46 ANIMAL LIFE OF CARLSBAD CAVERN 



variety of plants may have furnished the Indians with 

 flour and meal, but to what extent they were used, or 

 what kinds were used, will never be known, as many 

 of the native plants have disappeared as completely 

 as have the original inhabitants of the cave country. 



For fruits there are an abundance of petaya, the most 

 juicy and delicious of all the cactus fruits, the purple 

 figs of the prickly pear, the tart scarlet berries of the 

 Mammillaria cactus, wild cherries and grapes in the 

 canyons, and the algireta or spiny-leaved Berberis 

 trifoliata, the best of all the barberries. A little higher 

 in the mountains wild currants, gooseberries, service 

 berries, and manzanita berries are to be found. Hack- 

 berry trees are abundant in the canyons, and their rich 

 meats with a sweet coating make a palatable cake when 

 the thin shells are well pulverized. Whether or not 

 these nuts were used as food by the Indians, however, is 

 not known. Sweetness was not generously provided 

 by nature in this land of abundance, but the little New 

 Mexico maple, common in the canyons, may have 

 supplied a limited quantity of syrup or sugar. 



These mere hints of the native food supply may well 

 have left out many of the best and most important 

 sources, but they are sufficient to indicate a land of 

 plenty containing many of the comforts of wild life. 

 Even some of the luxuries were not omitted, for wild 

 tobacco still grows along the hot slopes of the canyons 

 and more abundantly along the sandy banks of the 

 Pecos, while two or three species of wild tea, Ceanothus, 

 grow near enough to furnish a supply of this beverage. 



Many sweet-scented herbs and shrubs, including 



