250 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



According to the Mexicans, there are two kinds of rabies: that 

 affecting the head and that affecting the stomach. When animals 

 have rabia in the head they become stupid and move about slowly, 

 biting at everything they see or touch. They are not violent, and 

 become very thin. But when they have rabies in the stomach it 

 gives them great pain, and they bark and howl and race about fran- 

 tically, chasing other animals and tearing them. Mr. Cipriano 

 Fisher, of Santa Catarina, told me of his experience with a coyote 

 which had rabies in the stomach. He was hunting deer at Cape 

 San Lucas, and had killed two. Carrying the smaller one and his 

 gun to camp, he returned unarmed, except for the knife which 

 every one wears in that region, to bring in the other. As he went 

 down a deep canon he heard a coyote ahead, howling in the peculiar 

 way which he knew to be characteristic of the rabioso. All the 

 hunters claim they can recognize the howling of a rabid coyote, and 

 they say that no other animal will answer it or go near it. The howl- 

 ing approached rapidly. Knowing that he could not escape by run- 

 ning back uphill, nor kill it with his knife without being bitten, he 

 stepped quickly into the brush and cut a long green club. As he 

 turned back into the open place he saw the coyote down the canon, 

 leaping up and snapping at the air. When the coyote saw him it 

 broke into a furious run up the trail, and when, as he says, about 

 thirty feet away, made a flying leap at his face. He jumped to one 

 side, struck the rabid animal in the back of the head as it passed, and 

 killed it with the one blow. 



Skunks are particularly dangerous to persons who sleep out at 

 night. J. Ellis McLellan, a field collector of the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, whom I met at San Jose del Cabo, told me 

 of an unpleasant experience he had with a skunk while coming down 

 from La Paz. On account of the heat he had ridden in the night as 

 far as Agua Caliente, where he stopped near a ranch house to sleep 

 till morning. Although the night was warm, he covered his head 

 with a serape for protection from insects and wandering animals. 

 Early in the morning he was awakened by a twitching at his blanket 

 and, raising the serape, saw a skunk biting and jerking at it. Realiz- 

 ing the gravity of the situation, he reached for his heavy knife, and 

 then, suddenly throwing aside the serape, he leaned forward and put 

 his whole force into one blow. As he ducked under the blanket 

 again, for protection, the dogs from the house rushed out in a body 

 and pounced upon the dying skunk, which they worried on top of 

 McLellan until the ranch people beat them off. When skunks bite 

 at men's toes and ears, or at blankets in this way, it is taken as an 

 indication that they are rabid. 



Shortly after this I saw a young man at Miraflores who had just 



