Unlike many parts of southern México and northern Central America, Michoacán received no attention from the collecting expeditions of the European museums in the last century. The earliest known herpetological specimens from Michoacán were obtained by Louis John Xantus, who was appointed U. S. Consul to Colima in 1859. In April, 1863, Xantus collected at Volcán Jorullo in Michoacán; in April and May of the same year he collected along the coast of Michoacán between the Río Cachán and the Río Nexpa. His small collection of 19 extant specimens is in the United States National Museum. Alfredo Dugès, a resident of Guanajuato, México, made early contributions to the knowledge of the herpetofauna of Michoacán. 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 México, Edward W. Nelson and Edward A. Goldman spent a limited amount of time in Michoacán 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 México, Seth E. Meek obtained some amphibians and reptiles from Lago de Pátzcuaro 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 Volcán Jorullo and other localities in the valley. Later in the same year he collected at Guayabo, San Salvador, and Arteaga in the Sierra de Coalcomán and at Buena Vista and Cofradía in the Tepalcatepec Valley. His collections were deposited in the British Museum (Natural History) and the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien.