New-York tribune., 1919-08-24
1NK SNAKES and pink alliga-
-~ tors are popularity supposed to
nXiSf only in Tho r,indr of oan

siSAaSA cAh 1IVM UcilIlutIl
tremens, but DR.. RaymoAd L. Ditmars,
curator of the Bronx Zoo, has
just. returned from ~@Jasper County,
South Carolina, with a couple of boxes
filed with all sorts of pink reptiles
He also brought back collection of
others of assorted colors, all natives of
Jasper County.
The pink specimens were caught in
or on the shores Of the Savannah River,
pink stream that derives it's pig
mentation from the red clay in it's
banks and bed. Plant and animal life
along the shores of>this stream have
all been partially tinted, according to
DIR. Ditmars, whose specimens are be-
ginning to show the colors nature in
tended them to wear after frequent
baths in clear water in the Bronx Zoo
reptile house.
But the gaudy crawlers are not the
most highly priced specimens. Two
monster rattlesnakes, the largest over
six feet in length. as big around its
middle rs a mans arm and with a
omous spear shaped head as large
as woman's fist--these are the pride
of DIR. Ditmarss snake loving heart,
and. best of. all, he says, his young
daughters caught the biggest one. They
are Gladys, fifteen years old, and
Beatrice, thirteen.
DR.. Ditmars, his wife. their two
girls, George Hurd (Mrs. Ditmars's
father) and Charles Snyder, the head
keeper of the Bronx Zoo, went on tho
Jasper County expedition, which lasted
for three red-bug- g-and- tick infested
weeks. Where ordinary folks are care
full to avoid the society Of snakes, this
little family party deliberately sought
out the haunts of these scaly creatures
with poison fangs and stings, in
dank swamp forty miles up the Savan-
nah River that is the winter play
ground of dozen well-to-do New York
men, who have incorporated their 2o,-
000-acre shooting preserve as the Pine
land Club.
DR.. Lewis Rutherfurd, Crawford
Clark and others are the owners of this
tract of virgin land. In the heart of
it they have built their clubhouse,
using natural wood with the bark left
on and surrounding it with a verandah
pillared with palmetto columns. In
nearby clearings each member has his
own individual log cabin.
On ''Tick Alley''
ss7HERE was a rice dam running
through the swamp, and it was
along the top of this that we did most
of our hunting for specimens" said DR..
Dltmars. ut was about three or four
miles long, right through the heart of
the swamp. 1t stood four feet out of
the water and was eight or ten feet
broad across the crown. 1t looked like
a country road and we called it Tick
Alley
"We'd go kicking our way through
the saw grass that covered the top of
the rice dam, and the lady ticks would
get aboard US and burrow under our
skin and lay their eggs. They work
quietly, ana we never reallZed their
presence until purple spot as large as
dollar appeared. Then in the centre
Of that spot there would rise pustule
half the size of a grape. Inside of that
was the tick. At one time I counted
about fifty on my anatomy and the
girls had more than twenty.
"By saturating ourselves with kero-
sene we managed to discourage most
of the ticks, but there we're always q
few persistent ones that insisted on
building a home for their young be-
meath our epdermis. But the red bugs
were worse, if anything, than the ticks
They also dig under the skin, so many
of them that the little red bumps they
raise give one the appearance of hav-
ing been sprinkled with paprika.
eve wanted to catch q big diamond
back rattlesnake, above all things, and
we required number Of cotton
mouthed moccasins. For more than