Meeting 

 desert re- 

 quirements. 



The 



peculiar 



desert 



character. 



CHAPTER IX 



DESERT ANIMALS 



THE life of the desert lives only by virtue of 

 adapting itself to the conditions of the desert. 

 Nature does not bend the elements to favor the 

 plants and the animals ; she makes the plants 

 and the animals do the bending. The torote 

 and the evening primrose must get used to heat, 

 drouth, and a rocky bed ; the coyote must learn 

 to go without food and water for long periods. 

 Even man, whose magnificent complacency leads 

 him to think himself one of Nature's favorites, 

 fares no better than a wild cat or an angle of 

 cholla. He must endure the same heat, thirst, 

 and hunger or perish. There is no other alter- 

 native. 



And so it happens that those things that can 

 live in the desert become stamped after a time 

 with a peculiar desert character. The struggle 

 seems to develop in them special characteristics 

 and make them, not different from their kind ; 

 but more positive, more insistent. The yucca 

 150 



