SNAKES FOR CAMPERS 167 
Strange that the ignorant should be so 
anxious to remain ignorant ! If it had 
been a prize fight or a so-called “enter- 
tainment” costing a dollar there would 
have been a crowd of these worthies 
extending from the platform out 
through the door of the hall to the mid- 
dle of the street. 
I will now enrich the world’s scien- 
tific literature with the story of the 
first fossil that I found. 
While in the country searching for 
specimens of rock that I could identify 
I found what looked like a cow’s horn 
stuck in a piece of cement. A most 
unusual combination ! I broke this out 
and found it was much heavier than an 
ordinary cow’s horn. It was solid stone. 
Holding a microscope to the freshly 
broken “cement” I found it was com- 
posed, among other things, of minute 
shells, brachiopods and bryozoans. 
This “cow’s horn” must be a fossil. I 
had never before seen a fossil. I did not 
expect to find a fossil in a stone wall. 
I hurried home to find out if possible 
what it was. My imagination named it 
successively a mastodon’s tooth, a 
dinothere’s toe, and the horn of some 
ancient monster. 
I found that it was really a specimen 
of horn coral ( Zaphrentis ponderosa ) 
and the “cement” was the Silurian or 
Devonian mud in which it had lived 
and which had buried it several years 
ago. 
I mention this as an example of sev- 
eral discoveries of a like nature that I 
have made since then. 
I converted a bookcase with glass 
doors into a museum and in it I have 
all my specimens. 
Snakes for Campers. 
Mr. Allen S. Williams asks, “What 
do campers know about reptiles?” 
They know a good deal about snakes. 
In one camp, where I was a few years 
ago, but with which I am not at present 
connected, I vividly recall that on the 
evening of my arrival the girls, sup- 
posing that every naturalist revels in 
snakes, greeted me with an unanimous 
shout, “Come and see our snakes.” The 
reader may naturally suppose that the 
first thing that entered my mind was 
that there was some snake faddist in 
camp who had a lot of snakes in boxes, 
cases, etc. But not so, I found that 
the girls meant that gigantic snakes 
went swimming with them. 
It appeared that on the section of the 
beach where they went in swimming 
these gigantic five or six foot water 
snakes liked to go in at about the same 
time. But the snakes went not for fun 
but in opposition to the swimming in- 
structor. On that part of the beach, a 
bit long for that matter, there were 
innumerable bullfrog tadpoles of which 
the snakes were fond, and with which 
they would fill up until they bulged 
with tadpoles and literally presented a 
knotted appearance. The girls explained 
all this, and showed me some of the 
snakes, entertaining me by a song in 
which they screeched and screamed 
and giggled and shouted, “There he 
comes, there he comes, look out for 
him.” 
Then thinking that a naturalist must 
take a special joy in “such things,” 
they wanted me to see one of these big 
fellows close at hand. So a delighted 
group led me forward, as the guide led 
Mark Twain and his party to see the 
mummies, but in this case there were 
no preserved mummies, for unfortu- 
nately the snake they had buried a few 
days before lacked any preservative 
material. The girls, however, didn’t 
mind a little thing like that, and with 
the aid of sticks and one hoe they soon 
unearthed the snake and held it up for 
what they supposed would be my ad- 
miration. In deference to their desire 
to entertain me I did try to camouflage 
my feelings and to express with ap- 
parent joy my delight in seeing such a 
specimen of snakeship. 
But, Mr. Williams inquires about 
snakes — not those that swim around 
where the girls go in bathing, but those 
he carries in bags and boxes and with 
which he entertains his friends. The 
editor of this magazine has the good 
fortune to be personally acquainted 
with this famous herpetologist and cor- 
dially recommends him to our inquiring 
friends who may want to know about 
snakes. Address : Allen S. Williams, 
782 East 175th Street, New York City. 
In the new mineral collection of the 
Boston Society of Natural History, an 
entire shelf is filled with specimens 
found when the Boylston Street sub- 
way was dug almost in front of its 
own door. 
