American Big Game in its Haunts 



flowers. Whole hillsides of chamisal ("chamiz" 

 or greasewood) bore their delicate, spirea-like, 

 cream-colored blossoms — when seen at a dis- 

 tance, like a hovering breath, as unsubstantial as 

 dew, or as the well-named bloom on a plum or 

 black Hamburg grape. The superb yucca flaunted 

 its glorious white standards, borne proudly aloft 

 like those of the Roman legions, each twelve or 

 fifteen feet in height, supporting myriads of white 

 bells. The Mexicans call this the "Quixote" — a 

 noble and fitting tribute to the knight of La 

 Mancha. The tender center of the plant, loved as 

 food equally by man and beast, is protected by 

 many bristling bayonets, an ever-vigilant guard. 

 At an altitude of seven thousand or eight thousand 

 feet, one passed through acres of buckthorn, 

 honey-fragrant, this also a favorite of the deer, 

 now visited by every bee and butterfly of the 

 mountain side. It is to be noted that as one ascends 

 the mountains the butterflies increase in numbers 

 as well as the flowers which they so closely re- 

 semble, save only the latter's stationary estate. 



One sees in its perfection of color the "Indian 

 paint brush," with its red of purest dye, and ad- 

 joining it solid fields of blue lupine — the colors 

 of Harvard and Yale, side by side, challenging 

 birds and all creatures of the air to a decision as 



400 



