MAMMALS OF THE MEXICAN BOUNDARY. 65 



Arizona to the head of Black Canyon (bet ween Antelope and Bumble 

 Bee), and up the Verde River to Bloody Basin, between old forts 

 Verde and McDowell. It also occupies southern slopes of hills be- 

 tween San Carlos and Globe City, Arizona. On Tonto Creek its 

 range extends nearly to the Wild Rye. Large sahuaras ( tO feel 

 in height) were noted on Ash Creek, a tributary of the Gila, at 

 the foot of Black Canyon, in Graham County. Arizona. The sahuara 

 affords safe nesting places for many species of birds and a secure 

 retreat to several small mammals. It seldom grows upon the deserl 

 plains, hut appears as soon as the bordering foothills are approached, 

 extending up the slopes and canyons to the upper limit of the Lower 

 Sonoran zone. (Plate VIII. fig. 1.) On April 4, 1885, 1 passed, near 

 Rillito Station in the Santa Cruz Valley, a ranch owned by an 

 Englishman who had planted Cer< us </i</«ntt>us to form a fence, which 

 Mould have been a great success had not he mistaken some Echino- 

 cactus wislizeni for the sahuara, the latter having outgrown the 

 bisnagas, leaving gaps in his fence. Respecting the season of flower- 

 ing, etc.. I find the following data in my journal : 



May 5. 1885, when marching from Mountain Spring to Fort Lowell. 

 Arizona. I saw circles of opening buds on the summits of the sahuaras 

 for the first time. Four days later, on Picacho Peak, Arizona, the 

 sahuaras were crowned with wreaths of white flowers. At Casa 

 Grande, May 10 — 



all of the sahuaras are now in bloom. * * * After turning the point of a 

 mountain between the Gila River and Phoenix, Arizona, we came to a forest 

 of the giant sahuara. which I noted as being of somewhat larger size and more 

 branched Than those soon between here and Mountain Spring [near Tucson]. 1 

 think one that I saw would measure between 40 and oil feet in height, but this 

 may lie an overestimate. One of its arms or joints would exceed the average 

 size of those growing about Bumble Bee or on New River — the northern and 

 upper limit of its range. 



Lieutenant Gaillard writes: 



Probably nowhere along the boundary does the cactus growth attain such 

 luxuriance as in the foothills of the Sonoyta Valley. The giant cactus here 

 attains a height of Hi or .in feet and forms perfect forests, if the word forest 

 can properly he applied to a collection of these strange, ungainly, helpless- 

 looking objects, which seem at times to stretrh out clumsy arms appealingly to 

 the traveler, and which one can not see on its native desert without uncon- 

 sciously associating it with the uncouth forms of vegetation peculiar to the 

 Carboniferous era. 



Maj. John G. Bourke gives the following: 



And the majestic " pitahaya," or candelabrum cactus, whoso ruby fruit had 

 long since 1 n raided upon and carried off by Hocks of brighl winged humming- 

 birds, than which no fairer or more alert can he seen this side of Brazil. The 

 "pitahaya" attains a great height in the vicinity of Grant, Tucson, and Mac- 

 Dowell [Arizona], and one which we measured by its shadow was not far 

 from 55 to 60 feet above the ground. — On the Border, 2d ed., 1892, pp. '<■'■ 54, 

 30639— No. 56— 07 M 5 



