94 WILLIAM BARTRAM 



Kellogg thought he detected " obvious embellishments." ^^ And 

 it has remained for a scientist to prove that Bartram's account 

 of the alligators, poetical as it may be, is neither fantastic nor 

 hyperbolic. Dr. Francis Harper, in a recent article based on his 

 own explorations in the region which Bartram had visited, 

 comes to the conclusion that " The fidelity and accuracy of Bar- 

 tram's account as a whole . . . are most impressive." Bartram's 

 description of the roaring of the alligators is, in his opinion, 

 " The only genuine, first-hand account by a naturalist," and 

 Bartram's book generally is a " classic " which cannot be " over- 

 looked by any zoologist." ^* 



While on the subject of " reptilians," one cannot overlook 

 Bartram's lizards and snakes. His lizards, though they do not 

 startle one as his alligators do, dart across his path and he stops 

 to observe and describe them. He tells us that the largest 

 specimen of the " little green chameleon " that he has ever seen 

 " is seven inches in length," that he has seen striped lizards, 

 " called scorpion," " blue bellied squomous lizards," " a large 

 copper coloured lizard, and a very slender one of a fine blue 

 colour" {Travels, p. 280). 



Snakes appear frequently in Bartram's narrative. They invade 

 his camps; he stumbles upon them on the road; he goes out of 

 his way to study them. He observes their color, studies their 

 habits, philosophizes about them, and pleads for them against 

 man's enmity. Once he was even served rattle-snake flesh for 

 dinner; he tasted it, he admits, but he could not swallow it 

 (p. 271). Curious species of snakes attract his attention. The 

 glass snake is in " colour and texture . . . like bluish green glass, 

 which, together with its fragility, almost persuades a stranger 

 that they are (sic) in reality of that brittle substance " (p. 196) . 

 The green snake is " a beautiful innocent creature," and so is 

 the ribband snake (p. 275). The moccasin snake is a "' large 

 and horrid serpent " (p. 272) . The pine or bull snake is " pied 

 black and white " and utters " a terrible loud hissing noise, 

 sounding very hollow and like distant thunder " (p. 276) . The 



^^ Remington Kellog, The Habits and Economic Importance of Alligators. 

 Tech. Bull. No. 47, U. S. Dept. Agri., Dec, 1929, p. 10. 



"■"Alligators of the Okefinokee," Scientific Monthly, XXXI (1930), 51-67. 



