CHAPTER IX 

 NOXIOUS AND OTHER BEASTS 



Noxious beasts are not numerous, venomous 

 ones rare. In former days the mosquito was heard 

 only when the river waxed riotous and water lin- 

 gered long in the acequias, but with an abundance 

 of water mosquitoes and other pests have come to 

 stay. Snakes are common enough, but though they 

 writhe and hiss and stand up on their hinder parts 

 and give us bad dreams, they are for the most part 

 harmless if hot tempered. The big brownery-green- 

 ery snakes are fine mousers, and as mice of the fat 

 thriving sort figure among our noxious beasts, I 

 allowed myself to be persuaded into accommodating 

 one in my storeroom. Some persons might have 

 found both instruction and amusement in the as- 

 sociation. I did neither. I endured. 



A combine formed by Juan and Ricardo resulted 

 in this snake boarder. When winter and the house- 

 mouse season came along together I was glad that 

 I had yielded, yet my summer tenant was a trial. 

 The store-room's adobe walls were punctured with 

 mouse holes, and many a time as I shood shuddering 

 on the step, skirts gathered around me, I perceived 

 a writhing tail protruding from a hole, or maybe 

 a dangling horror overhead, a mouse gripped in its 

 fangs. But in all fairness it must be acknowledged 

 that no cat ever born can compete with a guaranteed 



