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SUMMARY:
Newspaper article announcing Miss Joan B. Procter’s appointment as Curator of Reptiles at the London Zoological Gardens, noting her education, museum work, and scientific honors. It highlights other women in similar posts abroad, her research and design of aquarium rockwork, and mentions her reptile pets.

CONTENT:
THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN, SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1923.

Women in the News

A CURATOR AT
THE ZOO

(FROM A WOMAN CORRESPONDENT.)

FLEET STREET, FRIDAY.
Manchester readers will be especially in-
terested in the fact that Miss Joan B. Procter,
F.Z.S., F.L.S., has been appointed curator of
reptiles at the Zoological Gardens in London,
for Miss Procter is a granddaughter of Mr.
William Brockbank, of Didsbury, whose
wonderful gardens were famous more than
twenty-five years ago. Mr. Brockbank was a
well-known geologist, and was made a Fellow
of the Linnean Society at the time of the
"Daffodil" Conference. A similar honour
has just been conferred on his granddaughter,
who has inherited his scientific tastes and his
interest in geology. It was because of her
writings and research work in zoology that
the Linnean Society made her a Fellow.

She was educated at St. Paul's School for
Girls at Hammersmith, and it was not long
after she left school that Miss Procter went to
work in the reptile department of the Natural
History Museum at South Kensington, first as a
voluntary assistant to Dr. Boulenger. Since
his retirement she has been in charge of the
department, and she is still carrying on her
work there. A "Manchester Guardian" repre-
sentative who went to see Miss Procter at her
home to-day found her very unwilling to talk
about herself. Ever since she was a child, she
said, she had been interested in reptiles and
batrachia. It is a branch of zoology to which
much less attention has been paid in England
than in America and on the Continent. In
America it is very well worked, and each large
museum has several people devoting themselves
to the study of reptiles and nothing else. The
head of the department at the New York Museum
was a woman, a Miss Dickerson, who has now
retired, and in Leyden another woman, Dr. De
Rooy, holds a similar position. In England
there are only two specialists, Mr. E. G.
Boulenger, who is at present curator of rep-
tiles at the Zoo, and Miss Procter herself.

HER WORK AT THE ZOO.

As a curator at the Zoo Miss Procter will
have charge of the reptile-house and the
tortoises. She will keep on with the research
work she has been doing at the Museum, will
describe new species, and probably work out
their anatomy. "One is always coming across
new species," she said. "With some of these
invertebrate things you get a new species every
day. It is work of absorbing interest, and one
never knows what the anatomical research will
lend to."

Miss Procter endorsed what a speaker at the
Surgeon's Conference said the other day of the
importance to human surgery of research work
in other forms of animal life. At present Miss
Procter is engaged on designing the decorative
rockwork for the new aquarium tanks at the
Zoo. She makes models of the tanks on a
scale of two inches to a foot, and the work-
men carry out her designs. Some of these
tanks will be as big as a room—the biggest
will be 30ft. in length. Instead of making
them all of Portland cement, which would
have a monotonous effect, the idea is to vary

them as much as possible—provide a setting
of natural rock, sometimes of red rock, but
mostly in shades of grey or yellow. The granite
boulders for the turtle tank have been brought
from Cornwall, and the coloured pebbles to
go with the red marble rocks in another tank
come from the Channel Islands.
From his island of Herm Mr. Compton
McKenzie has sent sacks full of the tiny white
and coloured shells that lie to a depth of
three feet on the beaches, and these are to
show off the navy-blue beauty of the lobsters
in their tank. In addition to the rockwork Miss
Procter has to find the appropriate shingles
and water weeds.

Miss Procter has her own reptilian pets, given
to her by collectors from abroad. The boa
constrictor lives at the Zoo, and when she
takes up her new post there Miss Procter will
transfer to the warmer temperature the small
snakes which at present live at her home. She
showed some of these to-day to the interviewer.
The two water snakes from Brazil and the small
snake, also harmless, from Tanganyika, were
in a semi-torpid condition, but they writhed
about in a bunch on her hand, laying their
flat heads along her arm and shooting out
their restless tongues. Realising that they
were harmless, one could understand some-
thing of their fascination.

MISS JOAN B. PROCTER,
F.Z.S., who has been ap-
pointed Curator of Reptiles
to the London Zoological
Gardens.

The Daily Mail

JULY 21, 1923.

SUMMARY:
A clipping titled "Trials of a Herpetologist's Mother" from The Seventeenth Reporter features the quoted question, "And does she get her brains from you or her father?" attributed to E. H. P. The page appears to be a humorous or reflective note about a herpetologist's family.

CONTENT:
TRIALS OF A HERPETOLOGIST'S MOTHER
THE SEVENTEENTH REPORTER

"AND DOES SHE GET HER BRAINS
FROM YOU OR HER FATHER ?"
E. H. P.

SUMMARY:
A 1923 Toronto Star feature profiles Miss Joan Proctor, curator of reptiles at the London Zoological Gardens, highlighting her methods of handling venomous snakes through kindness and understanding. The article notes her role in designing a new reptile house and references Raymond L. Ditmars of the New York Zoo.

CONTENT:
1923.
Toronto Star

Her Pets Are Ugly King Cobras
Deadly Reptiles Won By Kindness

Miss Joan Proctor, Curator of
Serpents in London Zoo-
logical Gardens, Tells How
She Overcomes Her Terri-
ble Playmates.

THE first woman in the world was on sociable
terms with a serpent, and the world knows
what came of that.
But here is one of Eve's youngest daughters
handling, petting and caring for innumerable de-
scendants of that wily snake of old. Her name
is Joan Proctor and her official title is curator
of reptiles of the London Zoological Gardens.
The feeling that soft, purring, cuddly little
kittens awaken in other small girls came to Joan
when, as an inquisitive ten-year-old, she first
made the acquaintance of a shining, wriggling
green garter snake, and that strange fondness
for the first enemy of man has grown and grown
until her greatest joy in life is playing foster-
mother to all the alligators, toads, turtles and
reptiles in London's famous zoo.
The family in which Joan belonged didn't ex-
actly favor the predilection of its youngest mem-
ber for crawling things when that first slimy,
glassy-eyed creature was introduced into their
happy home. But Joan was a positive little per-
son. She made it plain that her motto was "Love
me, love my snakes!" and presently the whole
Proctor clan progressed from abhorrence to in-
difference. They could put their hands into a
presumably empty vase on the living-room table,
touch the cold coil of a snake and not fall in a
faint.
From indifference, the Proctors went on until
they began to share Joan's uncanny affection for
creeping things, and now her home would not be
home without at least three boa constrictors
draping themselves about the furniture.
When Joan was seventeen she read her first
paper about snakes before the Royal Zoological
Society—a paper that attracted serious attention.
A few years later she became the unsalaried as-
sistant of the curator of reptiles at the British
Museum of Natural History—truly a labor of
love. In the museum laboratory she worked and
studied amid hundreds of jars and bottles con-
taining creeping things. And all the time at
home she watched over the boas, the bushmasters,
the asps and the black snakes that succeeded each
other at home as the darlings of her heart.
So it was that when the council of the Royal
Zoological Society found it necessary to engage a
new custodian for its great collection of living
reptiles, Joan, whose paper on snakes read before
that august body so early in her career had made
such an impression, was unanimously decided
upon as the logical recipient of the honor.

"It's a very simple thing to get on with rep-
tiles of any sort," says the new curator, illus-
trating her point by using one of her favorite
poisonous-tongued friends as a neckpiece. "By
using a handkerchief to make sure of my grip
on his tail, he can't get too playful, you see. The
dear things do love to twist themselves about
people's necks, and then sometimes they squeeze
too hard." Which, it may be clearly seen, is not
so good for the neck.
"Kindness and real understanding are back of
success with snakes," decrees the only woman
occupant of a position of such scientific note in
Great Britain.

So great is the confidence reposed in this
young woman by those who know that she
is not only to care for the huge creeping things
of the jungle, but has been empowered to design
the new home for reptiles at the London Zoological
Gardens, and is now engaged in deciding just
where, what and how big the quarters for her
favorites shall be.
"Woman snake-charmer!" shrieked local news-
paper headlines, when this announcement was
made.
"I'm not!" contradicted Miss Proctor, showing
a surprising little glint in her eyes—a glint that
may be the secret of her power over the descend-
ants of that serpent that tempted Eve.
"You might call me a 'snake-keeper,' if you
will, but not a snake-charmer. Do you know
what a snake-charmer is? Some queer voodoo
sort of person with supernatural powers. Of
course, I'm not that! It's so easy to get on with
snakes. Why, if you've learned the way to deal
with a two-foot garter snake you know how to
cope with an eight-foot python! They are all so
much alike." The foster-mother of London's rep-
tiles caressed the flat head of the amazingly
powerful boa constrictor just then draped about
her neck.
A neck, Miss Proctor explains, is an ideal
"warmer" for a tropical snake. There's nothing
he likes better than to coil about it. Coping
with Mr. Boa in this case means keeping a firm
grip on head and tail so that his enthusiasm
the human heater doesn't carry him too far.
There are many problems for this little wo-
man with the big nerve to solve, for snakes who
come from other lands as captives are likely to
behave as erratically as human beings under
similar circumstances. They go on hunger strikes.
They commit suicide. They demand one certain
kind of food—usually expensive and difficult to
obtain—and that only will they swallow.
How to combat this suicide tendency in rep-
tiles will probably engross Miss Proctor as it en-
grosses most curators of these temperamental
creatures. Raymond L. Ditmars, of the New
York Zoo, reports that a continual offender in this
regard is the bushmaster.

TORONTO
STAR
PRESS

SUMMARY:
An excerpt notes Miss Procter’s plans for arranging submarine scenes, followed by 'A City-Builder' describing honours awarded to Sir Charles Wilson of Leeds, with mentions of ceremonies and gifts associated with the city and university. Figures referenced include Eva Bland, E. F. L. Wood, Lord Halifax, Professor Gilbert Murray, and Sir Michael Sadler, with locations such as the Town Hall of Leeds, Westminster, and Temple Newsam.

CONTENT:
THE
WORLD'S
WORK
SEPTEMBER 1923
326 MEN AND WOMEN

and without their original occupants. In the
arrangement of these submarine scenes Miss
Procter will find ample scope for combining
artistic feminine taste with scientific knowledge.

Eva Bland.

A CITY-BUILDER

Many honours of high distinction have
recently been awarded to Sir Charles Wilson,
J.P., F.S.A.A., the new Member of Parliament
for Leeds. First, the city to whose welfare
and well-being he has given so many selfless
years made him a Freeman by unanimous
vote of the Council and acclaim of the people,
then the University conferred upon him the
Degree of LL.D., probably the first accountant
to be admitted into this select academic
fellowship. Next, he was granted a Knighthood
in the King's Birthday List, and now
he has been returned to Westminster. The
scene in the Town Hall of Leeds when the
freedom of the city and the University degree
were conferred, impressed me by its beauty
and dignity. I think it is Professor Gilbert
Murray who, translating one of his beloved
Greek authors, gives us the line "The apple
tree, the singing and the gold." The words
perfectly portray a festival of rich delight, of
proud gladness in the heart and colour in the
setting. Truly it was a scene memorable for
its manifold solemnity and significance. It
was the City giving honour to one who has
helped to make it honourable.

Major the Right Hon. E. F. L. Wood,
M.A., M.P., President of the Board of Education,
was associated with the then Alderman
Wilson (a Major, too, if I were to use his
military title) in receiving the highest honours
which it is in the power of City and University
to give. Major Wood, the son of the venerable
Lord Halifax, who was proudly present
at the Ceremony of Conferment, recently
transferred his beautiful home and estate,
Temple Newsam, the Templestowe of Ivanhoe,
to the City of Leeds on generously sacrificial
terms, and as a gift he made over a treasure-
trove of furniture and art. It was Alderman
Wilson who carried the delicately intricate
negotiations to successful issue. Nothing
could have been more appropriate than the
comradeship of these two men in honour on
so eventful and so noble a day.

Through the eloquent lips of Sir Michael
Sadler, the Vice-Chancellor, the University
paid homage to Alderman Wilson's "disinterested
public service." In a choice perora-

SUMMARY:
Magazine clipping from The Sketch featuring photographs and captions about Miss Joan B. Procter’s appointment as Curator of Reptiles at the "Zoo," succeeding Mr. E. G. Boulenger, with notes on her work at the British Museum and aquarium design. A note states the photos were published without her permission.

CONTENT:
Sketch
Aug. 29, 1923
Fond of Snakes:
THESE PHOTOS WERE
PUBLISHED WITHOUT
MY PERMISSION
The New Reptile Curator at Home.
DURING THE
SUMMER HOLIDAYS!

1. THE GREAT LADY REPTILE EXPERT: MISS JOAN B. PROCTER, F.Z.S., F.L.S., AND FRIEND.
2. A STUDY IN MISS PROCTER'S HOUSE: PUSSY, THE KYLON AND THE REPTILE.
3. THE LADY WHO HANDLES SNAKES WITH PLEASURE: MISS JOAN B. PROCTER, WHO HAS BEEN APPOINTED CURATOR OF REPTILES AT THE "ZOO."
4. ON THE FRIENDLIEST TERMS: MISS PROCTER AND A MEMBER OF HER PRIVATE COLLECTION.

Miss Joan B. Procter, F.Z.S., F.L.S., who has been appointed Curator of Reptiles at the "Zoo," in succession to Mr. E. G. Boulenger, who has been appointed Director of the new Aquarium, is the greatest woman expert on reptiles of the day, and will assume her duties in the late autumn. She was educated at St. Paul's School for Girls, and since 1916 has worked in the Reptile Department at the British Museum—first as voluntary assistant to Dr. Boulenger, and, since his retirement, as the expert in charge. She is the author of a large number of papers on the anatomy, classification, and habits of reptiles and batrachians, and owns a private collection of living specimens. Miss Procter is still carrying on the work of the Reptile Department at the Museum, but is also engaged in designing the rockwork for the aquarium tanks at the "Zoo."

PHOTOGRAPHS SPECIALLY TAKEN FOR "THE SKETCH" BY ALFIERI.

SUMMARY:
Newspaper header showing THE AGE with MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA and an empty Date line.

CONTENT:
THE AGE
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

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SUMMARY:
Satirical notes from Punch comment on the Downing Street barricades and Mr. Lloyd George, peace at Lausanne, and Surrey defeating Kent at Blackheath. It also remarks on the appointment of a lady as Curator of the Reptile House at the Zoo as a feminist advance since the days of Eve.

CONTENT:
AUGUST 1, 1923.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 97

CHARIVARIA.

We gather from a statement of the
FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS that
there is no intention of removing the
barricades from Downing Street at pre-
sent. But surely he must know that
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE escaped from No. 10
many months ago.

Peace has been signed at Lausanne,
and Surrey has at last defeated Kent
at Blackheath. Somebody might now
tell us what else there is to do.

A lady has been appointed Curator
of the Reptile House at the
Zoo. In feminist circles
this is regarded as marking
a splendid advance since
the days of Eve.

SUMMARY:
A Public Ledger feature profiles Joan Proctor, curator of reptiles at the London Zoological Gardens, detailing her compassionate methods for handling snakes and her role in designing a new reptile house. The article shares anecdotes about boas and king cobras, feeding challenges in zoos, and public reactions to her work.

CONTENT:
PUBLIC LEDGER—PHILADELPHIA, SUNDAY MORNING. SEPTEMBER 23, 1923

Her Playmates are Ugly King Cobras!

Miss Proctor finds a handker-
chief useful for securing a grip
on the tail of a poisonous snake
friend that might become too
playful

Miss Joan Proctor,
Curator of Reptiles
in the London
Zoological Gardens,
Tells How She
Overcomes Her
Serpentine Pets With
Sheer Kindness

THE first woman in the world was on
sociable terms with a serpent, and
the world knows what came of that.

But here is one of Eve's youngest
daughters handling, petting and caring
for innumerable descendants of that wily
snake of old. Her name is Joan Proctor
and her official title is curator of reptiles
of the London Zoological Gardens.

The feeling that soft, purring, cuddly
little kittens awaken in other small girls
came to Joan when, as an inquisitive
ten-year-old, she first made the acquaint-
ance of a shining, wriggling green
garter snake, and that strange fondness
for the first enemy of man has grown
and grown until her greatest joy in life
is playing foster-mother to all the alli-
gators, toads, turtles and reptiles in
London's famous Zoo.

The family in which Joan belonged
didn't exactly favor the predilection of
its youngest member for crawling things,
when that first slimy, glassy-eyed
creature was introduced into their happy
home. But Joan was a positive little
person. She made it plain that her mot-
to was "Love me, love my snakes!"
and presently the whole Proctor clan
progressed from abhorrence to indiffer-
ence. They could put their hands into
a presumably empty vase on the living
room table, touch the cold coil of a snake
and not fall in a faint.

From indifference, the Proctors went
on until they began to share Joan's un-
canny affection for creeping things, and
now her home would not be home with-
out at least three boa constrictors
draping themselves about the furniture.

When Joan was seventeen she read
her first paper about snakes before the
Royal Zoological Society—a paper that
attracted serious attention. A few years
later, she became the unsalaried assistant
of the curator of reptiles at the
British Museum of Natural History—
truly a labor of love. In the museum
laboratory she worked and studied amid
hundreds of jars and bottles containing
creeping things. And all the time at
home she watched over the boas, the
bushmasters, the asps and the black
snakes that succeeded each other at
home as the darlings of her heart.

SO IT was that when the council of
the Royal Zoological Society found
it necessary to engage a new custodian

Eve in the Garden of
Eden was the first woman
on friendly terms with
the serpents, and so it has
come to pass that in this
day, many years after the
creation, there are daugh-
ters of Eve who do not
find it so distasteful to
train serpents and care for
them tenderly

Miss Proctor believes a daily "air-
ing is good for any household
pet. Here she is with a pet rep-
tile which she has taken for a
walk through the grounds of her
London home

for its great collection of living reptiles,
Joan, whose paper on snakes read be-
fore that august body so early in her
career had made such an impression,
was unanimously decided upon as the
logical recipient of the honor,

"It's a very simple thing to get on
with reptiles of any sort," says the
new curator, illustrating her point by
using one of her favorite poisonous-
tongued friends as a neckpiece. "By
using a handkerchief to make sure of
my grip on his tail, he can't get too
playful, you see. The dear things do
love to twist themselves about people's
necks, and then sometimes they squeeze
too hard." Which, it may be clearly
seen, is not so good for the neck.

"Kindness and real understanding are
back of success with snakes," decrees
the only woman occupant of a position
of such scientific note in Great Britain.
So great is the confidence reposed in
this young woman by those who know,
that she is not only to care for the huge
creeping things of the jungle, but has
been empowered to design the new home
for reptiles at the London Zoological
Gardens, and is now engaged in deciding

The neck of a human being is just the sort of a
"warmer" that a tropical snake
loves to coil about—and
squeeze—so Miss Proctor
adopts the simple "Safety
First" measure of holding the
head and tail securely as she
handles this small but surpris-
ingly powerful boa

When, as a ten-year-old girl, Joan
introduced her first creeping pet
into the Proctor household, her
parents were not at all inclined to
approve the strange friendship,
but Joan's persuasive powers over-
came that difficulty. Snakes of
varying lengths and colors have
since established friendly relations
with all members of the Proctor
household. Here is Joan's mother
demonstrating the innocent inten-
tions of a twelve-foot boa

constrictor just then draped about her
neck.

A neck, Miss Proctor explains, is
an ideal "warmer" for a tropical
snake. There's nothing he likes better
than to coil about it. Coping with Mr.
Boa in this case means keeping a firm

—usually expensive and difficult to ob-
tain—and that only will they swallow.
How to combat this suicide tendency
in reptiles will probably engross Miss
Proctor as it engrosses most curators
of these temperamental creatures. Ray-
mond L. Ditmars, of the New York Zoo,
reports that a continual offender in this
regard is the bushmaster.

King cobras are another variety of
Miss Proctor's charges likely to become
obnoxious at times. Or, at least, that
has been the experience of other cura-
tors.

When this monarch among snakes
arrived at the Bronx Zoo, he registered
his dislike of the institution and his
objection to remaining in it by refusing
to eat at all. As he is a cannibal, he
was offered every species of crawling
thing the authorities had ever heard of
a cobra eating. But no! Nothing
doing! Never in this world, so said the
cobra in question, if his expression mir-
rored his thoughts.

At length a "coach whip," a nice, five-
foot appetizing morsel, was sent in for
the rebel's breakfast. That hit the spot.
The king cobra ate it and demanded
more of the same. And there the scheme
struck a snag, for coach whips cost
three dollars each and aren't to be had
at all times for a striking monarch's
fastidious taste.

What was to be done? The diet of
coach whip had been kept up while the
curator engaged in thought, and now
long, thin strips of beef were cut in the
length of the favorite food, and each
strip covered with one of the old skins
the coach whip had shed. The skin
was tied about the beef at intervals and
the strips were offered to his majesty
for the next meal. And he ate them.

Diplomacy, as will be seen, belongs
not alone to court and political circles.

Snakes are not the only pets to be found in Miss Proctor's home. Pussy jumped upon a
table to see what this tricky boa was doing. The boa turned its head away as if it had not
the slightest interest in the cat's presence. The photographer snapped just before the lightning-
swift strike that was sad news for pussy

just where, what and how big the quar-
ters for her favorites shall be,

"Woman snake-charmer!" shrieked
local newspaper headlines, when this
announcement was made.

"I'm not!" contradicted Miss Proctor,
showing a surprising little glint in her
eyes—a glint that may be the secret
of her power over the descendants of
that serpent that tempted Eve.

"You might call me a 'snake-keeper,

if you will, but not a snake-charmer.
Do you know what a snake-charmer
is? Some queer voodoo sort of person with
supernatural powers. Of course, I'm not
that! It's so easy to get on with snakes.
Why, if you've learned the way to deal
with a two-foot garter snake, you know
how to cope with an eight-foot python!
They are all so much alike." The foster-
mother of London's reptiles caressed the
fine head of the amazingly powerful boa

grip on head and tail so that his en-
thusiasm for the human eater doesn't
carry him too far.

"There are many problems for this
little woman with the big nerve to solve,
for snakes who come from other lands
as captives are likely to behave er-
ratically as human beings under similar
circumstances. They go on hunger-
strikes. They commit suicide. They
demand one certain kind of food

THERE are about one thousand species
of snakes in the world and a goodly
portion of them are represented in Miss
Proctor's collection. There is, for in-
stance, a twenty-foot python, weighing
three hundred pounds, and a mere
specimen of burrowing snake but five
or six inches long and no thicker than
a goose quill. And there is a squatty,
flat-headed viper and an enormously
elongated tree snake—and goodness
knows how many more.

What's the good of snakes if you don't
happen to love them for themselves
alone, as does Miss Proctor?

California says they're good for ex-
terminating gophers that destroy the
crops on the Pacific Coast. Australia
applauds reptilian efforts to help them
get rid of the vermin plague, result of
accumulation of stocks of wheat because
of non-shipment during the war. Green-
wich, Connecticut, urges that snakes be
used to keep mole-infested lawns in
order. And the departments in Wash-
ington point out that rats are the great-
est destroyers of wheat the world ever
knew, and snakes live on rats to a great
extent!

So Miss Joan Proctor is not alone in
her opinion that snakes are well worth
cultivating.

SUMMARY:
Newspaper clippings (1921–1927) report Miss Joan Procter (also styled Miss Joan B. Procter/Miss Joan Proctor) being appointed Curator of Reptiles at the Zoo/Zoological Gardens, London, noting her reputation as a leading snake expert. One notice states Mr. E. G. Boulenger will direct the new aquarium, with references to institutions in South Kensington and Bombay.

CONTENT:
Cutting from the Leeds Mercury
Address of Publication
Issue dated 21.4.23

THE ZOO GIRL SNAKE EXPERT.

Miss Joan Procter, who has been
appointed curator of the reptile
section at the Zoo. Though she is
only twenty-five, she is acknow-
ledged to be one of the greatest
snake experts in the world.

Cutting from the Bristol Evening News
Address of Publication
Issue dated 20.7.21.

THE GIRL-SNAKE EXPERT.

Our London correspondent telegraphs:
The sphere of women's activity widens
daily, and this morning we have news of a
girl snake expert being appointed to take
charge of reptiles.
It sounds a job for which there will be
little feminine competition. Miss Joan
Proctor's childhood care of snakes as pets
has brought reward in her present appoint-
ment.

Cutting from the Evening Dispatch
Address of Publication / Edinburgh
Issue dated 27.7.27

Girl Snake Expert at the Zoo.
Miss Joan Proctor, F.Z.S., F.L.S., has been
appointed Curator of Reptiles at the Zoological
Gardens, London. Miss Proctor, who is 25 years
of age, is an acknowledged expert on snakes.

Eve and the Serpents.
AT the Zoo in London a girl has been
appointed curator of reptiles. This
unusual course has been adopted because
the lady, Miss Joan Procter, F.Z.S., F.L.S.,
is one of the leading authorities on these
rather terrifying creatures. Ever since
she was a tiny child Miss Procter has
been fond of reptiles, and her list of pets were
of a nature to terrify the average person. She
read every book that dealt with snakes and
lizards, so that when she came in contact with
men who made a life study of reptiles they were
amazed at her knowledge. She adopted her
present career on leaving school. Miss Joan
Procter's fame has penetrated over the world.
The Zoological Society of Bombay made her a
Fellow, and American experts held her in high
regard. She is also one of the experts at the
Museum of Natural History at South Kensing-
ton, and loves and fondles dangerous serpents
as an average woman would pet kittens and
puppies.

Cutting from the Christian World
Address of Publication
Issue dated 26.7.27

Miss Joan B. Procter, F.Z.S., F.L.S., has
been appointed Curator of Reptiles at the
Zoo in place of Mr. E. G. Boulenger, who
is to take up duties as director of the new
aquarium. Miss Procter has for several
years been a worker in the Reptile Depart-
ment at the British Museum.

SUMMARY:
International newspaper clippings from 1923 report Miss Joan Procter's appointment as Curator of Reptiles at the London Zoological Gardens, noting her expertise, early career, and work on the new aquarium. Articles also mention related appointments of E. G. Boulenger and her training under Dr. C. A. Boulenger.

CONTENT:
Telephone No. Central 7989.
International Press-Cutting Bureau
14, New Bridge Street, London, E.C. 4.

Extract from
NEW YORK WORLD
NEW YORK.
19 August. 1923.
Her Specialty Is Snakes.
MISS JOAN PROCTOR, a London
girl, has a job which few women,
and few men for that matter,
would care to hold except in the most dis-
tinct of purely honorary capacities. She
has just been elected curator of reptiles
at the famous London Zoo, after refusing
a cabled offer of a similar position at our
own Bronx Zoo at a much higher salary.
Miss Proctor is only 25 years old, but
is recognized as one of the greatest liv-
ing authorities on serpents. Her reputa-
tion indeed is already worldwide among
naturalists.

Joan Proctor.
She will not only have charge of all the
reptiles in the great collection in London,
but she will also have complete charge of
the new aquarium and its denizens. In
fact she has been responsible for the de-
signing and construction of this zoolog-
ical watering place.

Miss Proctor's grandfather was a fa-
mous entomologist, and she herself has
kept lizards and snakes as pets since her
tenth birthday. When in her very early
'teens she astonished the chief of the
reptile department of the South Kensing-
ton Museum by her knowledge of ophi-
ology and when she was only 18 she
succeeded to his post on his resignation.
At 19 she read her first paper before the
Zoological Society and later was elected
a fellow of the Linnæan Society, one of
the foremost scientific organizations in
the world.

Apparently failing to see enough of
snakes at the Zoo she keeps six Brazilian
reptiles in a glass cage in her drawing
room. They were sent to her as a gift,
for noted scientists in South America
and South Africa, knowing her interest,
frequently send deadly serpents to Eng-
land for her, and she keeps most of them
in her own home.

International Press-Cutting Bureau.
Extract from
NEW YORK HERALD.
New York, U.S.A.
Date 29 JUL 1923
LONDON NAMES WOMAN
CURATOR OF REPTILES
Miss Joan Procter One of
World's Leading Experts.

Special Cable to The New York Herald.
Copyright, 1923, by The New York Herald.
New York Herald Bureau.
London, July 28.
Miss Joan Procter, regarded by zoolo-
gists as one of the greatest snake ex-
perts in the world, has been appointed
curator of reptiles for the London Zoo.
It is the first time that a woman has
been appointed to a place of such re-
sponsibility at the Zoo. Miss Procter,
although only 25 years old, has for
some time shown conspicuous ability in
her chosen profession. Her grandfather
was a great entomologist.

Her mother, speaking of Miss Proc-
ter's work, said: "At 10 my daughter
had her first snake as a pet. She also
kept many lizards and some of them
were remarkably tame. One day she
received a large crocodile as a present,
and we took it to Dr. C. A. Boulenger,
famous chief of the department of rep-
tiles at the Natural History Museum
in South Kensington. He was aston-
ished at my daughter's knowledge of
ophiology and offered to train her in
the subject when she left St. Paul's
School. She became his assistant when
she was 15 years old, and when he re-
signed she was appointed to his post."
Miss Procter read her first paper on
snakes before the Zoological Society at
the age of 19. She was a fellow of the
society at 20 and was elected a fellow
of the Linnaean Society, one of the fore-
most scientific organizations in the
world only a fortnight ago. Last year,
it is said, she was offered a post by
the New York Zoological Society.

Extract from
THE FRIEND
BLOEMFONTIEN.
Date Sep 1st

Miss Joan Procter, an English
girl, aged 25, has been appointed
curator of reptiles at the London
Zoological Gardens. Her grand-
father was a famous entomo-
logist. Miss Procter had her
first pet snake when she was
aged 10. One day she received a
crocodile as a present, and took
it to Dr. Boulenger, head of the
department for reptiles in the
National History Museum, South
Kensington. He was astonished
at her knowledge, and offered to
train her. She became Dr.
Boulenger's assistant when 15,
and is now one of the greatest
snake experts in the world, and
is a Fellow of the Zoological and
Linnean Societies.

Extract from
CHARLOTTETOWN GUARDIAN
Charlottetown, Canada.
Date
WOMAN CURATOR
OF ZOO REPTILES

LONDON, Aug. 15.—Mr. E. G.
Boulenger, at present Curator of
Reptiles at the Zoological Gardens,
has been appointed Director of the
new Aquarium. He will continue to
exercise a general supervision over
the reptiles, but for some time he
has been very fully occupied with
superintending the construction of
the aquarium, and when the tanks
are ready for occupation it is an-
ticipated that his time will be al-
most completely engaged by his
new duties. Mr. Boulenger has been
Curator at the Zoo, F.R.S., for long
chief of the Department of Reptiles,
Batrachians and Fishes at the Brit-
ish Museum of Natural History.
Since Mr. Boulenger has been Cur-
ator at the Zoo the reptile-house
has been greatly improved, and
the collection made one of the finest
in the world. During the war he
served in France with the balloons.

Miss Joan B. Proctor, F.Z.S., F.L.S.,
has been appointed Curator of
Reptiles, and will assume her duties
in late autumn. She was educated
at St. Paul's School for Girls, and
since 1916 has worked in the Rep-
tile Department at the British Mu-
seum, first as voluntary assistant
to Dr. Boulenger and, since his re-
tirement, in charge. She is the au-
thor of a large number of papers on
the anatomy, classification, and
habits of reptiles and batrachians,
and for many years has kept a pri-
vate collection of living snakes and
batrachians. At present Miss Proc-
tor is still carrying on the work of
the Reptile Department at the Mu-
seum, but is also engaged in de-
signing the rockwork for the aqu-
arium tanks at the Zoo.

MADRAS MAIL.
MADRAS.
14 AUG 1923
THE WAY OF THE
WORLD

Miss Joan B. Proctor, F.Z.S., F.L.S., has
been appointed Curator
Woman Zoo of Reptiles at the London
Curator Zoological Gardens, and
will assume her duties in
the Autumn. She was educated at St.
Paul's School for Girls, and since 1916 has
worked in the Reptile Department at the
British Museum, first as voluntary assistant
to Dr. Boulenger, and, since his retire-
ment, in charge. She is the author of a
large number of papers on the anatomy,
classification, and habits of reptiles and
batrachians, and for many years has kept a
private collection of living snakes and batra-
chians. At present Miss Proctor is still
carrying on the work of the Reptile
Department at the Museum, but is also
engaged in designing the rockwork for the
aquarium tanks at the Zoo.