WATER TRAILS OF THE 

 CERISO 



BY the end of the dry season the water 

 trails of the Ceriso are worn to a white 

 ribbon in the leaning grass, spread out faint 

 and fan wise toward the homes of gopher 

 and ground rat and squirrel. But how- 

 ever faint to man-sight, they are sufficiently 

 plain to the furred and feathered folk who 

 travel them. Getting down to the eye level 

 of rat and squirrel kind, one perceives what 

 might easily be wide and winding roads to 

 us if they occurred in thick plantations of 

 trees three times the height of a man. It 

 needs but a slender thread of barrenness to 

 make a mouse trail in the forest of the sod. 

 To the little people the water trails are as 

 country roads, with scents as signboards. 

 25 



