L> SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY OF SAN ANTONIO 



Kennerley and Woodhouse and Lieutenants Whipple and 

 Churchill sent in their unique Texas specimens, many of which 

 were named after their collectors. In those days Spencer P. 

 Baird and Charles Girard were the foremost American herpetolo- 

 gists and the two have their names, either singly or jointly, as 

 authorities for the majority of the early Texan species. Her- 

 petologists will remember Graham, Emory and Clark long after 

 their names and connection with the Mexican and Northern 

 boundary surveys will have been forgotten by other men. Con- 

 sidering the fact that most, if not all, of these early southwestern 

 expeditions passed through San Antonio, it seems remarkable 

 that this place cannot be claimed as the type locality for more 

 of the early reptile species. This is due, in part, to faulty and 

 indefinite labelling of specimens. Very few have specific lo- 

 cality records and such indefinite entries as "Indianola to San 

 Antonio" and "San Antonio to El Paso" are frequently found 

 in the early museum records. It is questionable whether some 

 of the specimens labelled San Antonio were actually collected 

 within the confines of the region that we now know as Bexar 

 County. However, to the intrepid explorers and naturalists 

 above mentioned is due great credit for the fact that they were 

 able to send specimens at all, for between the perils and hard- 

 ships of the march and the poor methods of preserving then at 

 hand, their collections were all the more wonderful. 



All of the Bexar County material collected prior to 1875 of 

 which the writer can find record, is labelled either San Antonio 

 or Bexar County. In 1878, a Mr. C. W. Schuermann sent some 

 San Antonio reptiles to the United States National Museum. 

 About the same time, Mr. Gabriel W. Marnock of Helotes began 

 his studies in herpetology which continued until his death forty- 

 two years later. He was a constant correspondent of Cope and 

 furnished that great herpetologist with the majority of his 

 southwestern Texas species. He personally discovered two new 

 species of frogs and two new species of lizards. The frogs 

 (Eleutherodactylus latrans Cope and Syrrhopus marnockii Cope) 

 are not uncommon in the vicinity of Helotes but represent generic 

 groups characteristic of the Neotropical geographical realm. 

 One of the lizards (Plestiodon brevilineatus Cope) is widely 

 distributed over a large area in middle and southwestern Texas. 

 The other (Coleonyx brevis Stejneger) although discovered in 

 the first year of Marnock 's collecting, was not diagnosed as new 

 until fifteen years later. Cope described a garter snake from 

 Helotes as Thamnophis eques collaris but the name has long 

 since been relegated to the lumber room of which all species de- 



