220 East and West 
reasonable care. But Bigelow’s cholla can 
only be circumvented with the utmost pre- 
caution. One of the most accursed of plants, 
its barbed spine is against man and beast. 
Most cacti appear to be defensive merely 
but this cholla gives the impression of being 
actually offensive. You have but to touch 
the plant and it has fastened itself upon you; 
it seems literally to attack. Its barbed spines 
penetrate leather as easily as paper and there 
is no pulling them out. In the bright sunlight 
the plant looks as if it were made of grey-green 
glass and it is quite as brittle as if such were 
the case, for the joints are thrown to the 
ground by a slight jar, attaching themselves 
by their spines to whatever may touch them. 
This would certainly appear to be a provision 
of Nature for the perpetuation and distribu- 
tion of the species, which propagates to some 
extent—I am inclined to believe, very largely 
—by means of these joints, which, when 
detached from the plant, eventually put forth 
a root from a point near the fracture. 
This cholla is the favourite nesting-place of 
the cactus wren, who apparently avails himself 
of its protection, but how he himself escapes 
being impaled it is difficult to see. The wren 
has an understanding of the cholla and a 
