31 it suits him fine 



for desert creatui'es the desert is not "an unfavorable en 

 vironment." 



Instead of disputing this point, it would be better to 

 admit right away that quite a few other creatures either 

 elude the problems which desert living presents, or are so 

 cosmopolitanly undemanding that they get along very well 

 either in the desert or in a quite different environment. 

 Within the desert states there are, for instance, several 

 toads other than the spadefoot, though most of them, in- 

 stead of managing as he does to survive in the desert itself, 

 confine themselves to areas which happen for one reason 

 or another to be undesert-like. The Colorado River toad — 

 commonly seven inches long and quite the largest of his 

 kind in the United States — is a notable example who sticks 

 pretty close to water holes, natural or artificial; one finds 

 him about swimming pools in desert homes or water holes 

 maintained for cattle on the ranches, and to this habit he 

 owes his local name cow toad. As the most recent text- 

 book, Stebbins' Amphibians of Western North America, 

 says of him: "Dwells in arid regions but appears to be 

 dependent, to a considerable extent, upon the presence 

 of permanent springs or streams. Has entered the Im- 

 perial Valley of California with the development of irri- 

 gation." In other words the cow toad spreads when man 

 makes the desert less desert-like. The road runner does 

 not, as we shall see. 



Or take the case of the familiar robin. You are not likely 

 to find him in the desert, though he is common enough in 

 the mountains at, say, five or six thousand feet where the 

 vegetation and climate are approximately that of the more 

 northerly parts of the United States. Yet I once saw a robin 

 on a tiny patch of grass not more than ten by twenty feet 



