

Jan., '07] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 27 



St. Louis, Sept. 26th.— Myriads of butterflies, all moving by flock in a 

 general southerly direction over the city, sometimes circling, attracted 

 much attention this afternoon, particularly in the business streets. 



Little groups of people craned their necks and shaded their eyes against 

 the sun while they stared at the unusual spectacle. The butterflies were 

 very large, some measuring about three inches from tip to tip of their 

 wings, and were of a light brownish color. 



The main body of the flock flew high in the air, well above the roofs of 

 the tall buildings. 



There is nothing that Dr. F. H. Snow brought back from his recent 

 collecting expedition in Southern Arizona that he prizes more highly 

 than the Gila monster, which he captured shortly before his return to 

 Lawrence, which gained considerable notoriety by biting him on the 

 thumb. The last five weeks since the return of the expedition the 

 monster has spent in a cage in Dr. Snow's back yard and seems to like 

 its new Kansas home fully as well as its former habitat in the southern 

 hills of Arizona. It has not been sick a single day of its captivity and 

 takes its meals of raw eggs even - three days as regularly as clock work, 



Gila, as Dr. Snow calls the creature for short, is a large lizard, being 

 a little more than a foot long and has a head nearly two inches wide. 

 Its mouth is amazingly large and is entirely out of proportion to the 

 rest of the body. Its body is yellow and dark brown and at a short 

 distance looks like Indian bead work. 



Hour after hour Gila will lie in its cage without moving and appears 

 as if it were dead, but stir it up with a stick or let it get angry and it 

 will crawl around at a wonderfully fast pace. It is gentle and will 

 never bite unless it is tormented or angry. Once let it get angry and it 

 will seize the end of a stick or anything thrust at it and hold on for 

 dear life. 



To watch it eat is an interesting sight. In nature the Gila monster 

 lives on insects, but thus far in captivity it appears to be thriving on 

 raw eggs. After a little experimenting Dr. Snow has found that every 

 three days is the right time to feed the creature. When the time for- 

 feeding arrives he grabs the lizard by the neck and lays it out on a 

 table or flat box. He then cracks an egg in a saucer and thrusts the 

 creature's nose down in it and the Gila does the rest. It stretches out 

 its long tongue into the saucer and greedily laps up raw egg until it has 

 a mouthful. Then it slowly raises its head to a vertical position and 

 lets the egg run down its throat. After it has once started eating, 

 Gila needs no urging, but laps away greedily until its hunger is satisfied. 

 The last time Dr. Snow fed the animal it finished two raw eggs. 



It would hardly be correct to call Gila a family pet, for all the mem- 

 bers of Dr. Snow's family are afraid of it except Dr. Snow. As far 

 as he is concerned, however, he handles it about fearlessly in spite of 



