Читать книгу My Ten Years in a Quandary - Robert C Benchley - Страница 23

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As some Frenchman has said, translating at sight into English as he went: "Each one to his taste"; but, with all the things there are to go out after in the world, I think that Dr. Ditmars is going out after the least attractive. At least, they would be to me.

Dr. Ditmars, head of The Bronx Zoo, is going on an expedition to the Caribbean Sea, and, believe it or not, he is hoping and praying that he comes back with the following treasures:

One Surinam toad, which, according to Dr. Ditmars, "looks as if an elephant had stepped on it, and has small beady eyes, like pin-points." This is all right, I suppose, so long as Dr. Ditmars thinks he wants it.

One Giant Horned Frog which attains a length of more than ten inches. "It is bright green, has long yellow horns, barks like a dog, and can inflict a very severe bite. It is apt to jump at you and bite you with no warning whatever." Not at me, Dr. Ditmars, not at me. He couldn't jump that far.

One tropical spider or Grammostola lomgimanca, which is three times as large as the common tarantula. In addition to being very active, this spider is also very poisonous, and its bite may have a fatal result.

One tree frog of the Harlequin family, highly colored. "Their skins exude a poison which is used by Indians in northeastern South America to tip their arrows. The venom is said to be as deadly as strychnine if it enters the bloodstream, and is fatal within ten minutes."

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Now Dr. Ditmars' aim is not to keep as far away from these pets as possible, but actually to go out and get them. He wants to bring them back to The Bronx Zoo, although, so far, no residents of The Bronx have issued statements in the matter. It looks like a good year for house screens in The Bronx.

The only one of Dr. Ditmars' quarries which could hold my attention at all is the Surinam toad "which looks as if an elephant had stepped on it." I'd rather like to look at that, and then look right away again.

The Surinam toad also has quite a cute trick in disposing of its eggs. (All this is, of course, according to Dr. Ditmars. It comes like a bolt from the blue to me.) The female lays the eggs in the water, each egg floating by itself. The male then takes them, one by one, in his flipper and imbeds them in the back of the female, where a retaining membrane immediately forms. The young frogs remain on this refuge until they can take care of themselves. More than two hundred eggs have been found on the back of a single female.

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Well, as the Frenchman said, "Each one to his taste." I couldn't go for that sort of thing myself—but then, I couldn't go for any of the other of Dr. Ditmars' hobbies.