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on my “abandoned farm”
“What be them things?”
This was the interested though vernacular query that greeted the turning up of four or five curious whitish objects as we were plowing a piece of springy sod on my “abandoned farm” on the White Mountain foothills. “We” included two men and a pair of oxen, in addition to myself, who acted as general supervisor and rock-picker to the outfit.
“They must be snakes’ eggs,” I replied. “Wait; I want to save them to send to a friend who will draw a picture of them.”
“A man who spends his time puttering with snake’s eggs needs looking after,” was the candid New England comment.
But, in spite of the suggestion, I gathered them up and sent them to Mr. Beecroft...
— “Puttering with Snakes’ Eggs,” in Clarence M(oores). Weed, Seeing Nature First (With illustrations by W. I. Beecroft and from Photographs), (1913) : 132-136
132-136 (same copy, at hathitrust)
Clarence Moores Weed (1864-1947),
“a New England based naturalist, specializing in economic entomology and botany, with an interest also in ornithology”
SNAC (Social Networks and Archival Context)