Peabody Museum Expedition Enters Wilds of Everglade Region--Clench Tells of Search for Valuable Specimens

"To gather as many specimens as possible of the rare and valuable tree snail was the purpose of our trip," declared W. J. Clench, Curator of Mollusks at the Peabody Museum, when interviewed yesterday by a CRIMSON reporter, on his return from an expedition of over a month into the Everglade region of Florida.

"Now cutting our way with machete hatchets through dense underbrush, now wading through water up to our knees, with the ever-present fear of the moccasin snake, whose bite is more deadly than that of the rattler, we made our way into the heart of a comparatively unknown region.

"The tree snail is peculiar to southern Florida, Cuba, and Haiti Dwelling upon smooth-barked trees, where he can easily move about, he feeds on the algae and lichens growing there. In Florida, where the best specimens may be found, they are most numerous on the hummocks of the Everglades, and it was here that we chiefly directed our efforts.

"We motored, myself and two others, from St. Petersburg to Naples on the west coast, and then across to Miami and from there south to Lower Metacumbe. The section of the glades investigated was that opened by the new Tamiami Trail. The tree hummocks in this region are just like islands in an ocean, and rise in the midst of the grass-covered prairies, as the only spots where the Seminole Indians, who still inhabit this part of Florida, many make their homes in safety from the floods that cover the open prairies with two or three feet of water during the rainy season in the summer.

"We camped one night in the home of one of these Indians, which had evidently been recently abandoned by its owner for no reason that we could see Curious as to why he had left, we learned from other Indians in the vicinity that his wife had just died at the age of 104, and that it is the custom, when a Seminole Indian loses his wife, for him to move elsewhere.

"Our expedition was on the whole a success, as we succeeded in gathering many types of the snail which may soon be extinct, as well as others not here to fore discovered. The specimens which we brought back are now aestivating in the museum.