His Vain Search for Adventure

I thought I had put this in my blog months ago, as I was entertained by reading it. The quality of the scan was so bad that it went through the digitizing processor very poorly so I just read the PDF document, never creating a proper blog entry. Enjoy!/drf

His Vain Search for Adventure

Slept With Escaped Convicts and Hunted Outlaws, Had Murderer For an Escort,

Etc, Etc, But Couldn't Find a Thrill Anywhere

By A. Hyatt Verrill

The Boston Sunday Globe - August 24, 1930. Researched by Alan Schenker; digitized by Doug Frizzle, Mar. 2012.

 

Whenever I read narratives relating the astonishing, thrilling, not to say hair-raising adventures of explorers who have ventured for a brief time into some untamed portion of tropical America, I wonder how they do it

Is adventure, like art or music, a gift or a talent with which one is born? Or is it, like so many things nowadays, a specialized profession? Is real adventure pure luck or—perish the thought!—all imagination?

For the better part of 35 years I have been knocking about in the jungles of South and Central America, in the high bush of the West Indies, on deserts and pampas, on the bleak snow-capped Andes. I have tramped hundreds of miles through jungles supposedly infested with wild beasts, venomous serpents, noxious insects and hostile savages. I have traveled for weeks on tropical streams filled with rapids and whirlpools, my craft a frail bark or dugout canoe, my boatmen native Indians.

I have journeyed thousands of miles on horseback, muleback and afoot through the wildest country in South America. I have dwelt among scores of Indian tribes who were as primitive and wild as in the days of Columbus. I have traveled and camped, eaten and slept with chance companions who were murderers, bandits, outlaws, escaped convicts and out-and-out scoundrels, black, white, red, brown, yellow and all intermediate shades. But never yet have I had what I would call a real adventure.

All Part of the Day's Work

Of course I've run risks. I've been in tight places and have had close shaves and I've had my full share of hardships and the inevitable results of tempting the Tropics—such results as yellow, typhoid, dengue, blackwater, breakbone, Chapres and ordinary malarial fevers. Such things are all part of the day's work for an explorer in the Tropics.

But I have never been held up, threatened, robbed nor molested by any one. I have never been attacked by a wild beast; never bitten by a poisonous snake; never treated with anything but friendliness by Indians; never shipwrecked; never held for ransom nor inconvenienced by revolutionists (although I have been in the vortex of several revolutions); have never been obliged to keep my men under control at the point of a gun, nor have I ever slept with a revolver under my pillow while plots and counterplots buzzed about my camp.

Possibly I've missed a lot. Very probably many persons will feel that in confessing to the above I have knocked the romance out of tropical exploration or will assume I am lacking in imagination. On the contrary, I possess a highly developed imagination and an intensely romantic disposition.

But as regards adventure in the accepted meaning of the term, I take much the same stand as the countryman who for the first time gazed at the giraffe.

Form Your Own Opinion

Yet perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps after all I have had adventures. Possibly what I consider experiences might be classified as adventures by others. Honestly, I would like to know, and the best way of finding out may be to relate a few of my most interesting experiences and let the reader judge.

There was Jose and the jungle trip, for example. I was in the interior of Costa Rica at the time. My headquarters were in a frontier settlement in the midst of the jungle.

As there was no other habitable building available, the Alcalde cleaned out one-half of the jail and informed me that the house and all it contained were mine.

As a rule I carry my own guide and servant with me on my expeditions, but on this occasion I was without in A. D. C, for I had expected to find a satisfactory man in the village. But none of the able-bodied males could be induced to work and I turned to my friend, the Alcalde, in my dilemma. He scratched his nose in perplexity.

Then a brilliant Idea came to him.

"There is Jose. Senor!" he exclaimed. “He knows the jungle like an Indian; he knows the ways of the birds and beasts and he is an honest man."

"Excellent." I agreed: "And who is Jose?”

His Faithful Murderer

"He is only a murderer," the Alcalde assured me. "He is here awaiting the police who are to take him to San Carlos, where he is to remain in prison for life. But the police will not arrive for two weeks. In the meantime the senor is welcome to him. The senor need pay him no wages and each night he will sleep in the jail, so he will be no expense to the senor."

Jose, a stocky half-breed, grinned when the Alcalde explained matters. The tiny jail was vermin-infested and crowded with rascals each night, and he was overjoyed at the idea of spending his days in the jungle.

He proved a veritable treasure to me. Never have I employed a better bushman, and he was as faithful as only a dog or an Indian can be. From dawn until dark we tramped and hunted the jungles, Jose, the condemned murderer, carrying my loaded rifle and alone with me in the heart of the tropical forest.

He was booked for lifelong incarceration in San Carlos Prison—there being no capital punishment in Costa Rica—and it would have been the easiest thing in the world to have shot me in the back. Provided with my guns and ammunition, he could have lived for months in the jungle without fear of capture; he could have escaped to Nicaragua or to Panama, and even had he been taken and his act proven be would have been no worse off.

But I don't believe the idea ever entered his head. At any rate I never gave it a thought and I never considered it an adventure.

In the Guiana Jungle

From Costa Rica the scene shifts to the Guianas. I had been traveling by canoe for weeks up one of the big jungle rivers and had penetrated far beyond the last outposts of civilization, where only the primitive Indians dwelt in widely separated villages and where few white men had ever been.

I had been visiting an Indian village in the jungle-covered hills and had returned to my camp beside the river with my five Indian boatmen, my half-breed captain and my Negro camp boy.

Darkness had fallen; we had finished our dinner of broiled monkey and cassava bread when the grizzly-headed Boviander captain raised his hand warningly, listened intently and remarked:

"Bateau she been comin, Chief."

"Maybe an Indian family coming downstream." I suggested.

The Captain shook his head.

"No, Chief," he declared, "she not Buck (Indian) bateau. She been white man or mebbe black fellows."

The rattle of paddles on gunwales was now plain and a moment later a large boat filled with men appeared silhouetted against the pale shimmer of the river. Our camp fire threw a ruddy light, and from the strange craft came a hail in broken English, asking if we were Indians.

Then the voice inquired if he and his comrades could camp with us. Seeing no reason to refuse and knowing there was no good campsite elsewhere for several miles I assented.

Asking for Tobacco

A moment later a big bateau grated on the bank and fully 20 men scrambled ashore. Who or what they were I could not be sure, but by the faint light from the fire I could see that some were black, others brown and one or two white, that all appeared to be ragged and wild looking and that they jabbered among themselves in patois French.

The fellow who had first hailed us—a big gaunt, bewhiskered fellow in short canvas breeches and ragged shirt, strode forward, thanked me for permission to camp and asked if I could spare any tobacco. I did not have an oversupply, but knowing how a smoker craves tobacco in the bush I told Sam to open the provision chest and give the fellow a couple of tins.

As he watched Sam, he unquestionably saw the other tins of tobacco, the trade goods, the supplies, the matches and other articles. He knew, too, that we had arms and ammunition, fishing tackle and money. But he asked for nothing else and, expressing his thanks, joined his comrades, who had lighted a fire and were spreading palm leaves for beds.

Wondering at this, for no one dreams of going into the Guiana bush without hammocks, I strolled over to their camp and, to my surprise, I noticed that there was no sign of the inevitable rice and coffee being cooked. Only a miserable bony sunfish was being prepared.

The leader evidently read my thoughts and remarked that he and his friends were short of provisions, having journeyed a long way.

Not a Thing Missing

In the bush one shares what one can with the other chap and, returning to my camp, I had Sam break out sugar, coffee, rice, beans and pork, and adding a haunch of peccary to this, I sent the food to the strangers.

The food put them in gay humor, and far into the night they sang, laughed and joked. Our supplies, our arms, our equipment remained unguarded and unwatched as we slumbered in our hammocks, until, as usual, the first streaks of dawn, the clattering of toucans and the squawking of parrots and macaws aroused us.

Our unknown companions of the night had already broken camp and were embarking in their big, battered and patched canoe.

Never have I seen a tougher appearing crowd than they, but they were good-humored; they shouted thanks and farewells, and noisily pushed off and vanished around a bend of the river. Not an article of ours was missing, not a thing had been disturbed— and yet, as I knew, the fellows must have been desperately in need of provisions, arms and equipment.

Already I had begun to suspect who and what they were, and, later, I found my suspicions confirmed. They were escaped convicts from the penal settlement in French Guiana, the most desperate and ruthless Apaches and thugs, and their bewhiskered leader was thrice a murderer.

Poor devils! they never won through. Ignorant of the treacherous river, its currents and its rapids, they took a wrong turn, went over a cataract and perished to a man within a few hours after they had left our camp. It was the great adventure for them, but hardly an adventure for me.

The Soul of Hospitality

At another time I was in the interior of Santo Domingo, in a wild, unsettled district. It was raining in torrents, the night was coming on and, having expected to reach a village before dark, I was not equipped for camping. My only companion was a West Indian colored boy and it looked as if we would pass a miserable night in the saddle.

Presently, to our joy, we came to a tiny clearing with a palm-thatched hut. At our approach a man appeared in the doorway of the hut. He was a swarthy, fiercely-mustached fellow with bushy brows and reddened eyes, and was far from prepossessing. He was clad in patched cotton garments, wore a battered sombrero, carried a long-bladed, cross-hilted machete and a heavy revolver at his belt. For a moment he peered at us and then, as I asked if we could stop for the night, he grinned, doffed his hat and declared that his house and all it held were mine.

He was the soul of hospitality. Humble as was his hut, he did his best to make us comfortable. His woman, a plump, good-looking half-breed, fanned the smoldering fire into a blaze, prepared coffee and baked tortillas while our host brought out chicha and cleared a space in one corner and spread a cowhide and palm trash for our beds.

With our garments dried and our stomachs lined, we chatted with our fierce-visaged host.

Proved to Be El Lobo

At that time revolutionists and bandits were as thick as ants throughout the republic.

It was not wise to express an opinion for or against a political party, but as our host appeared to take a keen interest in the situation and explained he had kept out of sight for fear of being drawn into the forces of one side or the other, I related all I had seen or heard.

He, too, had had experiences and he told of service in the last revolt, showed an ugly bullet wound on one leg and a livid scar made by a machete on one shoulder, and conveyed the impression—though without bragging—that he was something of a firebrand himself. But I noticed he did not mention names or places in his stories.

When I left his home the following morning he refused to accept any payment for his hospitality; gave me directions as to a short cut across the mountains, and with a hearty "May you go with God. Senor," he waved his hand in farewell.

A few weeks later there was great rejoicing throughout the province. The most feared bandit in the country, a murderous rascal named Galvin, but more widely known as "El Lobo," had been taken. He had put up a savage fight and was brought in literally cut to pieces. He was a shocking sight; but I recognized the blood-stained, pallid face of the dying bandit as the face of the fellow who had given me shelter that stormy night.

By all recognized rules of adventure tales he should have cut my throat while I slept, should have held me for ransom, or at the very least should have robbed me. But he did neither, and so, again, adventure passed me by.

Another time, while in Central America, I was starting forth from a tiny wayside inn long before dawn. My way was over an unfrequented road across mountains with no houses for miles, and I foresaw a lonely ride.

As I entered the patio where my horse stood saddled, the mozo inquired if I would object to having a companion on my journey, explaining that another caballero was traveling in my direction. Presently the caballero appeared—a burly figure whose features were unrecognizable in the darkness.

He expressed his pleasure at the prospect of a companion on the lonely road and mounted a splendid white horse. For hours we rode side by side, talking and chatting, and I found my unknown comrade a most delightful and interesting individual.

When at last the gray light of dawn enabled me to see his face I discovered that he was a gigantic, atrociously ugly-looking Negro with a huge scar-across one cheek, which had twisted his thick lips into an evil leer.

We breakfasted beside a spring on the mountain side and, an hour or two later, reached the summit of the pass. Here the fellow halted, and, informing me that his way led over a trail to the south, he shook hands cordially, wished me a safe journey and rode off through the forest.

Late that evening I reached San Mateo, and threw myself with a sigh of relief into a hammock swinging at the inn. The proprietor plied me with questions as to my trip and asked casually if I had met anyone on my ride. As I spoke of my chance companion and described him, the face of the easy-going innkeeper paled and he glanced nervously about.

"Madre de Dies!" he exclaimed, crossing himself. "The Americano senor bears a charmed life, then. Know you not that you rode with the Evil One himself? No other bears such a scar on his face. It was Panchito Gomez, senor—the outlawed leader of the last insurrection. There is a price of 3000 gold pesos on his head!"

Book Review-The Trail of the White Indian

Book review of

The Trail of the White Indian.

By A. Hyatt Verrill.

January 6, 1920,

The author who, under the pseudonym of Rodney Thayne has recently given his boy readers the “blood and thunder" tale of REDLEGS, THE PIRATE, has served up another dish of interesting and fascinating horrors—too horrible, in fact, we are thankful to say, to have quite the ring of truth. But then we must understand beforehand that Mr. Verrill is not writing truth but fiction; and one cannot but feel elated on closing the daring author’s book with a gasp, that in this particular instance, the story is not “really true”.

Mr. Verrill in his youth must have indulged in the lurid literature which boys usually read behind parental backs, slipping the "penny dreadfuls" between their mattresses and saving candle stumps that they might read in bed long after household "Taps" had sounded. Added to this melodramatic tendency, our author is evidently a profound student of entomology and archeology and has strung his very improbable story upon these purely scientific lines in the unexplored corners of Central and South America and the West Indies.

THE TRAIL OF THE WHITE INDIAN is a sequel to a former book called THE TRAIL OF THE CLOVEN FOOT, but sufficiently distinctive to allow the reader to pick up the loose ends of the tale as he goes along. Fred Wilson and Rob McGregor who have had innumerable hairbreadth adventures and escapes in previous pages remind one too forcibly, perhaps of Knox's BOY TRAVELERS IN FOREIGN LANDS, but in order to hide the extremely instructive side of the narrative, the author has embellished his truly excellent research work with the hair-raising episodes which go to make up the story part. A vivid imagination and an accurate knowledge of facts and conditions have done fine team work and in spite of a suspicion of pedantry and a thick "lay-on" of adventurous war-paint, the book has a holding quality which cannot fail to attract the boy reader.

To bring the story up to date, a "Hun base" is found in the vicinity of our boys' explorations and a U boat intent on its deadly work, is discovered just in time by our heroes who do wonderful, unheard-of things and save the day generally. To quite follow Mr. Verrill’s gigantic imagination, one must of necessity read, first: THE TRAIL OF THE CLOVEN FOOT, next: THE TRAIL OF THE WHITE INDIAN, and lastly, another which the author has hinted will soon fallow. Well, "boys will be boys" and Mr. Verrill, a big boy himself, knows what they like.

B.M.

Link to the story...The Trail of the White Indians

This review appeared in the correspondence of Dutton Books and A, Hyatt Verrill. The book, Redlegs, the Pirate, has never been located, and it is suspected that the sequel to these two books was submitted to Dutton, but never published./drf

Built of Mud

Built of Mud

By A. Hyatt Verrill

Scientific American, August 1930; researched by Alan Schenker; digitized by Doug Frizzle, March 2012.

WHEN we think of a mud house we usually visualize a mere hut or shanty, but in many portions of the world, mud, or adobe, is the principal building material. In the Orient, in sections of Europe, and particularly in Spanish America, buildings of adobe construction are the rule rather than the exception. Quite pretentious houses and other edifices are built of mud and, when stuccoed, whitewashed, or gaily painted, give no hint of the material of which they are composed.

In no other part of the world, however, has adobe construction reached such a state of development and attained to such heights as in Peru. Long ages before the Spaniards first set foot on Peruvian soil, the Incans and the pre-Incan tribes had learned the use of mud as a building material. Enormous walls, great mounds, countless dwellings, vast temples, and massive forts were built of the sun-dried mud bricks and blocks, and many of these still remain, little altered by time and the elements.

THE Dons followed their example and used the cheap and easily obtainable adobe in erecting their buildings. Their palaces, forts, homes, and churches were made entirely of adobe mud, and through the centuries these have endured and remain today as imposing and as beautiful as in the days of Pizarro.

It was left to the modern inhabitants of Peru, however, to carry mud adobe construction to the nth degree and literally to glorify mud. In and about the capital, Lima, is this particularly true. Of course, today, many of the business buildings, as well as residences, are of concrete or brick, but adobe still holds its own, and by far the greater number of Lima's homes, as well as a large proportion of its larger edifices, are entirely of mud.

In the days of the Conquistadors, the adobe bricks were merely piled one upon another to form the building walls, but today the usual method is to erect a light wooden framework and build the adobe upon this. In some cases metal frameworks have been used in connection with adobe. This method was employed in erecting the beautiful Rimac Building, perhaps the most elaborate mud building in the world. On the other hand, the world's largest mud building, the old Lima Cathedral, is built of adobe blocks without reinforcement of any kind.

Apparently there are no limits to what may be accomplished with mud in Peru. There are charming, one-storied bungalows with wide verandas, Moorish palaces, imposing colonial mansions, Elizabethan cottages, Spanish mission homes, and even turreted castles, all built of the same sun-dried mud dug from the land on which the edifice is built. So great is the demand for adobe that everywhere, round and about Lima, one sees endless piles and high walls of the mud bricks. At first one thinks these merely boundary walls between properties, but it will be noticed that in nearly every case these walls are marked: "Este pared no es medianera"—"This wall is not a boundary."

Also, wherever there is available mud, one will see the natives industriously engaged in making adobe bricks.

The mud, dug from any convenient spot, is mixed with sand and usually with some chopped straw or dried manure. The resultant pasty mass is then pressed into wooden forms or frames. The shaped blocks are then removed and placed in the sun to dry and in a day or two are ready to use.

Brick making is a most economical and inexpensive business for a man of limited means, or of no means at all. Provided he can secure permission to make use of the land, or a portion of its surface, for brick making—usually an easy matter, for the rental is taken out in completed bricks —the penniless brick-maker needs little more than his bare hands. With his wife and children, and all his worldly goods—which usually amount to nothing more than a few battered tins, and some hand-made stools— he camps upon the selected site. An ancient kerosene tin of water and a dilapidated shovel are produced. The dry earth is trod, dug, stirred, and worked into a thick paste; then some dry manure, gathered anywhere along the road, is added, and with all members of the little family helping, the bricks begin to take form. As soon as they dry they are piled in tiers.

In a few days the brick-maker and his family are surrounded by brick walls and are living quite comfortably and snugly in a little cavity left purposely for their accommodation. Here they remain as long as bricks can be made and sold on the land. And when an adobe building is in process of erection, the laborers invariably dwell within recesses in the piles of accumulated bricks—thus saving house rent—and tramp back and forth to their work.

WHEREVER a Cholo can find a mud-brick wall and employment, is "Home Sweet Home" to him, and often one may find a dozen or more families all dwelling in perfect contentment in their burrows in the piles of bricks where building is in progress.

In a damp or rainy climate, these dried mud-bricks would, of course, be worse than useless; and, should Lima be subjected to a few days of really heavy rains, most of the city and its suburbs would be reduced to the original, elemental mud. Several times within the past few years, various portions of Peru have been visited by unprecedented rains during the winter months, and great has been the havoc wrought. Around and about Trujillo, houses and churches melted like snow exposed to sunshine, and even the prehistoric ruins of the Chimu city of Chan Chan, which has stood unaltered for countless centuries, slumped and dissolved.

To protect buildings from the drip from the eaves, practically all modern adobe buildings have several feet of the wall covered with concrete, while others have the lower portions of the walls built of stone, or stone and concrete. Even the old cathedral, which is not only the largest but one of the finest adobe buildings in the world, has been safeguarded with a concrete coating about the base of its walls.

Originally, too, the adobe buildings were all very much alike. They were massive, thick-walled, square, and usually of moderate height, were typically Spanish with iron-grilled windows, out-jutting carved cedar miradors, immense iron-studded and elaborately carved doors, and open patios. But with the modern improvements in adobe constructive methods, architecture appears to have run wild, and there is scarcely a type or style of buildings known to any part of the world the counterpart of which cannot be seen in or about the Peruvian capital.

Apparently the average Peruvian never has a definite plan in view when he starts building a house. He may start with a Spanish colonial form and by the time the first story is complete, he decides that the English style is better. He then adds a second story with exposed timbers, leaded glass windows, and stucco walls. Then to the steeply-pitched roof, he adds Spanish tiles, and among the chimney-pots erects a cupola where he can loll away many a hot evening.

HIS front door may be a graceful Moorish arch, but to put a finishing touch to the whole he adds the lofty pillars and severe portico of some Virginia mansion, and builds a porte cochere in Japanese style. But with all his architectural failings, he loves color, and so paints his home in brilliant ultramarine, rose-pink, canary-yellow, or a combination of all. And, strange as it may seem, these architectural monstrosities do not strike a discordant note in the scheme of things. Surrounded by glorious flower gardens and magnificent pines and luxuriant palms, their bright hues are delightful, and one forgets their faults in admiration of the masses of roses and geraniums which clamber over walls and droop from the eaves.

And there are countless dwellings which are as charming and as perfect in their architectural features as one could wish.

Truly, the Peruvians have glorified mud, and by the same token, they have attained the utmost in building economy, for what could be more economical than to build one's home from the crude material dug from the land when excavating foundations or grading one's garden?

On Mesmerizing Things

ON MESMERIZING THINGS

Saturday Evening Post; 13 Aug 1949. Researched by Alan Schenker, digitized by Doug Frizzle, Dec 2011.

STEVAN DOHANOS' cover for the July 2nd issue had a lobster on it. The Post's cover box reported that a pet lobster posed for the picture, and that it has been trained by its master to stand on its head. A. Hyatt Verrill, of Lake Worth, Florida, informs us that any lobster still in possession of its faculties can easily be made to do a head stand.

Verrill says that you merely set a lobster on its nose, with its claws folded and its tail bent down, and stroke its back up and down a few times. He explains that the reason more people don't do this to lobsters is because few know of the trick—"I have seen old lobstermen gaze in speechless amazement at their lobsters standing motionless on their heads after I had 'mesmerized' them."

Verrill adds that a similar staled mind can be produced in a hen. You tuck the hen's head under one wing and wave her around in the air a few times. When the astonished creature is placed on the ground, she will lie motionless on her side for quite a while, as if deceased.

Does anybody know whether this sort of thing works on animated young children?

Ants Have Beauty Doctors

Since the image of Verrill in this newspaper article was so bad I have added a couple of images from our archives. A link to the Science Fiction story, 'World of the Giant Ants' follows./drf

Ants Have Beauty Doctors

Daily Boston Globe; Apr 11, 1937; researched by Alan Schenker, digitized by Doug Frizzle, Dec. 2011

Intelligent Insects Keep Pets and Capture Slaves in Raids—Hyatt Verrill Tells of Man-Eating Ants He Escaped in Costa Rica—One Ant's Daily Work Equal To a Man Walking to San Francisco

"Sit-down strikes?"

"A sit-down strike would never be countenanced in the ant world! 'No work, no life' is the ant motto, and a sit-downer would unquestionably be dealt with most summarily.

"I doubt if they even have festivals or recreations, for their lives consist wholly of toiling, eating and sleeping. In fact, I should judge that an ant's life is about as monotonous and as machine-like and ordered as ours would be if the N. R. A. had continued for a few decades."

With a twinkle in his eye, A. Hyatt Verrill of Springfield, author of "Strange Insects and Their Stories," paused to tell of his adventures with ants in a score of countries. And when he speaks on ants, mark his words! He has been around!

Much Like Humans

"I do know that ants have feasts or banquets, that their form of government is thoroughly communistic, and that for some reason, whether because of strikes, mutiny or pure disobedience, certain individuals are punished and executed," he said.

"It is quite probable that had the ants developed to man's size instead of remaining tiny insects, they would have developed a far greater degree of intelligence than human beings and would have far outstripped mankind in civilization and would have completely dominated the earth."

Human beings, then, should not pat themselves on the back and pride themselves on their civilization.

"Ants resemble man in many habits. There are ant masons, miners, carpenters, farmers, soldiers, police, doctors, servants, slaves, nurses, undertakers and sanitary officers; there are ant hospitals, cemeteries, playgrounds and nurseries, and no human babies are more carefully reared than the young of most ants," the naturalist pointed out.

"Although few persons are aware of it, nearly every important industry, as well as many human characteristics and habits, are common among the ants," Mr. Verrill recalled.

"Every ant carries a comb about with it, and never think of starting the day's work without first washing himself and making himself spic and span.

Take Entertainers Along

"Moreover, ants have beauty specialists and masseurs. When some weary ant stretches out and is smoothed, rubbed, parted and massaged by another ant it exhibits every symptom of enjoying the process as much as does a human athlete after a strenuous field day."

Mr. Verrill paused to light his pipe.

"You know, it is almost impossible to conceive the amount of strenuous labor which ants perform day after day. Very often their loads weigh twice or four times as much as their own bodies, and not infrequently the tree or bush whence the leaves are cut is a mile or more from the nest. Why the ants should travel such a vast distance, equivalent to over 120 miles to a man, in order to secure leaves when there are trees of the same species within easy reach of the nest remains a mystery.

"In the course of a day I have seen ants which made scores of trips back and forth between nest and tree and tree and nest. On their journey for leaves these ants are often accompanied by strange midgets who are incapable of cutting leaves and are apparently mere entertainers."

"Entertainers!"

"Yes, indeed! These are weak creatures and are often carried to the nests on the backs of workers.'

Blind Cockroach Pets

Speaking of entertainers, the ants have domestic pets, just as we human beings have dogs and cats. The leaf-cutting ants keep blind cockroaches as pets, and so fond of these creatures are the ants that when a queen departs to form a new colony she usually carries a baby cockroach with her. In return for the loving care bestowed upon them by the ants, the cockroaches act as masseurs and also lick the sap of the leaves from their masters' bodies.

Crickets and beetle larvae are also kept as pets, Mr Verrill pointed out. "So fond of these beetle pets are the ants that they feed and care for them, carry them to the outer air on fine days and take them inside if it rains, and spend a great deal of their time fondling and stroking their odd pets."

How many miles does an ant travel daily? Have you ever wondered? Then let the distinguished naturalist give you the low-down, as it were:

"Each ant travels in a day a distance which, in proportion to the insect's size, would be equal to nearly 3000 miles! Imagine a human being walking from New York to San Francisco one day and back to New York the next, for day after day, week after week, and carrying a load of two to three hundred pounds on each eastward hike, merely to secure material for a mushroom bed to supply food for his family and his friends. Yet that is his sole object of labor."

Some Can't Feed Themselves

Of course, some ants just won't work and that's where the unemployment problem comes in. Some ants take life easy and are so wholly dependent upon their slaves that they are unable to feed themselves, and if placed in a jar with sugar they will starve. But if a black slave is placed with them he will at once begin feeding his masters.

"Oddly enough," Mr. Verrill declares, "the ants' slaves are always black ants and the masters are red ants. Red ants often raid the nests of black ants and carry off the young. Some of the most interesting battles occur when the black ants mass themselves in army array for a battle with their attackers.

“No quarter is shown, the wounded are promptly put to death and often devoured, and the victorious black warriors are left unmolested for a time. But usually it is the other way around." Mr Verrill's fascinating book on insects and their stories, published recently by L. C. Page & Co. is replete with stories on ants and their work. He also is the author of "Strange Sea Shells and Their Stories" and "My Jungle Trails" published by the same company.

"I have stood within a dozen feet of a vast army of ants, an army so immense that the rustling of their moving bodies and the sound of their jaws could be heard a hundred yards away," he relates. "So numerous and so voracious are these big ants that horses and cattle are overpowered and devoured, and there are many cases of human beings having fallen victims to the army ants."

10,000 Red Hot Needles

In his newest book, "My Jungle Trails," to be out this month, Mr Verrill tells of stepping into an ant colony while collecting natural history specimens in Costa Rica.

"Never dreaming of any danger, I jumped from the log, and the next instant fairly howled. I felt as if I had sprung into a pot of boiling lead with 10,000 red-hot needles searing the flesh of my ankles and legs. Yelling with pain, I glanced down to find my legs almost hidden beneath a moving black mass, while between the branches and trash underfoot the ground appeared to heave, move and undulate. Instantly I realized what had happened. I had jumped into a column of army ants!"

Son of the late Prof Addison E. Verrill, noted zoologist, Mr Verrill is one of the nation's foremost authorities on nature subjects. A graduate of Yale, he has illustrated the natural history portions of Webster's International Dictionary, and has conducted scientific expeditions in Bermuda, the West Indies, Guiana, Central America and Panama.

He has studied insects and plant; life in Costa Rica, Mexico, Yucatan, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands, Brazil, Uruguay, the Azores, Cape Verde Islands and all the islands of the Caribbean. Besides, he has made extensive studies in Europe and has crossed the Atlantic 12 times.

Tramping about these countries gave Mr Verrill plenty of hair-raising adventures. Often he was in grave danger.

"On one occasion, for example, while spending the night in a shack on the mountainside of Costa Rica, the hut was visited by an army of ants while my companions and I slept. And it was only by good fortune that we ever saw the light of day again!

Escaped Man-Eaters

"It was this way," he began. "We were sleeping in hammocks and ants will not travel over a rough hair rope. Except for ourselves, every other living thing within the house was utterly destroyed. Not a roach, fly, moth or termite remained, and a good-sized tapir, which we had killed in the afternoon and had hung up outside the hut, was completely devoured. Only the bones and the rugged hide remained to tell the ants' visit as silently as they had come they had vanished.

"I shudder to think of what out fate would have been had we been sleeping in cots instead."

Mr Verrill, whose works have enjoyed a wide popularity, is the author of more than 90 books. In 1920 he made ethnological and archaeological explorations in Panama. Four years later he discovered the remains of previously unknown prehistoric culture in Panama. Then he was engaged in making a series of oil paintings of South and Central American Indians from life.

Mr Verrill led archaeological and ethnological expeditions in Peru, Bolivia and Chile and in 1933 led an expedition to salvage a Spanish galleon sunk in the West Indies in the 17th century.

An honorary chief of the Carib Indians of Guiana and the Guaymi tribe of Panama, he speaks several Indian dialects.

He is at home in any city or town of Latin America, for he has spent some time in almost every South .and Central American republic. For several years he conducted the popular science department of the American Boy Magazine. His latest are being published by the Page Company in Boston.

How does he explain some of the amazing things that ants do? Are ants guided by instinct or reason?

"That," he laughed, "is a question on which scientists disagree. Personally, I think they reason, for I cannot explain many of their actions by pure instinct."

World of the Giant Ants by A. Hyatt Verrill from 1928

Thousand Dollar Chinchilla Hat

Thousand Dollar Chinchilla Hat

By Dorothy Verrill

The Hartford Courant; Jan 8, 1950; pg. SM14

California is fortunate in many respects, among them the fact that its efficient Governor, Earl Warren, has an extraordinarily pretty wife, who is not only a charming and attractive person face-to-face, but very easy on a camera lens, despite the fact that she has raised a large family and is twice a grandmother. Other interesting and unique aspects of California's advantages over other states include the scope of its successful crops, which range from fish to furs, from palms to potatoes, from movies to minerals and from chickens to chinchillas. As a matter of rather surprising fact, the balmy climate of Southern California yields a bumper crop of luxuriously furred creatures, including not only mink in all its mutations, but the precious fur of the Peruvian chinchillas, transplanted from the lofty altitudes of their native Andes to the wide open spaces of Gardena, outside of Los Angeles, and doing so well, under modern scientific care, that the tiny animals, once faced with extinction, now yield enough peltry to make chinchilla again available as a fashion item.

At Gardena a group of fur farmers, pooling their resources and know-how under the name of the Allied Distributors, have what they consider the largest fur farm in the world, devoted exclusively to mutation and ranch minks and the fabulous chinchillas. Their ranch covers 10 acres and is as spic and span as a New England kitchen, each little cage of fur yielding animals tended as carefully as a millionaire's child, and each creature given the utmost in modern scientific diet and other treatments calculated to promote rich, beautifully colored and lustrous pelts of the most luxurious type. There are literally thousands of these pampered creatures at Gardena, but the chinchillas are the acknowledged aristocrats of the ranch, the leaders and the pride of their owners. Consequently it was the fur of chinchillas that the fur farmers chose as a Christmas gift to the beautiful Mrs. Warren, and after selecting their prize skins, carefully matched by their own expert, Andre de Vajda of Beverly Hills, (who has been furrier to European royalty and knows what chinchillas should be) the "chinchilla men" of Allied Distributors commissioned Keneth Hopkins of Beverly Hills to design a hat for Mrs. Warren, using their furs.

Keneth Hopkins, famous California millinery stylist had never made a hat for Mrs. Warren before, although his clients include top movie, radio and theater stars as well as Los Angeles society, but he studied portraits of Mrs. Warren and the current Christmas card sent out by the Governor and his family, which shows the entire group and their pets, beautifully drawn by the eldest son, and depicting Mrs. Warren in a fur hat —purely imaginary. Mr. Hopkins then went to work, and designed a modified chechia, to be worn, side tilted in profile style, its brim entirely of the silvers-gray chinchillas, a crown of gray velvet, and for adornment a great cluster of crimson roses with rich green foliage, posed to fall against the cheek. The roses were suggested by the fact that the chinchilla farmers, in sending their Christmas gift to the First Lady of California, expressed the hope that she would wear it to the Tournament of Roses at Pasadena “and on many other occasions in a Happy New Year”. Roses also, combined with chinchilla, typify the varied crops of California. The hat reached Mrs. Warren by air and special messenger on Christmas day—she tried it on and found it completely becoming, wondered how Keneth Hopkins had done it without seeing her, decided to wear it to the Rose Bowl festivities with a black costume and short black Persian lamb coat. The hat is valued at $1000, for a chinchilla coat costs close to $100,000 still. It is one gift that had no duplicate in any stocking or under any tree this holiday season.

One Shell Builds a Raft to Live Upon

One Shell Builds a Raft to Live Upon

Scallop Can Jump Out of a Boat—Doings of Shells Fill a Whole Book by Hyatt Verrill

Daily Boston Globe; Nov 4, 1936, pg. 29. Researched by Alan Schenker; digitized by Doug Frizzle, Mar. 2012.

Did you know that some "shells". the things most of us call shellfish, are good athletes?

That some of them build rafts and go a-sailing?

That others are dangerous beasts of prey, killing and devouring other shells? That some can even kill men?

That some can spin a golden thread from which was once made a cloth reserved for kings?

These and many other strange and fascinating bits of information about shellfish are contained in "Strange Sea Shells and Their Stories," by Hyatt Verrill, just published by L. C. Page & Co of Boston.

Mr. Verrill, who is the author of "The Incas' Treasure House" and other books, recounts many truths literally stranger than fiction.

Take first the raft-building shell.

"It is," writes Mr. Verrill, "a little, coiled shell an inch or two in diameter and much like a snail in form, but of a beautiful lilac-purple color. As a rule only an occasional shell is washed up on our beaches and even if you should be lucky enough to find windrows of the shells you might examine every one without finding a living individual, for this shell lives far out at sea and, instead of crawling about upon the bottom of the ocean, it spends its life floating or sailing about like a little ship.

Floating on Bubbles

"Indeed, the ianthina is one of the strangest and most interesting of all shells and one of its strangest habits is that it actually builds a boat, or rather a raft. Like other univalves or single shell molluscs, the ianthina breaths through a siphon or tubular probosis, but it differs from all others in using its siphon for another purpose as well as for drawing water into its gills, for with its probosis it sucks in the air with which it forms its raft.

"When the shell decides to turn sailor and go cruising about the ocean it exudes a little sticky mucus or slime. Then it draws air into its siphon and permits the bubbles to escape beneath the mucus, to which they adhere. In a way the process is very much like blowing bubbles by placing a tube or pipe beneath the surface of soapy water and blowing air through the tube or pipe stem.

"And as every child has done this, you know how the masses of pearly bubbles rise and cling together at the surface of the water, although as there is nothing to hold the bubbles in place they soon collapse or burst But when the shell blows its bubbles, they are confined by the mucus, which soon hardens and forms a tough strong float supported upon a layer of air bubbles.

"In a way it is exactly like a raft with pontoons, but the ianthina's raft has one great advantage over any boat built by man, for if one of the air bubble pontoons breaks or becomes loose and drifts away or leaks, the shell instantly replaces it with another bubble. Moreover, the shell can enlarge its raft at will.

Takes Whole Family For a Sail

"When the weather is calm and no danger threatens, the shell floats about hanging to one end of its raft with its head and tentacles projecting from its purple house; but if the sea becomes too rough or if something frightens the shell-sailor it shrinks back into its cabin and hides beneath the bottom of its raft until the storm is over or the danger has passed."

Mr. Verrill continues describing how this queer shellfish carries its whole family along, with the eggs fastened to the underside of the raft. When the eggs hatch the baby molluscs cling for a few days to the raft or swim about; but when they grow older and their shells begin to form they start building their own rafts. Like other ship owners, the ianthina sometimes carries a passenger in the shape of a tiny shrimp-like crustacean, found only on the raft.

The ianthina is one of the savage shellfish. When it comes within reach of a jelly-fish, the ianthina, which Mr. Verrill calls the "purple pirate," comes alongside, seizing its prey with its probosis and proceeds to tear it apart. The little ianthina, only two inches in diameter, will kill and eat a six-inch stinging jellyfish. Shellfish can be dangerous even to human beings and Mr. Verrill describes some of them. There is, for example, the Cloth-of-Gold Cone, which carries a sharp curved blade in its snout which can be thrust in and out like a cat's claw. At the base of this natural dagger is a sack from which a stream of deadly poison can be ejected along the grooves in the dagger.

Dangerous as a Snake

These Cloth-of-Gold Cones are as dangerous as rattlesnakes and there are plenty of authentic cases, says Mr. Verrill, of men dying from the stab. Often the only result is severe sickness.

The giant clams of the Pacific have killed men, too. Any unlucky diver whose hand or leg is caught in the vise-like grip of the huge shells will drown unless help comes quickly.

As to shellfish athletes, how about scallops? They not only swim well by opening and closing the shells, forcing the water out with sufficient force to move them, but by the same means they can make a jump so long that they frequently leap out of a boat and escape.

Then there are the conches of the warm seas. When frightened they can leap like a pole vaulter, the claw-like "door" of the shell serving as the "pole" when it is dug into the sand. Incidentally, conches like a good many other shellfish have eyes and can see their enemies coming.

In the Mediterranean there is the "Spanish oyster" or pinna. It spins a golden thread through a sieve-like opening, forming thousands of fine cobweb strands, tangled and interlocked like fine steel wool. From the "Spanish oysters" thread can be made a cloth of a beautiful golden tint, finer than the finest silk and so delicate and soft that a pair of gloves made from it can be placed in the shell of a walnut. Once this was reserved for royalty and today it is very rare and costly. Other species of pinna produce threads of other colors.

Shells have often been used for money. In the South Seas the handsome cowry shells were recognized coinage and many African tribes used the same legal tender. In the days when sailing ships traded among the Pacific islands, says Mr. Verrill, their captains and owners made fortunes by buying cowries from the islanders and trading them in Africa. The rate of "exchange" was favorable.