202 Naturalist at Large 



epidemic of severe influenza running riot at the time. 



Fortunately they paid no attention whatever to my ad- 

 vice and, poking about, they went into the funny Httle rat's 

 nest of a curio shop kept by an old German named Peter 

 Hauck. It was the most slovenly, messiest little hole in the 

 wall that anyone ever saw. But Peter Hauck, for all his 

 squalor, was a shrewd, intelligent person. They bought a 

 few objects as ornaments. I recall an interesting little stone 

 figure which Rosamond gave to Edith as a memento of 

 our visit. At noontime I admired this and asked where it had 

 come from. I was told, and Rosamond added that she had 

 seen an extraordinary little stone pelican partially en- 

 sheathed in gold which looked utterly unhke the gold fig- 

 ures which are frequently dug up in the Province of Chiri- 

 qui and are even more frequently faked for sale to tourists. 

 She said that Hauck had a number of other things from the 

 same locality, but that he would sell them only to a museum 

 and that he did not want the collection dispersed. 



Well, I could not wait to get to Peter Hauck's shop after 

 luncheon was over. I found that he quite obviously was 

 securing material from a region that promised to be a rich 

 treasury. I bought the collection and had it shipped to 

 Cambridge. My address being given in care of a museum, 

 he was entirely willing to dispose of it at a quite reasonable 

 figure. 



When the specimens arrived and were examined, con- 

 siderable correspondence ensued with Mr. Karl Curtis, an 

 ardent amateur of archaeology and an old employe of the 

 Panama Canal, a warm and sterling friend of us all. He it 

 was who found that the floods of 1927 had washed deeply 

 into the sides of the river in the pastures of Don Miguel 



