TEXAS NATURE OBSERVATIONS AND REMINISCENCES. 247 



at Gallup. Here our party broke 

 up. The summer rains have set 

 in and it makes traveling too dis- 

 agreeable. 



I have been on the lookout for 

 a Gila monster ever since I got 

 in this part of the country, but 

 have not seen any, nor have I 

 been able to get one in any of the 

 towns. Have seen thousands of 

 small lizards of different kinds, 

 but besides lizards and horned 

 toads, have not seen any reptiles, 

 with the exception of one rattle- 

 snake, in New Mexico and one in 

 Arizona. If I can find a Gila, I 

 will surely send it to you. 



I saw quite a few deer and an- 

 telope in the mountains west of 

 Flagstaff. Stopped one day at a 

 tanking outfit for dinner, and 

 was given a piece of mutton, 

 which surely did taste like veni- 

 son. When I passed the camp 

 going up to the canyon, I saw 

 five black-tail deer not more than 

 a thousand yards from the camp. 

 I was too close to camp to risk a 

 shot, but told the bunch I saw 

 them and suppose they located 

 them after I left. Sincerely, 



MAX. 



Nature Scenes Around Beautiful San Antonio 



Nature has wonderfully en- 

 dowed bur old Alamo City and 

 its immediate and remote en- 

 vironments with hundreds of 

 thousands of attractive nature- 

 sceneries ; and equally as many 

 of these sceneries have been more 

 or less elegantly photo-repro- 

 duced by professionals, as well as 

 amateur specialists. 



In the following pages the 

 writer takes the liberty to add 

 a few more original reminiscences 

 and typical nature-sceneries — 

 conjointly with others already 

 published herein. 



But it would be folly to at- 

 tempt renumerating in detail even 

 a small percentage of all the im- 

 portant and interesting sceneries 

 of nature surrounding our beauti- 

 ful San Antonio, as there is no 

 end to such. 



To begin with — here is for in- 

 stance an interesting olden time 

 amateur view of the writer's rep- 

 resenting scenery of a " charco ' ' or 

 "aroyo", (small stagnant rivulet 

 or pool of rain water) nine miles 

 west of San Antonio, surrounded 

 by a liveoak and mesquite forest 

 in the rear, a gathering place for 

 cattle of the pasture in which, the 



scenery is located, and a place 

 where in olden days lots of deer, 

 wild turkey, wild animals of the 

 jungles and endless numbers of 

 small game, including the. large- 

 billed kihgsnipe or curlew, 

 abounded and found shelter in 

 summer and winter, and plenty of 

 feed in the surrounding oak bot- 

 toms and pasture plains. The 

 surroundings of this same scen- 

 ery is, or was, covered with miles 

 of dense jungles of the opuntia 

 cactus and prickly pear plants, 

 and several large tanks were 

 scattered for miles along the 

 oak and mesquite and under- 

 brush, and they afforded fine 

 hunting in winter time for ducks 

 and deer seeking these secluded 

 water places ; and it was also (for 

 reason of the shelter these large 

 pastures and olden-time hunting 

 grounds afforded) the haunts of 

 numerous types of small wild an- 

 imals, and a prolific shelter place 

 — among the cactus jungles with 

 the peculiar prairie rat nests — 

 for the dreaded rattlesnake, the 

 opossum, skunks and the smaller 

 types of prairie-rodents. 



Most of these large .pastures,- or 

 a major part of them, are: hqw- 



