Reptiles and Amphibians 

 Collected in Brewster, County, Texas 



BY JOHN K. STRECKER, JR. 



In the Spring of 1905, the writer undertook an exploration of Brewster 

 County in Trans-Pecos Texas, in the interest of the Baylor University 

 Museum. He was accompanied by Mr. William T. Baines of Alpine as 

 guide and Mr. Earle Prade of Waco as taxidermist. 



The base of supplies was Alpine, the county seat of this immense tract of 

 land which is one of the largest and, physiographically, the roughest, counties 

 in the State. From the i8th to the 28th of April, we were encamped at 

 Paisano Pass on the border of Presidio County, and on the return trip spent 

 two days at Blackburn's Ranch, between that point and Cathedral Mountain. 



On returning to Alpine we spent two days in outfitting and then crossed the 

 county from north to south in an attempt to make the higher elevations of the 

 Chisos Mountains. We first headed in a south-easterly direction, crossing 

 Calamity Creek, passing by Elephant Mesa and through the Santiago Moun- 

 tains ; thence changed our course to the south-west, crossed Terlingua Creek in 

 the Cinnabar Region and then south-eastward again into the foot-hills of the 

 Chisos Range. 



Near Paisano, I happened to an accident which placed me on the cripple list 

 for the rest of the trip. In an attempt to scramble over some high rocks while 

 , in pursuit of a rare bird, I had the misfortune to slip and fall a distance of 

 nearly thirty feet, landing on my stomach on some jagged rocks. As a result, 

 a large contusion was formed, which, finally developing into an abscess, in- 

 capacitated me for very active work for several months. 



On the trip to Terlingua and beyond, we suffered greatly from the ex- 

 tremes of heat and cold and from a lack of wholesome drinking water. For 

 several days we were on a diet of canned fruit and tomatoes, these being about 

 the only articles of food which were not saturated with either formalin or 

 kerosene. 



As a consequence of these misadventures, the results of the trip were poorer 

 than we had wished for, but we succeeded in obtaining a small but valuable 

 collection of birds, a number of mammals and a fairly representative series of 

 reptiles and amphibians. 



After we returned from our attempt to conquer the Chisos, we camped in 

 Du Bois Canyon for several days and then devoted the rest of our stay in the 

 county to collecting in the neighborhood of Alpine. As I look back ever the 

 months of misery which followed in the wake of this "hard-luck" trip, many 

 of its incidents recur like remembrances of a long-drawn-out nightmare. 



To the indefatigable Prade is due much of the credit for the material col- 

 lected and the observations recorded and I express my gratitude to him and 

 Baines for their valuable services and cheerful companionship. 



In the following list, for the sake of completeness, I have included mention 



