#  Two poems about collecting 

 





July 08, 2016

 

 

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   ![Salamandra symmetrica](/sites/g/files/omnuum6411/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/library/files/salamander.jpg?itok=_04JWtf2) 

 

Meredith Golomb ’90, MD ’94, wrote these poems as an undergraduate student at Harvard. A copy was found here at the Library among the papers of Prof. Ruth Dixon Turner (1914-2000). Golomb says she must have crossed paths with Prof. Turner multiple times, as she spent a lot of time at the MCZ, but did not work directly with Turner. She dates the later poem to August 22, 1989, inspired by a collecting trip while working on her senior thesis.Dr. Golomb is now a pediatric neurologist on the faculty of the Indiana University School of Medicine and says she still writes the occasional rhyme.

#### **Embiotocidae Discovered** 

Jackson looked at his pail and thought  
He saw more fishes than he’d caught.  
“Wow!” he cried out, “look at this!  
These fish must be viviparous!  
I wish some Harvard guy could see…  
I’ll mail them out to Agassiz.”  
Then Louis, we all know did say  
“I think Embiotocidae  
Is what I’ll call this family  
Today, in eighteen fifty-three.”  
The humble surfperch now is treasured  
Its every detail now is measured  
By researchers who hope to make their names  
Well known by watching nature’s games

#### ****Collecting**** 

Yesterday I went collecting  
Lord knows what I was expecting –  
Dampness, yes, a toad, a frog,  
I’d never really seen a bog.  
Who knows just what I was thinking  
Soon I found that I was sinking  
To the thigh, and then the waist  
In mud, the bog was making haste  
To swallow me, net and all  
(Although I am quite wide and tall).  
I struggled free and struggled forward,  
Struggled up and struggled toward  
Where the salamanders played  
Where the hungry herons preyed  
And scooped and swung with my net –  
No, no salamanders yet.  
Further on, I did tramp  
Through the wet and through the damp  
What, am I still really newtless?  
Could this tramping all be fruitless?  
Then I looked down in my pail –  
I thought I saw a little tail!  
A newt! At least I caught a one –  
Now if I could only catch his son,  
Brother, wife, daughter, aunt,  
All the newts that one could want  
But all his pals went into hiding  
They fled quite soon after deciding  
To leave their dear friend in the lurch –  
I suppose they don’t care for research.



 

 

 



 

 See also:- [ Agassiz ](/blog-categories/agassiz)
 
 

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