22 HINTS ON FOREST AND PRAIRIE LIFE. 



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flesh is so strongly impregnated with the flavour and 

 odour of their food as to be unpalatable to any 

 civilized people. A wretched tribe of Indians, called 

 Diggers, live about the outskirts of these deserts, 

 and seem satisfied with the scanty subsistence ob- 

 tained from such game. The white hunters seldom 

 visit these prairies from choice. 



The timber prairies are perhaps the prettiest of 

 all, being dotted over with evergreen oaks (Quercus 

 virens) either singly or in small groups, with occa- 

 sionally smaller trees. These clusters of trees go by 

 the name of ' mottes ' or ' timber islands.' 



Compared with the others, the timber prairies are 

 small in extent, and are found only in the neighbour- 

 hood of heavily-timbered river bottoms. They are the 

 favourite haunts of the wild turkey, as there the weary 

 birds can roll themselves in the dust, or pick insects 

 from the grass, and yet have a shelter near at hand to 

 run to on the appearance of any enemy. 



In Texas the prairies are flat near the coast, extend- 

 ing inwards for scores of miles ; after that they become 

 rolling or hilly till they finally reach the mountains. In 

 the summer time the ponds formed by the rain dry up, 

 and then comes a wonderfully rapid growth of tall 

 grass, amongst which the deer take refuge from the 

 flies and other stinging insects. 



The game then is plentiful ; the climate, save in some 

 few marshy districts, is healthy; and it may be fairly 



