Reptiles of the World: Tortoises and Turtles, Crocodilians, Lizards and Snakes of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Reptiles of the World: Tortoises and Turtles...)
Excerpt from Reptiles of the World: Tortoises and Turtles, Crocodilians, Lizards and Snakes of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres
In the present work the author has aimed to give in a popular manner a general survey of the reptiles of the world. While the manner aims to be popular, and while the purpose has been to make the book inter esting reading, it is at the same time, the writer hopes, everywhere in accord with the latest results of the seien tific study of the subject; and he believes the special student may find scattered through the volume new information drawn from the author's long and syste matic observation of the various orders of reptiles, their habits, etc. - a course pursued both among the homes and haunts of these creatures in many parts of the world, and in the New York Zoological Park. The scope of the book prevents it from being, as a previous book by the same author was, primarily a volume in tended to be used for identification purposes: it is here designed to consider the class of reptiles as a whole and in a general way. But for purposes of identification the profuse illustrations cannot fail to be serviceable in a high degree.
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Raymond Lee Ditmars was an American herpetologist and writer. He was also a pioneer in nature photography.
Background
Ditmars was born on June 20, 1876 in Newark, New Jersey, the younger of two children and only son of John Van Harlingen Ditmars and Mary (Knaus) Ditmars. His mother, daughter of a firearms inspector at the Colt arms factory in Hartford, Connecticut, was descended from an old Pennsylvania family. His father, whose Dutch forebears (originally Van Ditmarsen) had obtained one of the early land grants on Long Island, was born on a plantation in Pensacola, Florida, and served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. After the war he moved to Newark, New Jersey, where he prospered in the furniture business, and then, when his son was about six, to New York City.
Education
Ditmars attended Miss Ransom's School for Boys and the Barnard Military Academy in New York.
Career
Ditmars resisted his parents' wish that he go on to West Point. Already an enthusiastic amateur naturalist, he instead took a job (1893) as assistant in the entomological department of the American Museum of Natural History. Although he worked with insects, he was primarily interested in snakes and soon acquired a sizable collection through purchases from experts, amateurs, and circus snake charmers.
Seeking a larger salary to maintain and expand his collection, Ditmars left the museum at the end of 1897 to work at first as stenographer for an optical instrumentcompany and then as a reporter for the New York Times. A story he wrote on the New York Zoological Park, then being laid out in the Bronx, led in 1899 to his appointment as assistant curator of reptiles at the new facility, by the zoo's director, William Temple Hornaday. Here Ditmars remained for the rest of his life, eventually becoming curator of mammals as well as reptiles.
Early in his career Ditmars began to popularize his knowledge of snakes and other animals by lecturing to church groups, social clubs, students, and scientific societies. He embellished his lectures with a miniature animal act in which waltzing mice, a leaping jerboa, a lemur, and various snakes demonstrated to the audience their natural agility. A pioneer in nature photography, Ditmars as early as 1910 enlivened his lectures with motion pictures of animal behavior made in a makeshift studio at his Scarsdale, New York, home. Despite his popular reputation as a leading authority on reptiles, Ditmars never won full acceptance in scientific circles. He published few papers based upon original research. Except for promoting the study of snake venoms, he did not participate in the rapid development of herpetology during the 1920's and 1930's, when new studies in classification, ecology, distribution, and life histories of reptiles appeared, and his later books were on general natural history.
Yet his talent for presenting facts about reptiles in a careful and entertaining way, particularly in The Reptile Book (1907) and Reptiles of the World (1910) - for two decades almost the sole popular works of their kind - helped lay the groundwork for later advances in herpetology by recruiting new investigators.
Ditmars died on May 12, 1942, in New York City.
Achievements
Ditmars was perhaps best known for the scores of articles and the several illustrated books through which he brought a wider knowledge of herpetology to the general public.
He received a gold medal in 1929 from the New York Zoological Societyin recognition of thirty years of faithful service, and in 1930 he was awarded an honorary degree by Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, Tennessee.
(Excerpt from Reptiles of the World: Tortoises and Turtles...)
Personality
Ditmars had a genial personality and a flair for theatrics.
Connections
On February 4, 1903, Ditmars married Clara Elizabeth Hurd of New York City. She and their two daughters, Gladyce and Beatrice, often assisted him in his work.
