33 it suits him fine 



or the food supply of a certain region. This other one pro- 

 duces a great number of offspring; this third species gives 

 exceptionally effective care to its one or two young, etc., 

 etc. All these statements are usually true enough, but there 

 are so many w^ays of surviving that there are almost as 

 many different explanations as there are different creatures. 

 But since we are interested in the problem of how to live 

 in the desert, the most interesting answers are not those 

 which are really how to live almost anywhere, and that is, 

 after all, the answer the hoary bat is prepared to give. 



To find an answer to the more interesting question; to 

 find an animal which refuses to live anywhere except in 

 the desert; to find one which is, in his own peculiar way, 

 very demanding even though what he demands is what 

 most animals would not have at any price, I do not have 

 to go far. Indeed, I do not have to go any further from my 

 doorstep than I went to find the spadefoot. And it happens 

 that I intruded upon this perfect desert dweller at a 

 dramatic moment only a few days ago when I stepped out 

 in the early morning and was startled by a large chicken- 

 sized bird — if you can still call him a bird — who was dash- 

 ing madly back and forth at right angles to my line of 

 vision. His headlong plunges were so like those of a fren- 

 zied hen who seems to be rushing madly in all directions 

 at once, that for a moment I thought I had frightened him 

 out of his wits. As it turned out, he was merely too busy 

 at the moment to acknowledge my presence. 



As to what he was, that question could be answered by 

 even the most unobservant person who has ever driven a 

 highway in the desert. He was one of the commonest, as 

 well as perhaps the most remarkable, of all desert birds 



