TEXAS NATURE OBSERVATIONS AND REMINISCENCES. 169 



during May and June, when the 

 peai>shaped fruit ripens in July; 

 and in August, the prairie plains 

 along brushy and hilly cactus re- 

 gions are literally covered with 

 the attractive red, dark bluish, or 

 jet black fruit, intermingled with 

 other unripe green, light purple, 

 carmine^red and various other col- 

 ored cactus-pears — ^a very fasci- 

 nating sight to behold! The pear- 

 shaped fruit seen on the picture 

 herein, were of light pink color 

 and not matured. The jet black 

 variety of this fruit is eatible, 

 and the taste is not unpleasant, 

 whilst the other styles of ripe cac- 

 ti fruit is less palatable and some 

 are repungnant. The entire ripe 

 fruit is saturated in its fleshy 

 tissues with an intensely red col- 

 oring matter, which stains the 

 hands a beautiful flesh color; and 

 the aborigines used such coloring 

 material to paint their faces and 

 warring impliments. Carloads of 

 this fruit could be gathered in a 

 short time along the cactus jun- 

 gles, and perhaps converted into 

 some staining product for various 

 commercial purposes. 



The fruit has often been eaten 

 by persons lost in the wilderness 

 and thus sustained life; and the 

 cactus leaves serve the rats and 

 other animals as food during 

 droughty season, and often large 

 aeras of gnawed off cactus-leaves 

 can be seen all along the prairie 

 cactus plains. 



These prairie rats, though most- 

 ly ground animals, are great tree 

 climbers, and I recollect a little 

 hunting episode at the Leona hills 

 some years ago, when ca^nping out 

 at night ,with my friend A, Hau- 

 bold, tinder a huge oak tree and 

 close to a large pasture filled with 

 cactus jungles inside and along the 

 lane, close to some large water 



tanks. It was a fine bright moon- 

 light night, and toward morning 

 just before sunrise, when my 

 friend suddenly grabbed his close 

 by, bb Eemington, rifle and ex- 

 claimed in a whisper: "look at 

 that big rat above us, peeping 

 outside a hole in the upper stem 

 of the oak" — and — "bang" it 

 wriggled and tumbled outside the 

 hole to the ground, near our feet. 

 A short while after this another 

 rat was seen running up that 

 same oak tree stem — as fast as 

 any squirrel ever ran, and it also, 

 after a little while, peeping out of 

 the hole, was killed. 



In years gone by one hardly 

 v/ou!..l l.nve dared to enter such 

 juii'.:ies of cactus as now exist 

 and as seen surrounding the pic- 

 ture herein. It is a fact, they 

 teemed in those days with the 

 deadly rattlesnake and poisonous 

 prairie spiders ; but, with the ex- 

 termination of late years of the 

 reptile pest and the cultivation 

 of vast aries of formerly impas- 

 sable brush land, it is compara- 

 tively safe to walk all along the 

 densest thickets of such cactus 

 jungles; however, of course, it is 

 always better to be on the safe 

 side and on the lookout of these. 

 Many miles of such old cactus 

 jungles and rat nests have now 

 been cleared around the beautiful 

 Leona valley and hills, and con- 

 verted into blooming irrigated 

 fields ; and the time may not be 

 far off when such cactus jungles 

 with rat nests will exist in inem- 

 ory only of an interesting by-gone 

 age of the prairie plains around 

 San Antonio. Some of our pres- 

 ent finest suburban villas and 

 residential districts were once 

 nothing but mesquite and cactus 

 jungles — from East End to the 

 Grovernment and Tobin Hills — up 

 to and beyond Prospect Hill and 

 beyond the vales and hills of the 

 Leona and Medina regions. 



