TRAMPS THROUGH THE GULF STATES II 



543 



time has arrived when such activities as researches in 

 the various natural sciences and geology should be en- 

 tered upon by the present generation far more extensively 

 than they are at present. At no time in the history of 

 this Republic has there been a period when so little work 

 of that kind has been initiated, prosecuted, and published. 

 The writer, having been actively and continuously en- 

 gaged in all departments of biology and various allied 

 activities for considerably more than half a century, 

 feels that he is in a position to make comparisons of the 

 annual achievements in the 

 departments referred to as 

 the years have passed. 

 Owing to the enormously 

 increased use of the air- 

 plane and the automobile, 

 the wilder parts of the 

 country are being overrun 

 by thousands of people 

 who never contemplated 

 visiting such regions be- 

 fore. Altogether too many 

 of these are destructive to 

 animal and plant life, and 

 absolutely heedless as to 

 using the material for any 

 purpose whatever. All this 

 can but work to one end 

 and that is to extermina- 

 tion. In some instances 

 this will be rapid, and 

 gradual in others. The 

 larger animals and the most 

 conspicuous plants will dis- 

 appear first, but the fate of 

 all will be the same. Cli- 

 mate and inaccessibility 

 will protect some regions 

 for a greater length of time 

 than others ; but even these 

 will soon cease to consti- 

 tute barriers, and the in- 

 evitable outcome will be 

 the same. 



What has already hap- 

 pened in Florida is, per- 

 haps, not so evident in the 

 case of the other Gulf 

 States ; but to a degree it 



is also true of them. Young naturalist-explorers should 

 ever bear all this in mind; and in making their field 

 notes upon plants and animals of the region here being 

 considered, it is always well to make a record of any 

 observation that is likely to be of any value to the 

 naturalists of the years to come. This duty is only too 

 often neglected ; it is by no means an uncommon thing 

 to hear of a person enjoying unusual facilities and oppor- 

 tunities as he passed through some comparatively un- 

 known region, arriving at the end of his journey with a 

 comparatively blank field note-book, whereas it ought to 



A RESIDENT OF THE GULF STATES 



Figure 13. Shufeldt's Crayfish (Cambaris shufeldti), discovered in Ala- 

 bama by the writer, figured and described by Professor Walter Faxon, 

 of Harvard University. Explorers in the Gulf States are quite likely 

 to meet with either animals or plants heretofore unknown to science, 

 and such discoveries are often important. 



have been filled from cover to cover with such obser- 

 vations as he was enabled to make from day to day on 

 the expedition. 



So important is this subject that entire books have 

 been devoted to it, and one of the best of these is a_ 

 volume of over 500 pages, published in London in 1861, 

 being a revision by Dr. Norton Shaw of the late Colonel 

 J. R. Jackson's volume, entitled "What to Observe or 

 The Traveller's Remembrancer." Colonel Jackson was 

 a Fellow of the Royal Society. It is pointed out in the 



preface that "the work is 

 intended for general use, 

 and will be found service- 

 able alike to those who 

 travel luxuriously over 

 civilized Europe or Ameri- 

 ca, and to the adventurous 

 and undaunted spirits who, 

 in all climates, are content 

 to have obstacles and en- 

 dure hardships in search of 

 Knowledge." 



This is the very kind of 

 book that should be studied 

 by the one contemplating 

 an expedition through the 

 wild and least known sec- 

 tions of the Gulf States. 

 So thorough and extensive 

 is the treatment of the sub- 

 ject in it, that it is quite 

 out of the question to re- 

 view all that it touches 

 upon. It may be noted, 

 however, that Section III 

 is devoted to the "Animal 

 productions or Zoology of 

 a Country;" and the au- 

 thor, in about twenty pages, 

 goes most thoroughly into 

 the question as to what the 

 explorer should make rec- 

 ord of along the lines. indi- 

 cated. 



Every working naturalist 

 in this country, and no end 

 of them abroad, is familiar 

 with certain nature text- 

 books wonderful sets of 

 books, carrying hundreds of plain and colored plates 

 and text-cuts. These volumes take into consideration all 

 the main groups of animals, trees and plants, shells, 

 fungi, and other subjects. But a few groups are still 

 left for treatment, the most conspicuous ommissions 

 being the salamanders, the coleoptera among insects, and 

 some others. 



Now, when one comes to study any of these books 

 about plants, fish, reptiles, batrachians, birds, and mam- 

 mals, it makes little difference which volume you choose 

 it is soon evident that, with respect to the plants and 



