9 
Brodkorb soon developed a significant personality clash. 
In the view of Carl Gans, who was doing postdoctoral work 
at the Florida State Museum at the time and who presently 
is one of the most renowned herpetologists in the United 
States, it is a great sorrow that Neill was not quickly 
awarded his doctorate based on his proven productivity and 
obvious contributions to herpetology, rather than being 
forced to temporarily bottle up more than twenty years of 
independent thought. He could have secured a decent 
academic position, rather than returning to New Port 
Richey. Whether Wilfred would have fit into the quickly 
changing academic scene, with its new requirements for 
statistical data analysis and decreasing emphasis on 
descriptive biology, will never be known. 
I will not detail Neill's life after leaving Gainesville, 
other than to briefly describe his continued productivity. 
During the years between 1965 and 1978, he wrote five 
books, including the classic The Last of the Ruling 
Reptiles: Alligators, Crocodiles, and Their Kin (1971). 
One book he wanted to write but never got to was "David in 
China," about the discoverer of the Chinese giant 
salamander, Andrias davidianus . Although his writing of 
scientific papers declined after 1966, he started writing 
for the Pasco-Hernando Edition of the St. Petersburg 
Times, creating a weekly column about early life in Florida 
called "Pioneer Past." He taught night classes at Pasco- 
Hernando Junior College in New Port Richey. And for a 
change of pace, he wrote several historical novels about 
the lives of western Indians, including Wildcat in the 
West, Birdwoman's Real Story, and Quanna Parker's Magic 
Button. 
Wilfred T. Neill's contributions to Southeastern 
herpetology have been recognized by the scientific 
community, most recently in the introductions of Ray and 
Pat Ashton's three books on Florida's amphibians and 
reptiles. Kraig Adler plans to include Wilfred in his 
second volume on Contributions to the History of 
Herpetology, to be published eventually by the Society for 
the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. But, to my 
knowledge, this present article, only a thumbnail sketch, 
represents the most extensive description of the breath of 
Neill's accomplishments. In the public's memory, he was 
largely overshadowed by Ross Allen. His scientific 
contributions have not been fully recognized, both because 
of his personality and because Ross Allen's Reptile 
Institute was a tourist attraction as well as a research 
facility. Neill's longer papers, especially "Historical 
