94 Naturalist at Large 



although I believe there are one or two trees growing in 

 Key West. This is a delicious fruit, which I believe some 

 day we may expect to procure in Northern markets, al- 

 most as large as a Rocky Ford melon, the pulp bright red, 

 with a delicious custardy flavor. 



Who has not read Turtle Eggs for Agassiz? I have read 

 it time and again. The yarn I am about to tell has no such 

 charm. George Howard Parker was the best lecturer to 

 whom I ever listened as an undergraduate, so I was natu- 

 rally inclined to help him when he asked me for a boa. 

 He wanted the longest unbranched nerve which he could 

 lay hands on, to study the elaboration of carbon dioxide 

 under electrical excitation. I was going to Cuba. With 

 luck, I might get a large boa. When it was anesthetized 

 and put under water, the long vagus nerve being dissected 

 out and electrically stimulated, bubbles of carbon dioxide 

 could be readily caught as they issued from the water and 

 their volume measured. Now the vagus nerve activates 

 the diaphragm and the diaphragm of a snake is well aft. 

 Moreover, this nerve is unbranched. Parker yearned for 

 a boa. 



Before long I found myself at Soledad, in Cuba, and I 

 passed out word through the countryside that I was inter- 

 ested in getting a large Maja, as boas are called locally, and 

 was not in the least interested in small ones. Soledad in 

 Cuba is the site of Harvard's only little ward of Paradise, 

 a lovely botanic garden which I have been privileged to 

 visit for years. While I was sitting on the front porch of 

 Harvard House one hot and sultry afternoon two country- 

 men came up to the door, politely doffing their hats, and 



