means "nonsense" in 

 that language. 



One of the most interesting exchanges was with Mr. 

 F. VV. Holiday, of Pembrokeshire, Great Britain. Mr. Holi- 

 day has been a student of the Loch Ness Monster for more 

 than thirty years. He has watched the Loch Ness Monster 

 become, from what appeared at first to be myth, the object 

 of serious scientific research. Mr. Holiday wrote, "I think 

 I was the first to suggest {Field magazine, 1st. Nov., 1962) 

 that the Loch Ness Monster was probably an invertebrate. 

 Last year I narrowed the gap still further by stating my 

 belief that the LNM was a worm — a view which I still hold." 



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