INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE, PHILADELPHIA. 



49 



presence here. The arid sand tracts covered with a dense growth of 

 saw palmetto are the reputed favorite haunts of this animal, and it is 

 here, probably, that the greatest precaution need be had in traveling. 

 Our first moccasin, the one killed on Perico Island, Big Sarasota Bay, was 

 found on a tract of this kind, coiled on the stalk of one of the palmetto 

 leaves. As has already been said, it manifested no disposition to attack, 

 even after being struck with a rake, and it is the common observation 

 here that, unlike the rattlesnake, this equally venomous serpent rarely 

 provokes an encounter, preferring to remain quiet except under immedi- 

 ate provocation, or when impelled in the direction of a food-supply. 

 While gathering fossils in one^>f the banks of the Caloosahatchie I was 

 for some time in unconscious proximity to one of these animals, whose 

 head, as I am informed by Mr. Willcox, who accompanied me, was less 

 than two feet of my own. Despite our close range, the reptile made no 

 attempt either to escape or to attack, remaining motionless on the over- 

 hanging branch from which it was suspended. All things considered, the 

 danger to travelers in Florida from snake bites is inconsiderable, and 

 probably not much more than in many of the proverbially snake-ridden 

 districts of some of our northern States, Pennsylvania or New York, for 

 example. We certainly met with no trace of that swarm of venomous 

 serpents which Bartram reported issuing from almost every stump, nor 

 is it likely that the somewhat unfavorable period of the year during which 

 our journey was undertaken, the hibernating period, will account for the 

 diversity of our success in snake hunting or snake seeing. 



Our anchorage in the mouth of Taylor's Creek was almost the only 

 locality where we were seriously annoyed by mosquito pests, although 

 one of our nights in the Caloosahatchie palm forest was passed to the 

 tunes of the little piper. We were, however, in advance of the mosquito 

 season, May August, when the air is represented to be thick with this 

 social insect. The general dearth of insect life was astonishing, and far 

 from realizing that we were traveling towards the region of its greatest 

 development, it appeared just the reverse. Only on the water surface, or 

 in the lettuce-bonnets, if we except the mosquitos, was there a semblance 

 to anything like profusion. The spiders were here especially plentiful, 

 representing a number of distinct types (Lycosids, Phalangids, etc.), 

 some of them of remarkable beauty. But the nectar-loving insects of the 

 north, the Lepidoptcra and Hymenoptera, were practically entirely wanting, 

 a necessary consequence of the almost total absence of flowering plants. 

 This remarkable paucity in the insect life of the region must doubtless 

 be attributed in great part to the early season, and possibly also in a 

 measure to the effects of the recent cold wave of the north. 



We found numerous small mollusks, one or more species of Planorbis 

 (P. Icntus), Limnea (L. coliundla), Physa (P. gyriiia), and Spha:rium (S. 

 4 



