PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 

 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Vol. 93 Washington: 1943 No. 3169 



SUMMARY OF THE COLLECTIONS OF SNAKES AND CROC- 

 ODILIANS MADE IN MEXICO UNDER THE WALTER 

 RATHBONE BACON TRAVELING SCHOLARSHIP 



By Hobart M. Smith 



By aid of the Walter Rathbone Bacon Traveling Scholarship of 

 the Smithsonian Institution, my wife and I were enabled to spend 

 the greater part of two years, from September 1938 to August 1940, 

 collecting reptiles and amphibians in certain areas in Mexico. The 

 work was intended primarily to supplement other investigations I 

 had conducted previously, but various opportunities were taken to 

 augment the collection of the National Museum by brief visits to areas 

 that had been formerly studied. We worked in several areas I had 

 not visited before, and the unusual opportunity was offered to collect 

 in numerous localities during the dry season. Practically all previous 

 work had been done during the rainy season, when the active fauna 

 is frequently much different from that of the dry season. Unfortu- 

 nately, it was impossible to reach certain other critical areas included 

 in the original itinerary, in spite of the very considerable length of 

 time at our disposal. Even had we been able to do twice as much 

 field work as was actually accomplished, the same statement probably 

 could be made; Mexico will remain an extraordinarily fertile field 

 for local studies for many years. 



After our return the authorities of the Smithsonian Institution 

 very kindly approved the continuation of the Scholarship until Sep- 

 tember 1941, to afford a much-needed respite from other duties for 

 study of the collections secured. The simple task of sorting the 



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