Archives of The Cold Blooded News

The Newsletter of the Colorado Herpetological Society

Volume 30, Number 9;   September, 2003

János Xántus and Fort Tejon, or How the Night Lizards Got Their Name

Edward O. Moll Adjunct Professor
School of Renewable Natural Resources University of Arizona

This is how the Yucca night lizard is listed in K P. Schmidt's 1953 Checklist of the North American Amphibians and Reptiles. Such a listing includes the basics that interest the average taxonomist - the name of the describer; the year the species was described; where the type description can be found in the scientific literature; and the locality where the type specimen was collected. However, such a listing gives little hint of the intriguing history associated with the naming of this little western lizard. Most serious herpetologists are familiar with the describer, Spencer F. Baird, but how many have heard of János Xántus, the man whose name has been eternalized in not only a genus but an entire family of lizards (albeit a small one)!

Xantusia's existence as a zoological entity came about due to the intertwining of the lives of these two 19th century naturalists. Spencer Fullerton Baird became the Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1850, a few months prior to Xántus' arrival in America. From this point forward to his death in 1887, Baird was the central figure and driving force for natural sciences in North America. Under Baird, the Smithsonian collections increased from around 6,000 natural history specimens to over 150,000, in just over a decade. The key Baird strategy, utilized to expand the museum collections, entailed recruiting naturalists to be attached to government surveys of western United States and to army posts at the frontier. This strategy was undoubtedly aided by having the Inspector General of the Army as his father-in- law. Baird continued to rise in prominence during his 37 year career at the Smithsonian and by the time of his death in 1887, he was simultaneously serving as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Director of the National Museum, and Commissioner of Fisheries.

János Xántus went by a variety of names throughout his career (e.g., John Xantus, Louis Vesey, and John Louis Xantus deVesey), but this was his given name at the time of his birth, October 5, 1825, in Csokonya, Hungary. He immigrated to the United States in 1851 after being involved in Hungary's unsuccessful war of independence against Austria. Until 1855 when he enlisted in the U.S. Army, Xántus' adventures in America are obscure. Though he wrote letters home, they were highly embellished with untruths about important jobs that he had held, large expeditions that he had led, trips with visiting royalty, and even meeting and receiving an award from President Millard Fillmore.

Xántus' enlistment in the army in 1855 was a low point in his life. For a year prior to enlisting, he had been living in the small Iowa farming community of New Buda where a number of other Hungarians had settled. However, he neither had the temperament nor the perseverance to be successful at farming. The circumstances that forced him to enlist are not completely clear, but likely are the result of being ostracized by his countrymen (who tired of his braggadocio and fictional accomplishments) along with a perpetual lack of finances that plagued him through most of his American stay. Xántus felt so demeaned by having to enlist that he changed his name to Louis Vesey. As it turned out, however, enlistment proved to be the event that turned his life around and provided him with some of the fame and respectability that he had long desired.

His fortunes began to change when he was assigned to Fort Riley in Kansas and met Assistant Surgeon William Alexander Hammond, who would go on to become Surgeon General of the United States. Hammond, an amateur ornithologist, was already one of Baird's natural history recruits. He took a liking to Vesey/Xantus and encouraged him to develop his skill as a naturalist. Xántus already had leanings toward this subject and proved to be an apt pupil. Under Hammond's tutelage, Xántus was soon collecting and preserving specimens on his own. His early collections went to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and were so appreciated that in 1856, he was awarded life membership in the Academy under his assumed name, Louis de Vesey. Recognition by the Smithsonian Institution was soon to follow. Hammond and J. Xantus de Vesey were acknowledged in the annual report for donating mammal and bird specimens from Kansas.

Early in 1857, Xántus began a long and regular correspondence with Spencer Baird. (Much of this correspondence has been published in Zwinger, 1986a, b). Baird, always willing to reward those who contributed specimens, began to provide Xántus with scientific literature, collecting materials, and, by the end of the year a transfer to a new assignment at Fort Tejon, California.

The Fort had been established by the U. S. Army in 1854 to protect an important wagon route and to supervise the nearby Sebastian Indian Reservation. It was located in Grapevine Canyon, Kern Co., California which is today the site of a state historic park, just west of Interstate Highway 5 and 35 miles south of Bakersfield. The Fort was situated at around 4250 feet in altitude, in a grove of old oaks, on a small plain surrounded by high mountains. Baird was particularly interested in this locality, as several physiographic regions tend to merge here and abrupt changes in the flora and fauna were reported to occur over relatively small distances.

Inasmuch as Xántus' abrasive personality tended to rapidly wear out the forbearance of his superiors (with the possible exception of Hammond); it was probably no problem for Baird to arrange his transfer to Fort Tejon. He arrived on 18 May, 1857 to become the hospital steward, but, in less than a month, he was already complaining to Baird about superior officers restricting his collecting and time away from the base. At Xántus' request, Baird wrote the officers requesting that his protegee be given special privileges. This only seemed to exacerbate the situation, and even less cooperation was provided for the naturalist/hospital attendant. It is likely that an incident, in which Xántus' pet grizzly bear cub ate the colonel's dog, did not help the situation. Finally, Baird persuaded his father-in-law, Inspector General Churchill, to write to the commandant of Fort Tejon on Xántus' behalf and this seemed to provide the necessary impetus to allow the collecting to proceed without major impedance throughout the remainder of his stay. Xántus' first interest was birds, but he was an expansive collector, enriching the museum's holdings in specimens as diverse as plants, beetles, centipedes, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals as well.

Although Grape Vine Creek, a substantial spring fed brook, ran through the Fort grounds, amphibians are not well represented in the USNM holdings from this locality. In a letter to Baird (June 5, 1857), Xántus reported collecting toads, frogs and hylas and later mentioned finding three frogs invariably in springs. However, his Fort Tejon collections in the United States National Museum comprise only two species of anurans; the Western toad, Bufo boreas and the Pacific tree frog, Pseudacris (Hyla) regilla. No Rana are represented.

Only one salamander specimen attributed to Xántus at Fort Tejon presently exists in the USNM collections and it is likely in error. This is the type of Plethodon intermedius Baird which has been synonomized with Plethodon vehiculum, a species that does not occur in California (Van Denburgh, 1316, attributed this specimen to a duplication of numbers for two different collections at the USNM). Nevertheless, Xántus mentions collections of salamanders in his letters. In a letter to Baird dated March 1, 1858, he mentions that restrictions on his use of firearms around the post made him resort to turning rocks and logs in order to find specimens. This collecting included an abundance of Salamanders belonging to 3 different species. Short descriptions of these salamanders suggest that they may have included the yellow-blotched ensatina (Ensatina eschscholtzii croceater) and slender salamanders (Batrachoseps sp.), but neither are listed in the USNM Xántus holdings today. Cope (1867) reported on a specimen of Plethodon croceater (USNM #4701) from J. Xántus at Fort Tejon. However, this specimen is not currently listed in the USNM holdings, and according to Van Denburgh (1316), was lost prior to confirmation. In a later letter to Baird (May 1, 1858), Xántus refers to sending a shipment of specimens containing 1 can of alcoholic specimens (Salamanders, frogs, bats, etc).

Turtles were particularly rare, and Xántus observed only two during his entire stay at the Fort. One was encountered on a mountainside devoid of vegetation and over two miles away from any known water source, while the other was in water, basking on the mud. A specimen of the Pacific pond turtle, Clemmys marmorata, (presumably one of the two mentioned), is catalogued at the USNM.

Snakes were somewhat more diverse. Six species from Fort Tejon are preserved in the USNM collection: the Gopher snake, Pituophis catenifer; the Common kingsnake, Lampropeltis getula; the California whipsnake, Masticophis lateralis; the Long-nosed snake, Rhinocheilus lecontei; the Twostriped gartersnake, Thamnophis hammondii; and the Western rattlesnake, Crotalus viridis. Xántus typically did not provide habitat or natural history information on the herps collected. However, one letter did note finding a pugnacious yellow snake marked with brown and red spots active at 45° in December, and another mentioned finding two snakes in ice cold springs. The former could be a Gopher snake and the latter the Two-striped gartersnake, but this is only speculation. It is possible that not all species collected at the Fort ever reached Baird. Xántus mentions in an 1858 letter that most of the snakes collected in 1857 had spoiled before he could send them.

USNM holdings of Fort Tejon lizards suggest that Western fence lizards (Sceloporus occidentalis) and Coast horned lizards (Phrynosoma coronatum) were common around the Fort or at least they were easy to catch. There are 36 and 24 specimens respectively in the Xántus collections. Other species represented are the Southern alligator lizard (Elgaria multicarinata), the Western whiptail (Cnemidophorus tigris), and three individuals, new to science, that would become the syntypes of the Desert night lizard. Not present among the USNM lizard holdings is the one, which measured 3 feet 4" in length, has scales like an alligator and moves very slowly forward, described by Xántus in his June 5, 1857 letter to Baird. He generally tended to be much more truthful in his letters to Baird than he was in letters home to Hungary in which veracity was almost nonexistent. However, every now and then he couldn't resist throwing in a whopper to his benefactor as well. This is likely such a case. The Gila monster is the only lizard in California that even remotely resembles this description and its range terminates considerably east of Fort Tejon. Possibly Xántus had read about a Heloderma sighting by a naturalist in some other locality. As one can readily see from his books, Xántus had no inhibitions about pirating ideas and observations of others.

In 1858 Baird published a short paper in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia entitled: Description of new genera and species of North American lizards in the museum of the Smithsonian Institution. In this four page paper, Baird used three short paragraphs (less than a third of a page) to diagnose a new family Xantusiidae, a new genus Xantusia, and a new species Xantusia vigilis. Thus the night lizards and specifically the desert night lizard were introduced to the scientific community. Another lizard, Sceloporus longipes, was described in the same paper from other Fort Tejon specimens, but this species did not stand the test of time and has been synonomized with Sceloporus occidentalis. When Xántus learned that he had become the namesake of a lizard, he was quite pleased but stated in a letter to Baird that he "could not recollect the species, not even after your short description, and have not even an idea, which of the collected saurians should be the Xantusia."

Having exhausted most of the collectable natural history in the vicinity of the Fort and having alienated virtually all of his superiors, Xántus left Fort Tejon on January 25, 1859. Baird had managed to get him a discharge and a new assignment as a tidal observer at Cape San Lucas, Baja California. From here he went on to become Acting Assistant Surgeon in the United States Army (not bad for someone who was never a physician); the U.S. Consul in Manzanillo, Mexico; director of the Pest Zoological Gardens; and custodian of the ethnographic division of the National Museum of Budapest. Throughout his career Xántus made few friends. He has been variously described as vane, arrogant, a charlatan, a braggart, having a glorified self image, and resenting authority. Much of what he has written in his books and letters was mendacious or plagiarized. Nevertheless, Xántus achieved considerable fame and success because the friends that he did make were powerful and continually pulled strings on his behalf. In addition his own letters concerning his great but fictional accomplishments in America were published both in book form and newspapers, elevating him to a celebrity in his home land.

Despite the many negatives concerning Xántus, he was a superior collector of natural history specimens perhaps the best of his day. To quote Baird on the subject (letter from Baird to W. M. Seward, Secretary of State, November 15, 1862): "Mr. Xántus is the most accomplished and successful explorer in the field of natural history I have ever known or ever heard of, the results of his operations enriching the Smithsonian Museum in a very high degree." Pretty high praise from a man who personally knew most of the great naturalists of the time. Certainly, the lasting legacy of János Xántus, resides in those bottles, trays and cases of his specimens in our National Museum that have enriched the knowledge and studies of biologists for some 140 years. His name has achieved its own form of immortality, living on in nearly fifty scientific names of creatures as diverse as a hummingbird, a nightshade, a centipede, a brittle star, crabs, beetles, fish, and a little group of litter-loving saurians, known as the night lizards. Acknowledgments: I want to thank Robert Bezy for the loan of literature concerning Xántus and critiquing an early draft of this paper. Bronwen Yanchus of the Fort Tejon Historical Park staff, supplied information on the Fort and its buildings. Kraig Adler provided advice on the use of old photographs and figures. Finally, I wish to acknowledge Dr. Ronald Heyer, Mr. Kenneth Tighe and the Division of Amphibians and Reptiles, National Museum of Natural History for providing a printout of their holdings of amphibians and reptiles collected by Xántus' at Fort Tejon.

Bibliography
Adler, Kraig A., 1989. Herpetologists of the past. Pp 5-41 in K.A. Adler (ed.) Contributions to the history of herpetology. Soc. for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles.
Baird, Spencer F., 1858. Description of new genera and species of North American lizards in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. Proc. Acad. Natur. Sci. Philadelphia 10: 253256.
Cope, E. D., 1857. A review of the species of the Amblystomidae. Proc. Acad. Natur. Sci. Philadelphia 19:166-211.
Denburgh, John Van., 1916. Four species of salamanders new to the state of California, with a description of Plethodon elongatus, a new species, and notes on other salamanders. Proc. California Acad. Sciences 6 (series 4):215-221.
Fischer, Dan L., 2001. Early Southwest ornithologists, 1528-1900. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Hume, Edgar E., 1942. Ornithologists of the United States Army Medical Corps: thirty-six biographies. John Hopkins Press, Baltimore.
Madden, Henry M., 1949. Xántus, Hungarian naturalist in the pioneer west. Books of the West, Pale Alto, California.
Schmidt, Karl P., 1953. A check list of North American amphibians and reptiles. American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Zwinger, Ann., 1986a. John Xántus: The Fort Tejon letters, 1857-1859. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Zwinger, Ann., 1986b. Xantus, The letters of John Xántus to Spencer Fullerton Baird from San Francisco and Cabo San Lucas 1859-1861. Dawson's Book Shop, Los Angeles.