Bradford Torrey and Floridian Reptiles in 1894

I got to thinking this past week about romanticism and nature. I have a healthy appreciation for objective, analytic studies of nature and also the more-subjective (often emotional) interpretations/responses of and to nature. In my life, nowhere is this more obvious than with reptiles, particular with Anolis lizards and Nerodia watersnakes. This blog, after all, is essentially an orgy of subjective responses to these animals (and landscapes).

Nowadays, I’m diving headfirst into the former. I’m formally studying science, starting with biology and chemistry at the root, collegiate level. I’m balancing things out, if you will — balancing my Dionysian-pathos side with my Appolonian-logos side. Let there be balance.

Anyhow, this morning I started re-reading snippets of Bradford Torrey’s 1894 travel memoir, A Florida Sketch-Book and was struck (again) by his prose. A New Englander, Torrey (1894-1912) was the author of quite a few overtly-romantic, nature-based travelogues. He was a big bird fan (not of the Sesame Street variety, obviously), but seemed to relish most of what he could experience. In many ways he’s a follower of William Bartram (who explored and wrote beautifully of Florida and other locales in the 1770s), though Torrey’s not as game-on as a naturalist (in my opinion, at least).

A Florida Sketch-Book primarily details Torrey’s travels in central and north Florida. He writes of places I’ve lived, places I’ve called home — particularly the east coast of central and north Florida. He describes animals I grew up with: southern black racers, green anoles, Florida cottonmouths, purple gallinules, grackles, herons… They’re all there in Torrey’s writing, individual encounters represented through Torrey’s imaginative prose — moments and encounters with individual animals caught like bugs in amber through the act of his writing.

In parts, I find Torrey to be absurdly overkill in his language, but then again take a look at the last sentence of the paragraph above. At least he had grammer grammar on his side. heh.

For what it’s worth, I thought it would be fun this weekend (as a kind of counter-balance to my academic work) to present some of Torrey’s reptilian moments along with my own personal recollections, musings, photographs, or whatever. Build a tiny little bridge between 1894 and 2012 via a (not so) tiny little blog post.

So, let’s begin, shall we?

THE OLD MILL (Volusia County)

Torrey describes exploring an old mill ruin somewhere near New Smyrna Beach, Florida (in what is now Volusia county). I grew up with my own ruins in Ormond Beach, specifically the Bulow Plantation Ruins.  A number of old mill and plantation ruins litter the dense, wet forest just west of the Intracoastal Waterway and east of Old Dixie Highway (the once-great artery running north to south in the region). To the right is a photograph of one of these structures, taken back in 1993. When I was a kid, this was one of those secret locations we’d sneak off to… to do whatever. Today it’s fenced in and protected (thank god).

Torrey’s old sugar mill, the place he visited and wrote about, would be similar to this, but was likely different (New Smyrna is a good bit south of Ormond Beach, though not too far south).

Torrey describes his sojourn toward the mill. Once there, he pauses and soaks in the landscape:

The morning is cloudless and warm, till suddenly, as if a door had opened eastward, the sea breeze strikes me. Henceforth the temperature is perfect as I sit in the shadow. I think neither of heat nor of cold. I catch a glimpse of a beautiful leaf-green lizard on a gray trunk of an orange tree, but it is gone (I wonder where) almost before I can say I saw it. Presently a brown one, with light-colored stripes and a bluish tail, is seen traveling over the crumbling wall, running into crannies and out again. Now it stops to look at me with its jewel of an eye. And there, on the rustic arbor, is a third one, matching the unpainted wood in hue. Its throat is white, but when it is inflated, as happens every few seconds, it turns to the loveliest rose color. This inflated membrane hold be a vocal sac, I think, but I hear no sound. Perhaps the chameleon’s voice is too fine for dull human sense.

Anolis carolinensis; Central Florida, 03 April 2006.

I love this passage. Torrey encounters three individual lizards, but probably only two species.

First is the “leaf-green lizard” that vanishes around the orange tree. This would’ve been my dear friend, Anolis carolinensis — the Carolina green anole. It is a lizard I post about frequently and one I simply cannot divorce from my own memories of growing up in Florida. They’re awesome, adept, and agile little lizards, though they’ve had some competition from the non-native Cuban brown anole, Anolis sagrei in recent decades. The species is also the first non-mammalian, non-avian amniote to have its full gene sequenced (learn more starting here) — and that also makes green anoles pretty damn awesome.

Of interest to Torrey, if he could magically read this from beyond space and time (where he now resides), his third lizard –the brown lizard with the white throat– was probably also a Carolina green anole. If this had happened today, it very well may have been a Cuban brown anole, but because this was back in the late 1800s and well north into central Florida, it was most likely a green anole.

Green anoles shift color-base from a bright green tone to a number of brown and ashy-pale tones in response to environment and comfort levels. A stressed green anole will look brown, a comfortable one will usually look green. Further, the red “vocal sac” Torrey describes is not a vocal sac for sound at all. It’s the dewlap, a small fold of skin male anoles extend and “fan” for territorial and mating display. Finally, anoles aren’t chameleons, though the term is often used to describe them because of their ability to change colors).

Eumeces inexpectatus; North Florida, 15 May 2009.

Now, the second lizard Torrey describes was most likely a southeastern five-lined skink, Eumeces inexpectatus, the most commonly seen skink throughout the Floridian peninsula. Other skink species can look very similar at various stages in life, but more often than not, the striped lizard with the “bluish tail” will be the southeastern five-lined skink. The striping and blue-tail is most obvious and punctuated when the skink is younger. As they age, the stripes often fade along with the vivid, neonic blue tones of its tail. This species is also quite abundant above leaf and ground litter; whereas many Floridian skinks slink about under the ground cover, the larger southeastern five-lined skink can often be found basking on limestone rock or crawling around various tree trunks.

I marvel at these lizards and I’m glad Torrey did too.

THE PINE WOODS (St. Johns County)

Here Torrey pauses in his exploration of a pine forest near St. Augustine, Florida:

And so, unless the traveler is going somewhere, as I seldom was, he is continually stopping by the way. Now a shady spot entices him to put down his umbrella,–for there is a shady spot, here and there, even in a Florida pine-wood; or blossoms are to be plucked; or a butterfly, some gorgeous and nameless creature, brightens the wood as it passes; or a bird is singing; or an eagle is soaring far overhead, and must be watched out of sight; or a buzzer, with upturned wings, floats suspiciously near the wanderer, as if with sinister intent (buzzard shadows are a regular feature of the flat-wood landscape, just as cloud shadows are in a mountainous country); or a snake lies stretched out in the sun,–a “whip snake,” perhaps, that frightens the unwary stroller by the amazing swiftness with which it runs away from him; or some strange invisible insect is making uncanny noises in the underbrush. One of my recollections of the railway woods at St. Augustine is of a cricket, or locust, or something else,–I never saw it,–that amused me often with a formless rattling or drumming sound. I could think of nothing but a boy’s first lesson upon the bones, the rhythm of the beats was so comically mistimed and bungled.

This is a fun passage, right? One of those great moments where you stop and just start soaking it all in, letting your senses and imagination do that special dance reserved for those rarest of moments. You let the sights and the sounds, all those sensations, wash over, around, and through you. You lose yourself for a moment on the land, beneath the sky, in the air. Yeah, those are fun moments. I’ve had a few of those.

Masticophis flagellum; Florida, 12 July 2004

Of course, I couldn’t help but to perk up when Torrey mentions the “whip-snake.” The reference could allude to an Eastern coachwhip, Masticophis flagellum, though it could also be a southern black racer, Coluber constrictor priapus (more on that below). People often confuse the two. They are outwardly similar in some regards (they are both wicked-fast, usually dark, and extremely alert), but are nevertheless members of two different genus.

There is certainly no shortage of batshit crazy myths about coachwhips: If you “whip” them, their heads snap off; coachwhips bite their tails and roll down hills in a big loop; etc. I’ve seen a few in the wild, but don’t often get a chance to study them up close. One such occasion, however, was on 12 July 2004 (of the remarkably tannish individual featured above). I have to admit that this was one of those days where I went full-on, gonzo-romantic with a snake. I thought it was damn near the most beautiful snake I’d ever seen. (Actually, I still think that — I just don’t write poetry about it anymore; at least, not that I’ll admit.)

NEW SMYRNA RACER (Volusia County)

Back in the New Smyrna area, Torrey ponders existence:

So I sat dreaming, when suddenly there was a stir in the grass at my feet. A snake was coming straight toward me. Only the evening before a cracker had filled my ears with stories of “rattlers” and “moccasins.” He seemed to have seen them everywhere, and to have killed them as one kills mosquitoes. I looked a second time at the moving thing in the grass. It was clothed in innocent black; but, being a son of Adam, I rose with involuntary politeness to let it pass. An instant more, and it slipped into the masonry at my side, and I sat down again. It had been out taking sun, and had come back to its hole in the wall. How like the story of my own day,–of my whole winter vacation! Nay, if we choose to view it so, how like the story of human life itself?

“Florida Cracker,” for those not in The Know, is a reference to Floridians who have deep roots in the state. The original Florida Crackers were the first American and British settlers on the peninsula, trying to scratch out a living in the thick, tangled, and blissfully undeveloped bush of Florida. As the years progressed, the term became (for some) a kind of slang insult — sort of like redneck. Nowadays, most folks I know (myself included) think of the term as being synonymous with “Floridian,” but with a stress on local family roots and working class ethos in the region. Sort of like the cowboy ethos you’ll find in Texas, but much, much cooler (no offense, Texas).

Coluber constrictor priapus; Central Florida, 11 May 2005.

Anyhow, I digress. We’re talking about reptiles. And what do we have here in this moment? The “innocent black” snake that slinks past Torrey and retreats into the masonry was possibly a southern black racer, Coluber constrictor priapus. It is one of the snake species that seems to benefit from everything going wrong in the state. Tear down forests and build neighborhoods? Racer be cool with that; Racer live in those yards. Introduce non-native lizards into the local ecological matrix? Racer be cool with that; racer eat those lizards, yum yum. Yeah, they’re extremely durable and/or malleable snakes, so to speak. In central Florida, I often see them in neighborhoods, in yards, and even slinking about in a number of downtown areas. Racers, like rats, welcome human development.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had an encounter with a southern black racer that made me think of “the story of human life itself,” but I must admit, they’re very cool snakes and I’m always happy to see them.

ON THE UPPER ST. JOHNS (Seminole & Volusia Counties)

From Sanford (on the Seminole and Volusia county line), Torrey explores the St. Johns River for two days with a local guide, a young tween with a gun and a two-barrels of know-how:

We were hardly on the river itself before he fell into a state of something like frenzy at the sight of an otter swimming before us, showing its head, and then diving. He had made after it in hot haste, and fired I know not how many times, but all for nothing. He had killed several before now, he said, but had never been obliged to chase one in this fashion. Perhaps there was a Jonah in the ship; for though I sympathized with the boy, I sympathized also, and still more warmly, with the otter. It acted as if life were dear to it, and for aught I knew it had as good a right to live as either the boy or I.

Lontra canadensis; Central Florida, 18 March 2005.

I love that this kid was foiled by the ever-clever North American river otter, Lontra canadensis. He’s not alone. They are wickedly clever little mammals.

The North American river otter has an amazing range running from Florida north into Canada and then west to Alaska. You won’t find them in anywhere near west Texas (again, no offense, Texas), but you will find them in Maine, in California, in the Yukon, in Alabama, and all over much of North America. Impressive, clever, resilient mammals, these river otters are. They’re also quite curious. The individual featured here was photographed at Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge in Volusia county, Florida. The otter had followed me and a buddy for a good distance via land, then finally jumped in the water. It quickly remerged with a freshly caught fish (an eel?) and proceeded to devour it on its back, as if showing off for us. I’se a stealth hunter, you twos. I’se a bad-azz. It was a hell of a sight. A bad ass otter.

But let’s continue with Torrey’s little St. Johns excursion:

No such qualms disturbed me a few minutes later, when, as the boat was grazing the reeds, I espied just ahead a snake lying in wait among them. I gave the alarm, and the boy looked around. “Yes,” he said, “a big one, a moccasin,–a cottonmouth; but I’ll fix him. He pulled a stroke or two nearer, then lifted his oar and brought it down splash; but the reeds broke the blow, and the moccasin slipped into the water, apparently unharmed.

Nerodia floridana; Central Florida, 20 April 2004

This passage interests me because that possibly wasn’t a Florida cottonmouth, Agkistrodon piscivorus conanti. It was more likely a Florida green watersnake, Nerodia floridana.

Florida green watersnakes (quite common) bask atop open-water reeds. Florida cottonmouths are usually on land. When they are on water, it’s usually a very solid matte of grasses, similar to the patch featured here, only much thicker and closer to shore. Indeed, the so-called “water moccasin” (cottonmouth) is not a watersnake at all. Sure, they’re usually near water, but that’s because they prey on mammals (and such) that come to the water to drink. When you see a snake basking atop water-surrounded reeds, it’s probably a non-venomous watersnake such as a Florida green watersnake.

I’m so glad to know that people have been confused by watersnakes-vs-cottomouths since at least the eighteen-hundreds. It’s a fine Florida tradition. Older even than Disney.

Torrey continues

There was a case for powder and shot. Florida people have a poor opinion of a man who meets a venomous snake, no matter where, without doing his best to kill it.

(Another fine Florida tradition)

How strong the feeling is my boatman gave me proof within ten minutes after his failure with the cotton-mouth. He had pulled out into the middle of the river, when I noticed a beautiful snake, short and rather stout, lying coiled on the the water. Whether it was an optical illusion I cannot say, but it seemed to me that the creature lay entirely above the surface,–as if it had been an inflated skin rather than a live snake.

Agkistrodon piscivorus conanti; North Florida, 11 March 2006

Now, this other snake probably was a Florida cottonmouth, if we believe that the snake was not resting on a pad or some kind of solid matter on the water’s surface. Why? Because Florida cottonmouths (relatively short and stocky snakes) actually float on the water. Whereas the nonvenomous Nerodia watersnakes swim under the water with perhaps only their heads popping above the waterline, a portion of the Florida cottonmouth’s actual body will jett up over the waterline, even when it’s swimming. I’m not sure why a cottonmouth would bask in open water, coiled, but if that did indeed occur as Torrey describes it, this snake was more likely a cottonmouth than a non-venomous watersnake.

The adventure continues:

We passed close by it, but it made no offer to move, only darting out its tongue as the boat slipped past. I spoke to the boy, who at once ceased rowing.

“I think I must go back and kill that fellow,” he said.

“Why so?” I asked, with surprise, for I had looked upon it simply as a curiosity.

“Oh, I don’t like to see it live. It’s the poisonousest snake there is.”

For the record, cottonmouths are better described as “venomous” — not “poisonous” (and certainly not “poisonousest”). They inject venom through fangs. Sure, the venom could be considered a poison in its own right (it does, after all, cause adverse chemical reactions in the victim’s body), but it’s not like the snake is dripping in poison. They’re venomous. Venomous. Venomous, I say!

Back to the story:

As he spoke he turned the boat: but the snake saved him further trouble, as just then it uncoiled and swam directly toward us, as if it meant to come aboard. “Oh, you’re coming this way, are you?” said the boy sarcastically. “Well, come on!” The snake came on, and when it got well within range he took up his fishing-rod (with hooks at the end for drawing out of the reeds and bonnets), and the next moment the snake lay dead upon the water.

He slipped the end of the pole under it and slung it ashore. “There! how do you like that?” said he, and he headed the boat upstream again. It was a “copper-bellied moccasin,” he declared, whatever that may be, and was worse than a rattlesnake.

Indeed. Fortunately for the rodents and small critters of this stretch of the St. Johns in the late 1800s, there was one less “poisonous” snake to worry about. Rah!

THE CRACKER TWEEN AND THE GATOR (Volusia county)

Continuing north on the St. Johns, Torrey encounters his first alligator, accompanied of course by his Cracker Tween tour guide:

An alligator lay on the bank just before us. The boy turned his head, and instantly was all excitement. It was a big fellow, he said,–one of the three big ones that inhabited the creek. He would get him this time. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Oh yes, I’ll blow the top of his head off.” He was loaded for gallinules, and I, being no sportsman, and never having seen an alligator before, was some shades less confident. But it was his game, and I left him to his way. He pulled the boat noiselessly against the bank in the shelter of the tall reeds, put down the oars, with which he could almost have touched the alligator, and took up his gun. At that moment the creature got wind of us, and slipped incontinently into the water, not a little to my relief. One live alligator is worth a dozen dead ones, to my thinking. He showed his back above the surface of the stream for a moment shortly afterward, and then disappeared for good.

Alligator mississippiensis; Central Florida, 28 November 2010.

What a great scene to wrap up this post with. I love this scene. I love that the Cracker Tween’s plan was foiled by the alligator’s uncanny ability to see what was right in front of him. Heh. At least the Cracker Tween managed to kill a snake earlier in the day; it is, after all, important for tweens to have stories to tell, right? You gotta be able to tell a good story, Floridian or otherwise.

Now that I think about it, we all want to tell our stories, don’t we? We talk, we write, we photograph n’ post. We status update. We blog. We use the telephone, we text. We rack up and accumulate stories and we share them. In some cases, like Torrey’s, these stories survive and find their way to an appreciative and unexpected reader way on down the line. In other cases, the stories quietly swirl about when families get together or when friends celebrate, but are otherwise silent. And then there are those stories that eventually fade away and simply disappear in the recesses of the past.

Yeah, we all want to tell our stories in some way or another. Myself included.

One last thought from Torrey’s book:

A Florida man who cannot tell at least one snake story may be set down as having land to sell.

Indeed, though I wouldn’t limit this to only men…

~ janson

Sunset photograph from Mt. Dora, Florida, 29 December 2003.