COLLECTING MEXICAN REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS 

 By Dr. and Mrs. HOBART M. SMITH 



Having been awarded the Walter Rathbone Bacon Scholarship in 

 1938 for the purpose of continuing studies on the reptiles and 

 amphibians of Mexico, we spent the first year collecting in parts of 

 Mexico that could be reached by car. With our truck we camped 

 through the state of Chihuahua from Cuidad Juarez to Torreon, 

 Coahuila. Here the road became a highway, and during the remainder 

 of the year we followed the highways of Mexico which took us 

 through Mexico City south to Acapulco, west to Guadalajara, east to 

 Potrero Viejo in the state of Veracruz, and north to Laredo, Texas. 

 Various side trips were made when road conditions permitted. 



In May 1939 we left our truck at the home of Dyfrig Forbes in 

 Potrero Viejo, Veracruz, and by train, freighter, riverboat, and mule 

 reached Piedras Negras, Guatemala, located on the Usumacinta River 

 near Tenosique, Tabasco. After a very profitable month, during which 

 we were guests of Linton Satterthwaite, Jr., who was studying the 

 ruins at Piedras Negras, we returned to Emiliano Zapata, Tabasco. 



From Emiliano Zapata we went by horse to Palenque, Chiapas. 

 Palenque is a tiny village consisting of palm-thatch houses with abso- 

 lutely no accommodations for travelers. San Juanito, the ranch of 

 Don Ernesto Rateike, about 1 kilometer from Palenque, is very com- 

 fortable, and here we remained almost a month. Collecting here was 

 fair. It should be wonderful in the rainy season ; we were there during 

 the rainy season, but it failed to rain. 



At the end of July we made our way by boat to Veracruz, picked 

 up our car in Potrero Viejo, and during the month of August and the 

 early part of September made various collecting trips on the high- 

 ways accompanied by Dr. E. H. Taylor. Our previous stops in these 

 localities had been made during the dry season. Various faunal 

 changes are apparent through the seasons. For example at Agua del 

 Obispo in Guerrero, a species of lizard (Uta bicarinata) with a blue 

 spot under its chin was collected during the dry season. During the 

 rainy season none were found, but Anolis megaphoUdotits, which has 

 a bright red dewlap, were plentiful. They had not been found in the 

 dry season. The natives insisted, "It is the same lizard ; it just 

 changes the color of the spot in the time of the rains." 



After these trips by car we returned to Potrero Viejo. The high- 

 way between Mexico City and Potrero exemplifies the great variety 

 of types of country covered in a few hours on any of the Mexican 



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