Bibliotheca Herpetologica 15(2)

Bettelheim, M. P. 2021.   Rotgut and Rattlesnakes— A Brief History of “Snake Bite” Whiskey. Bibliotheca Herpetologica 15(2):14–17. Published January 24, 2021.   There are several men in the wild and wooly west who are afraid M. Pasteur will discover a better remedy for snake bite than whiskey. —Anonymous (Simonds 1900)   Someone asked the Kentucky Colonel if there was any cure for a snake bite except whiskey. “Who the h— cares whether there is or not!” said the Colonel. —Anonymous (Milton 1918)

Bibliotheca Herpetologica 15(1)

Savage, J. M. 2021.  The Herpetological Contributions of Christiaan Karel Hoffmann (1844–1903) in H. G. Bronn’s Klassen und Ordnungen des Thier-Reichs, with Remarks on his Treatment of the Family-Group Names of Constant Duméril, Gabriel Bibron, and Auguste Duméril. Bibliotheca Herpetologica 15(1):1–13. Published January 16, 2021.

THE AFRICAN CROCODILE HUNTER an Edward Orme Plate

 

Crocodiles are naturally defended by armour almost impenetrable; being covered with strong hard scales, except the top of the head, where the skin is fixed over the bone of the scull, and in the throat.

Notwithstanding the formidable appearance of the Crocodile, the African negroes, in the neighbourhood of the river Senegal, venture to surprise it in places where the water is not sufficiently deep to allow it to swim. They approach it boldly, having no other weapon than a knife in the right hand, and the left arm ·wrapped round with a cow's hide. As they advance they present the left arm, which the Crocodile swallows greedily; but, while it is in the throat, the negroes have time to give it several stabs below the under jaw, where it is most vulnerable; and the water getting in at the mouth, which is held involuntarily open, -as it is occasionally forced beneath the surface of the river, it is soon destroyed. The Crocodile is also at-tacked by a party of negroes; one of whom fixes the mouth of the animal open with their dart called zagaye, while the rest hold it under water till it is dispatched. The flesh of the Crocodile is white and juicy, and is considered by those people as very delicious but Europeans who have tasted it, have been disgusted by the strong musky flavour with which it is impregnated.

M. Goldberry says, that the flesh of the different species of Crocodile is constantly sold in the market of Isle St. Lewis, in Senegal, where it is purchased by the negroes as a general article of food. The author was several times prevailed upon to taste this repast : and􀅏 on one occasion, he even had a piece dressed in the French manner, with rich gravy and spices: but he says that no cooking will make the flesh tender-that it is never free from a strong musky smell-and, in short, that he considered the dish to be detestable.

From the 1819 book: Foreign Field Sports, Fisheries, Sporting Anecdotes from Drawings by Messrs. Howitt, Atkinson, Clark, Manskirch, & C. With a supplement of New South Wales

TAKING VIPERS, an Edward Orme Plate

 

Taking the Viper is apparently attended with great danger; yet the persons employed are so dexterous, that an accident rarely happens. Vipers crawl slowly, and are unable to turn their heads with any con­siderable agility, from the firm manner in which their spine is arti­culated. Some of the Viper-catchers make use of a forked stick, with which they fix the animal to the ground; and, while it is making inef­fectual efforts to defend itself, with the mouth open, the fangs are cut away: others provoke the Viper to bite at a piece of red cloth, which, being snatched hastily away, drags out the poison-fangs: but the most certain method of rendering them harmless, is, when the catcher has the boldness to seize them suddenly by the neck, holding them in so firm a grasp, that they are unable to turn. He then leisurely takes out the poison-fangs, and deposits the Viper in a bag.

In all hot countries the multiplicity of Serpents renders it necessary that the destroying of them should be a sort of business.  The Serpent catchers do not fail to impose upon the credulity of the people, by attributing their art to magical incantations. In India they certainly display considerable skill in their art; for they ascertain, by smelling indifferent burrows, in which of them the Snake is concealed! They pretend to charm the reptile from its hole, by playing on an instrument not unlike a hautboy; but it is a question whether the seeds of the dunneai, which they scatter on the floor, are not the only attraction. These smell like coriander, and seem to be irresistible to the Serpent, which speedily comes out, and is seized by the catcher towards the neck with a firm grasp, while his assistant-musician throws away his pipe, and robs the Serpent of its fangs. Thus not merely Vipers, but even the formidable Cobra Capella is rendered an innocent animal by the dexterity of its captor.

From the 1819 book: Foreign Field Sports, Fisheries, Sporting Anecdotes from Drawings by Messrs. Howitt, Atkinson, Clark, Manskirch, & C. With a supplement of New South Wales

This Day in Herpetology – January 1

Notable herpetological births:

André Marie Constant Duméril (1774–1860)

Charles-Alexandre Lesueur (1778–1846)

William Bruce Mabee (1897–1985)

Ira Loren Wiggins (1899–1987)

James Arthur Oliver (1914–1981)

Joachim Kosuch

Duméril, Constant (1774-1860).

Andre-Marié-Constant Duméril, physician and anatomist, was the greatest taxonomic herpetologist of his era. He was born in Amiens (Somme), France, on 1 January 1774, and showed an early interest in nature, especially insects and salamanders. He began his medical training in 1793, at the École Secondaire de Médecine in Rouen, specializing. in anatomy, but in 1795 transferred to the École de Santé in Paris. By 1799, he had been promoted to chief of anatomical work there, and in 1801 he became Professor of Anatomy and Physiology. During this same period he continued his zoological work and became associated with the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, in particular with the comparative anatomist Georges Cuvier, only five years Duméril's senior.

In 1803, Count de Lacepède, who held the professorship (or head) of ichthyology and herpetology at the museum, resigned due to his preoccupation with political work. Cuvier nominated Duméril for the post, and he reluctantly accepted but only on condition that he be regarded as temporary; eventually, on Lacepède's death in 1825, Duméril became official head, a position he relinquished, in turn, to his son, Auguste Duméril, in 1857. Thus, Constant Duméril's service to the museum spanned 54 years, during which time French domination of world herpetology reached its zenith, due largely to him.

In view of Duméril's enormous productivity at the museum it is easy to forget that he continued his medical  duties throughout, only coming to the museum to teach. In fact, he was a very popular lecturer and once remarked that this was the most personally satisfying aspect of his work. Cuvier and Achille Valenciennes were responsible for the rapidly growing collections, but when Cuvier died in 1832, Valenciennes assumed the professorship of malacology, leaving Duméril without assistance. Fortunately for Duméril and for herpetology, there was already someone on the museum's staff, Gabriel Bibron, who perfectly complemented Duméril's talents. Duméril's interest was clearly at the level of higher taxa and classification, as demonstrated in his first major work, "Zoologie Analytique" (1806), which covers all animals and shows the relationships of the genera; indeed, species are not mentioned at all.

France at this time, under Napoleon, was enormously  powerful, both militarily and economically, and the museum's collections were to grow as a direct result. France's victorious generals of the empire brought back large collections, even to the extent of emptying the shelves of museums in the conquered countries under the guise of "loans" or even as "gifts" of the grateful people to the French. This was also a time of great voyages and expeditions, for commercial as well as military purposes, when the European powers began to develop overseas possessions, and France was preeminent. All of the booty was returned to Paris and there came under the control of one man: Constant Duméril. Together with his primary assistant, Gabriel Bibron, Duméril proceeded to produce a project of enormous scope, a detailed review of the world's herpetofauna, based on the then-largest herpetological collection.

Duméril himself was responsible for the grand design and  arrangement of genera—the first natural arrangement of genera ever undertaken for amphibians and reptiles—and thus one of the classical monuments of descriptive zoology. He was assisted in the generic arrangement by a young German, Michael Oppel, who was his student in 1807–1808. Bibron's responsibility was the description of species. The result was the "Erpétologie Générale ou Histoire Naturelle Complete des Reptiles" (1834–1854), in nine volumes (bound in ten, since volume seven is in two parts) plus an atlas of 120 plates that was issued in plain and handcolored versions. After Bibron's premature death in 1848, Auguste Duméril joined his father in writing the two remaining volumes (seven and nine).

The "Erpétologie Générale" was the first work that gave  a comprehensive scientific account of all amphibians and reptiles, including their anatomy, physiology, systematics, and associated literature. In this enormous work some 1393 species are covered. Each is provided with a full synonymy and a detailed description; many are illustrated. By comparison, George A. Boulenger's later (1882–1896) review of the world's herpetofauna, also in nine volumes, covered 8469 species, but his descriptions are far less detailed.

For all the advances inherent in the "Erpétologie Générale," a major defect was the recognition of amphibians as an order of reptiles, a reversion to the arrangement of Alexandre Brongniart (1799). This was adopted in spite of P.-A. Latreille's (1825) separation of amphibians as a class and the accumulating embryological evidence of Karl E. von Baer (1828) and Johannes Müller (1831), a particularly surprising arrangement in view of the breadth of Duméril's knowledge. Besides his interests in higher taxa and anatomy, Duméril was from his boyhood an observer of living animals and, accordingly, was responsible for the creation on the museum grounds of the menagerie of live specimens (in 1838), which permitted many important observations to be made of relevance to systematics.

The death of Gabriel Bibron created a ten-year publication  gap during which two separate works were issued that must be regarded as extensions of the "Erpétologie Générale": the "Catalogue Méthodique de la Collection des Reptiles" (1851), a supplement to the volumes already published (one through six; eight), which, although formally authored by both Dumérils, is generally attributed to Auguste Duméril, and the "Prodrome de la Classification des Reptiles Ophidiens" (1853), by Constant Duméril alone, giving a preview of his classification of the snakes in volume seven (published in two parts, 1854). Despite their preoccupation with this grand project, the three authors continued throughout the same period to produce other works on amphibians and reptiles, often incidental to the larger project but sometimes even quite separate from it and of a sizeable and valuable nature.

By the time the "Erpétologie Générale" was finished,  Constant Duméril was 80. He had relinquished day-to-day supervision of the laboratory to his son the previous year (1853) and finally retired in 1857. During these last years, still healthy, his interests turned to his first passion, insects. He received many honors, including promotion to Commander of the Legion of Honor just two months before his death, in Paris, on 14 August 1860 .

• References: “Éloge Historique d'André-Marie-Constant  Duméril," by P. Flourens, Mém. Acad. Sci. Inst. Impér. France, 35: i-xxii, 1866; "André-Marie-Constant Duméril," anonymous, Grand Larousse, 6: 1379, 1870; "André Marie-Constant Duméril, Ie Pere de l'Erpétologie," by J. Guibé, Bull. Mus. Nat!. Hist. Nat., ser. 3, 30: 329-341, 1958 .• Portrait and signature: Bibliothèque Nation ale, Paris.

Biography reprinted with permission from Kraig Adler, SSAR. Source:

Adler, Kraig (eds.) 1989. Contributions to the History of Herpetology. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, Oxford, Ohio, 202 p.

This book is still available from SSAR (click here)

Letter written by Constant Duméril, 12 July 1812: