Occasional Papers of the Museum of Zoology 3 



liad less contact with the outer world, and it is not remarkable 

 that the existence of the crocodile in Florida remained known 

 to only the "conchs" of the Florida Keys and to the few white 

 men who, for reasons usually good and sufficient, saw fit to 

 settle or move from place to place about the coast of extreme 

 southern Florida, equally anxious to avoid meeting the half 

 nomadic Seminoles or a better white man with a gun. 



Curiously enough, the next record for the crocodile is the 

 most northerly. C. J. Maynard, who knew Wyman and had 

 heard of his discovery, and who was and is a field observer of 

 rarest skill, made a trip in 1872 from the St. John's River to 

 the upper end of the Indian River. Maynard wrote a short 

 account of this journey for Forest and Stream (i, 1S73, p. 

 162), This was reprinted as Chapter i of Camp Life in 

 Florida, which appeared in book form, published by the 

 Forest and Stream Company in 1876, and was edited by 

 Charles Hallock. The little volume, now of real historic inter- 

 est, contains many short tales of exploring, hunting and fish- 

 ing in Florida which had had an earlier appearance in the 

 journal. Maynard killed a crocodile over ten feet in length 

 in a creek betw-een Lake Harney and the head of the Indian 

 River. No mention is made of the water ])eing fresh or brack- 

 ish, but the Indian River is strongly saline and the locality is 

 one to which it would be by no means unlikely for a crocodile 

 to stray. I know of no other definite records for the Indian 

 River, although I have heard rumors of strav crocodiles hav- 

 ing wandered to the southern narrows near St. Lucie within 

 the last thirty years. Maynard said that this was the second 

 instance on record of the capture of a true crocodile in the 

 I'nited States. Curiously enough, he misspelled the name in 

 the same way in both the published accounts and thereby 

 added a synonym to the already somewhat complicated 



