PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM Vol. 93 Washington: 1943 No. 3169 SUMMARY OF THE COLLECTIONS OF SNAKES AND CROC-ODILIANS MADE IN MEXICO UNDER THE WALTER RATHBONE BACON TRAVELING SCHOLARSHIP By Hobart M. Smith By aid of the Walter Rathbone Bacon Traveling Scholarship of the Smithsonian Institution, my wife and I were enabled to spend the greater part of two years, from September 1938 to August 1940, collecting reptiles and amphibians in certain areas in Mexico. The work was intended primarily to supplement other investigations I had conducted previously, but various opportunities were taken to augment the collection of the National Museum by brief visits to areas that had been formerly studied. We worked in several areas I had not visited before, and the unusual opportunity was offered to collect in numerous localities during the dry season. Practically all previous work had been done during the rainy season, when the active fauna is frequently much different from that of the dry season. Unfortu-nately, it was impossible to reach certain other critical areas included in the original itinerary, in spite of the very considerable length of time at our disposal. Even had we been able to do twice as much field work as was actually accomplished, the same statement probably could be made; Mexico will remain an extraordinarily fertile field for local studies for many years. After our return the authorities of the Smithsonian Institution very kindly approved the continuation of the Scholarship until Sep-tember 1941, to afford a much-needed respite from other duties for study of the collections secured. The simple task of sorting the 529454—43 1 393
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