4 BULLETIN 199, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ITINERARY AND GAZETTEER OF LOCALITIES FOR THE WALTER 

 RATHBONE BACON EXPEDITION, 1938-1941 



As previously stated, the senior author was enabled to collect in 

 and study material from Mexico by tenure of a Walter Rathbone 

 Bacon Traveling Scholarship from 1938 to 1941. The collection 

 obtained during those years has formed an important addition to 

 other material from Mexico and merits an elaboration of the routes 

 traversed by the expedition and the localities at which specimens 

 were secured. Such an itinerary was, as a matter of fact, to have 

 accompanied a study of the lizards of the Bacon collection, as stated 

 in our introduction to the summary of the amphibians (Proc. U. S. 

 Nat. Mus., vol. 95, 1945, p. 521). It now seems unlikely that a com- 

 plete survey of the Bacon Hzards can appear for a number of years, 

 for a satisfactory completion of such a study involves revision of a 

 number of very sketchily understood genera, such as Anolis and 

 Cnemidophorus. In the meantime a need for an account of the Bacon 

 itinerary and localities continues to exist. We have, accordingly, 

 taken this opportunity to present this information in this the final 

 checklist. 



The expedition personnel consisted of the senior author and his wife. 

 They received hearty support in field work from a number of indi- 

 viduals, through whose combined efforts about 22,000 specimens were 

 secured during a period of two years. As closel}'' as can now be deter- 

 mined (the lizards not yet having been fully studied), 500 species and 

 subspecies (146 amphibians, 160 lizards, 1 amphisbaenian, 170 snakes, 

 20 turtles, 3 crocodilians) were secured. 



Among those who contributed to the success of the expedition are 

 Dr. Alexander Wetmore, who saw to it that the expedition was prop- 

 erly planned and could function smoothly; Dr. Doris M. Cocliran, 

 who must have nearly equaled the expedition personnel in time ex- 

 pended for the collection, inasmuch as the laborious task of cataloging 

 the specimens rested with her; Dr. Linton P. Satterthwaite, who 

 provided the facilities for our stay at Piedras Negras in the midst of a 

 Httle-known, remote, and austere area; Mr. and Mrs. Dyfrig McH. 

 Forbes, who provided for nearly two years a base of operations in 

 Veracruz and who were a constant source of companionship, inspira- 

 tion, and material; Eizi Matuda, who very generously provided facil- 

 ities for a two-month stay at his finca and who sympathetically aided 

 us in every possible way to sample the herpetofauna of the area as 

 thoroughly as possible; Thomas MacDougall, who in Tehuantepec 

 secured for us numerous specimens and arranged for our travel into 

 areas otherwise difficult of access; Ernest Rateike, of Palenque, 

 Chiapas, who accepted us as a guest in his home for a month: and a 



