Sept-Dec, I9i8.] Sl.OSSON : REMINISCENCES OF THE SOCIETY. 137 



rivalry, and to an outsider like my rcportorial friend the sight of 

 mature, often elderly men, shouting- l)ids excitedly like brokers on the 

 stock exchange, for the purchase of mere bugs instead of bonds 

 seemed very funny, not to say absurd. One evening, after, through 

 the late Mr. Jessup's kindness, we were allowed to hold our meetings 

 in the Museum of Natural History, my next neighbor at one of the 

 meetings was a youth with whom I fell into conversation. He owned 

 that he was not a real entomologist but liked all sorts of creatures 

 and was devoted to natural history. In the course of our talk he 

 finally confessed that he liked snakes better than any other creatures 

 and told me sadly that he had his trials in the pursuit of ophidian 

 study for, oddly enough, his mother and other female relatives ob- 

 jected strongly to the presence of rattlesnakes in the house ! Though 

 I could see their side of the story I expressed warm sympathy with 

 the lad and we became very good friends. That, in spite of feminine 

 and family opposition, he mastered the reptilian subject and became 

 an expert in his line of research you will not doubt when I tell you 

 that the boy's name was Raymond Ditmars, our famous snake charmer 

 and student. He began young, you see, as do all real naturalists and 

 was as a baby, I am sure, " Pleased with a rattler, tickled with its 

 fang." Well, you have had enough of these wandering reminiscences, 

 I am sure. If you have looked for something historical on this won- 

 derful anniversary and found only something hysterical and frivolous, 

 please make allowances. I am a woman and an aged one, and such 

 are apt to be garrulous. 



But let me just add my warm appreciation of the courtesy and 

 kindness uniformly shown me by the masculine element, so largely in 

 the majority, in this society. I never forget it, can never fail to re- 

 member it, and I herewith thank from my heart all you "boys," as I 

 love to style you, who have been such friends and comrades to me 

 these many years. 



