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500 snakes destroyed close to New York City (1934)

29/1/2015

The Hudson River Valley today (©Dan Eatherley)

Eighty-one years ago today, the New York Times revealed that five hundred snakes including ‘rattlers, some of which measured twelve feet’ were destroyed by U.S. Government workers in the Hudson River Valley.

On January 29, 1934, the Times described how described how the snakes were killed by CWA squads while ‘clearing forests and building roads … near Morristown’ and ‘at Stony Point up the Hudson.’

In the same issue, Raymond Ditmars told the Times that the blacksnake, the rattlesnake and the water moccasin winter in the same rock ledges year after year. “The serpent clan,” said Ditmars, “is particularly tolerant or passive about the “changing of position, arrival or departure of other members.” He has seen “bevies of heads of the three “kinds peering from the crevices in the Spring”.

Note: The CWA (Civil Works Administration) was an expensive - and hence short-lived - government initiative to create jobs during the Depression winter of 1933-4.

Northern black racer (Coluber constrictor) - another snake of the Hudson Valley (©Dan Eatherley)

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A visit to Jungle Land (1911)

22/1/2015

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The Lotos Club, New York City.

One hundred and four years ago today, Raymond Ditmars of the Bronx Zoo, presented an illustrated lecture entitled “A Visit to Jungle Land by the Jungle Company” at a dinner of the Lotos Club, New York City.

‘Even the oldest member could not remember a time when forty snakes were ever before visible in the sacred halls at one and the same time,’ reported the New York Daily Tribune. ‘The doctor told of his trip to the uncharted wilds of Florida in search of reptilian additions to his zoo. His tale was punctuated with almost moving pictures and wholly living specimens.’

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The Four Seasons (1921) - pioneering nature film by Raymond Ditmars

15/1/2015

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The Four Seasons, a silent natural history masterpiece produced and directed by Raymond Ditmars, began its successful run at the Rialto Theatre on Times Square, New York City on September 25, 1921.

As its title suggests The Four Seasons - a reel per season - documented the effects of the changing seasons on animal life. The formula has been repeated in countless natural history programmes right up to the present day, but when Ditmars first put the idea on celluloid it was a sensation.

British movie mogul Charles Urban edited the footage together for the theatrical release. Urban told the New York Tribune that the production ‘brought together hundreds of pictures of Nature, much like a man traveling through the woods at different times of the year, first seeing one thing and then another ... It is a wonderful story which Nature tells each year, and this we have tried to tell in “The Four Seasons.”’

Despite competing for column inches with Charlie Chaplin’s The Idle Class which opened the same week, The Four Seasons was widely praised.

The New York Times called the film, ‘one of the worth-while works of the year’ and was impressed with how Ditmars and Urban had managed to make an apparently dull subject interesting and engaging for the audience. The paper noted that although the films followed the growth of a selection of animals through each season, at the same time a new character was introduced in each reel to ‘freshen the interest’. In addition, ‘with some departure, perhaps, from the strictly pedagogic point of view, but greatly to the enrichment of the film as entertainment, the makers of the picture have selected subjects, which by their novelty, oddity and beauty, may be counted upon to have a popular appeal.’ The only negative note concerned the photography which was ‘satisfactory’ but left ‘room for improvement’.

For Life magazine, ‘the acting of the frogs’ was ‘truly remarkable’.

As with his previous masterwork, The Living Book of Nature, Raymond Ditmars often took time out from looking after reptiles at the Bronx Zoo to narrate the silent pictures himself and grew hoarse in the process!

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First full galley proofs in!

14/1/2015

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Very excited as the publisher has sent over the first galley - i.e. an idea of what the book will look like. Here's a sneak preview. We'll be sending out ARCs (advanced reading copies) to high profile people soon to get some nice comments....

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