Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-01-12
THE HORRIBLE CHA MONSTER.
Also Some Account Of the Vinagroom and
the Grass Eating Turtle.

the Grass Eating Turtle.
San Francisco Examiner.
G. w. Dunn, the queer old white.
haired naturalist whose rooms at tn,
American Exchange hotel form the oddes
museum OF animal life perhaps Oh TIT
continent, leaves in day or two To-
Cape st. Lucas to gather together a lin,
OF animal life hitherto unknown to scien
lists. Hundreds OF people have in the
last few weeks called and peeped into the
old naturalist's strange collection
There the most horrible reptiles, taran
tulas, poisonous scorpions and the most
deadly insects from the burning chimes OF
the south are to be found.
"Since the world began" said the
grsy-haired enthusiast last night, "there
hasn't been but one naturalist at Cape
ST. Lucas and that was thirty years ago.
It is new land, cut [ know there are
some strange things to be got down there
that will stsrtle even the scientists. For
twenty years l have been travelling up
and down the country, across the deserts
and in the mountains, getting these
strangest specimens of animal life. And
among the oldest in all my experience is
the ella monster. Now, to this day,
many people think there is no such thing
as Oils monster. And yet, throughout
the Colorado desert, especially along the
ella river, you may encounter thousands.
On the contrary, too, you may scarcely
see one. The ella monster (Heloderdia
horidium) is almost as thick as your leg
and about eighteen or twenty inches
long. 1t has head which is pretty near
all mouto, and open clear back to its
ears. The head is about as big as half
Of cigar box, set with little, viclons
eyes, and the mouth is powerfully
muscled and set with four sharp fangs
and a lot Of grinders. The color OF the
monster is reddish with brown spots
It has blunt tall, IS nearly all
poisonous lizards have. I four d
these monsters living in the hot sand
They are not good to fool with,
and man who is in the ella monster
business must know what he is about.
One day last June I pulled up from the
hot desert to little ranch On the Colo
RADIO river. The man who owned the
place had a pet Gila monster which he
kept in barrel. He stopped down to get
him out to show him to me and some
friends of Ills who were there, and the
monster shut down on his thumb. He
gripped il so tight ini his awful mouth,
which WAS like wise, that his jaws had
to be pried open with an iron bar. The
man orig lived q few hours and died in
terrible spasms. Another man bitten
while WAS down there has ever since
been pSralyZed in the side. Hardly any
body ever gets over bite from this ter
rible animal. Nova tarantular makes q
bad sore, but it doesn't kill man. [
have got awake frequentlyin the morning
while camping out, and found tarantulas
curled up on the edge Of my blanket.
They do that to keep warm, but il you
are careful about disturbing them they
won't bite you.
"The horrible reptile called the VIVA
groom by the Mexicans, AID meaning
smelling like vinegar ranks next to the
ella monster in vicious and poisonous
The vinsgroom (the-
epholus excubiter) Is found in the
Organ mountains. There is nothing like
t but itself. 1t Is kind of compound of
scorpion, lobster and three or four kin
1red animals. It is four or five inches
notified brown color.
1HlNthS dUOut StlnESc lcatuISS VI al
NAL life, we have on the Mojave desert
turtle that eats grass. 1t lives in holes
N the sand, which it makes to escape the
intense heat of the sun. You may take a
stick and get them out. They are the
y erobates Agsssizi, lately named for the
CREST naturalist, very pretty turtle that
gets On good feeding, to be about ten
inches long and to weigh six to eight
pounds. A woman down on the desert
asst summer where was had eight or ten
Of them in an open pen, which she was
TO est. They ate grass like
lorses. When these turtles get fat as
hey quickly do on the grass, they beat all
he frogs or rosst turkeys you ever ate.
An ordinary enc of these turtles is worth
80 or 81.
Mr.. Dunn has been collecting for the
California State University, but for years
,sst he has travelled thousands of miles
or the Smithsonian Institution, and he
las also furnished Harvard and Yale and
The older institutions CT Europe with rare
'pecimeDs.