The Florida Reptile Group 79 



accurate picture of the cypress swamps, which are rapidly dis- 

 appearing through the effects of fire, lumbering, and the pres- 

 ent movement for the drainage of the Florida swamp lands. 

 It is hoped that, beyond these points, the group may succeed in 

 giving one somewhat the rare experience that comes to the per- 

 son who for the first time visits these unique swamps of our 

 country. Reading and pictures have made us all familiar with 

 the sand wastes, the turpentine pines, the palmettos, the 

 prairies, the luxuriant vegetation along the rivers, the alliga- 

 tors, the diamond-back rattlers. But the cypress swamp itself 

 is a different matter, — we are not prepared for that. No pic- 

 tures and no reading can carry the effect of that to the mind. 

 It might be on another planet, so different is it from anything 

 else on this globe. In visiting the sequoia forests of the Pacific 

 Coast, we are filled with wonder at the magnitude of the trees ; 

 at the sight of certain cactus growths on mountain slopes in the 

 Southwest, we may receive a thrill as though entering some 

 dimly remembered garden of ancient gods ; but nothing has pre- 

 pared us for the influence of the Florida cypress swamp in the 

 full sunshine of afternoon. It is probably largely a matter of 

 line and color. The lichen-white trunks, as austerely straight 

 as the columns of a cathedral, gracefully curve outward at their 

 fluted bases; these same curves are paralleled in the fantastic 

 knees, while the broken canopy of branches above and the white 

 trunks below are everywhere wreathed and festooned with 

 swaying white tillandsia. The whole has a sculptural beauty 

 as though carved out of living marble by some hand other than 

 man's. The group in relatively so small a space can do little, of 

 course, toward reproducing the vastness and massiveness of the 

 original, but it attempts to suggest the spirit of the unusual 

 beauty of this part of our country. 



In addition to the work in herpetology, the editorship of 

 The American Museum Journal has been carried. 



