1 83 '°^® '" ^^® desert 



— which perhaps cxplams the odd fact that most compari- 

 sons with any of them, and all comparisons with the pri- 

 mates, are derogatory. You may call a woman a "butterfly" 

 or describe her as "birdlike/' You may even call a man 

 "leonine." But there is no likening with an ape which is 

 not insulting. 



How consciously, how poetically or how nobly each par- 

 ticular kind of creature may have learned to love, Venus 

 only knows. But at this very moment of the desert spring 

 many living creatures, plant as well as animal, are cele- 

 brating her rites in accordance with the tradition which 

 happens to be theirs. 



Fortunately, it is still too early for the tarantulas to have 

 begun their amatory black mass, which, for all I know, 

 may represent one of the oldest versions of the rituals still 

 practiced in the worship of Mr. Swinburne's "mystic and 

 somber Dolores." But this very evening as twilight falls, 

 hundreds of moths will begin to stir themselves in the dusk 

 and presently start their mysterious operations in the heart 

 of those yucca blossoms which are just now beginning to 

 open on the more precocious plants. Young jack rabbits 

 not yet quite the size of an adult cottontail are proof that 

 their parents went early about their business, and many 

 of the brightly colored birds — orioles, cardinals and tana- 

 gers — are either constructing their nests or brooding their 

 eggs. Some creatures seem to be worshiping only Venus 

 Pandemos; some others have begun to have some inkling 

 that the goddess manifests herself also as the atavist which 

 the ancients called Venus Eurania. But it is patent to any- 

 one who will take the trouble to look that they stand now 



