::::"::i=*x ALONG THE STRE.\M OF DEATH m::::::::: 



day we saw the same performance, the little creatures 

 evading the sunlight, guiding their careless flight so 

 that its course followed the darkest ways. Seiiorita's 

 corduroy walking-skirt was just the shade of some of 

 these golden brown butterflies, and many times their 

 flight ended upon the dress, their selection of it again 

 and again arguing, in their many-faceted eyes, an ac- 

 curate power of appreciation of the shades of colour, 



THE HOME OF THE SOLITAIRE 



We continued still farther between the contracting 

 walls of the arroyo. The great boulders, around and 

 under which we picked our way, were rounded and 

 worn smooth by the force of the great torrent which, 

 for six months of the year, surges over them. Now, 

 double lines of leaf-carrying ants passed dry-shod 

 across our path. In the finely ground sand-bed the 

 treacherous pits of the Philistine Ant-lions were hol- 

 lowed. Wasps plastered their tiny pellets of clay or 

 wood pulp against the rocks, where, in a few months, 

 a devastating tide would surge. The hungry fish in 

 the barranca streams below must fare sumptuously 

 after the first rains. We passed side tributaries, stream- 

 lets, arroyltos the Mexicans would say, and occasion- 

 ally, where a sharp turn occurred, the sheer walls 

 narrowed until we could span the gorge with our out- 

 stretched arms. Little vegetation grew here, for the 

 water swept the sides too clear of earth, and even far 



." --4 243 ^ 



