28 ETHNO-BOTANY OF THE COAHUILLA INDIANS 



the region is one of wondrous interest to the collector and of great 

 value to the Indian, for it is from here that there come many of his 

 most valued plant products. 



12. The peculiarities of desert life have been often remarked. The 

 physical and social effects upon the plant and animal species inhabit- 

 ing the desert have been suggestively stated by Mr. W J McGee from 

 observations on the Papago country. 1 The conditions of the desert 

 are such as to produce remarkable adaptations and many aberrant 

 forms. In the hot air and long drought, a rapidly transpiring plant 

 would soon wither and die, hence on the desert flora there is a marked 

 absence of foliage. Leaves are small and tightly curled or else greatly 

 modified, as in the yucca, agave, and cactus families. Verdure per- 

 vades the permanent body of the plant, giving a uniform green tinge 

 to trunks and stems. Many adaptive devices for storing water are to 

 be noticed : the pulpy, robust trunk of the great " saguaro " or the 

 " pitahaya," the broad, flat-jointed stalk of the " nopal," the hollow 

 stem of the " opuntia " are all reservoirs, containing large amounts of 

 hoarded moisture. Protective modifications are universal. All the 

 typical plants bristle with spines and thorns, a prickly armature guard- 

 ing every leaf and stem. Other forms exude a hardening lacquer, which 

 frequently covers seeds as well as bark. Others cover themselves with 

 a sticky gum or are furnished with a stiff pilage or are roughly furred 

 to catch every drop of the scant rainfall or dew. The more tender 

 plants shrink and hide away beneath their formidable congeners. 



On the other hand, all species of fauna assume protective coloring. 

 The gray body of the coyote slips away from view and quickly loses 

 form against the parallel shades of volcanic rock and sand dune ; the 

 mottled backs of the small lizards are hardly to be distinguished from 

 the gravels on which they lie. Beautiful examples of coloring and 

 protective mimicry are to be noted in the beetles and other insects of 

 the desert. Another class of desert fauna, the deer, the antelope, the 

 jack-rabbit and the coyote, as well as the various hawks that balance 

 over the arid plain, have developed great speed and marvelous stay- 

 ing power. The sluggish creatures, from the rattlesnake and the helo- 

 derma to the ant and centipede, have a defensive venom. The little 

 horned lizard, like the plants among which it darts, has an armature 

 of short spines. 



Such in general are the characteristics of life everywhere on the 

 southern parts of the American desert. The Colorado desert, the 



i American Anthropologist, Vol. VIII, pp. 350 ff. 



