THE VOICE OF THE DESERT 



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A motli's wings beat faster when light falls upon his 

 eyes, and when it falls more strongly on one eye than on 

 the other, the wings on one side beat faster than those on 

 the other. Irresistibly his flight curves toward the source 

 and if he reaches it, he dies- — a victim of one of the mis- 

 takes which nature sometimes makes because even she 

 cannot foresee every eventuahty. 



But in the case of a certain moth which lives in the 

 desert and of a certain candle which grows there the situa- 

 tion is different. 



Almost anywhere in the Southwest you will^find as a 

 conspicuous feature of the landscape one or another of the 

 yuccas with their large bundle of stiff, sword-sharp leaves 

 and, in early summer, an incredibly tall spire of innumer- 

 able creamy white blossoms held high on a great spike 

 which shot up suddenly from the middle of the sword 

 cluster. Pass by again in the fall and the spire will be 

 bearing handsome pods which spHt open as they dry and 

 scatter innumerable shiny black seeds on the sand. Though 

 a bit difficult to gather, the pods make a fine addition to 

 a winter bouquet and those who gather them often notice 

 that each is perforated by at least- one hole from which 

 some insect has obviously emerged. 



Sometimes the collector will search for a "perfect" spec- 

 imen but perfect ones are not to be found. The "infesta- 

 tion" was necessary. Either the ovary from which the pod 

 developed was "infested" or it didn't mature. Thereby 

 hangs a tale as strange as any the desert has to tell and 

 in certain important respects the most difficult to explain 

 of all the strange tales which are told of the interdepend- 

 ence of insects and flowers. The hole was made by the 

 larva of a moth, and just to make the question we are about 



