Michoacan. In 1885 he described _Sonora michoacanensis_, and in 1891 he
described _Eumeces altamirani_; from what is known of the distribution
of these species, he probably had collected in the Tepalcatepec Valley.
During their biological survey of Mexico, Edward W. Nelson and Edward A.
Goldman spent a limited amount of time in Michoacan in 1892 and again in
1903 and 1904. Most of their collecting was done on the plateau in the
north-central part of the state; their collections are in the United
States National Museum. While collecting fishes in southern Mexico, Seth
E. Meek obtained some amphibians and reptiles from Lago de Patzcuaro in
1904; these are in the collections of the Chicago Natural History
Museum. In 1908 Hans Gadow ventured into the then unexplored "tierra
caliente" of the Balsas Valley and collected at Volcan Jorullo and other
localities in the valley. Later in the same year he collected at
Guayabo, San Salvador, and Arteaga in the Sierra de Coalcoman and at
Buena Vista and Cofradia in the Tepalcatepec Valley. His collections
were deposited in the British Museum (Natural History) and the
Naturhistorisches Museum Wien.

The first thirty years of the present century saw little more field work
in Michoacan. In the 1930's Edward H. Taylor and Hobart M. Smith
collected throughout much of Mexico. At various times they worked in
Michoacan, principally along the road from Mexico City to Guadalajara.
In 1935 Hobart M. Smith spent a week at Hacienda El Sabino south of
Uruapan; he revisited the locality again in 1936 and made a large and
important collection of amphibians and reptiles from the upper limits of
the arid tropical scrub forest in the Tepalcatepec Valley. Specimens
collected by Smith and Taylor were incorporated into the Edward H.
Taylor-Hobart M. Smith collection, which subsequently was deposited in
part in the Museum of Natural History at the University of Illinois and
in part in the Chicago Natural History Museum. In 1939 Hobart M. Smith
collected at Patzcuaro and between Uruapan and Apatzingan; these
collections, made while he was a Walter Rathbone Bacon Scholar of the
Smithsonian Institution, are deposited in the United States National
Museum. In 1940 and 1941 Frederick A. Shannon, who was a member of the
Hoogstraal Expeditions under the auspices of the Chicago Natural History
Museum, collected on Cerro de Tancitaro and at Apatzingan; an account of
the specimens collected there was published by Sch