222 East and West 
a foot of this opening is the head of a serpent, 
the fixed eyes staring in death at the nest it 
was destined never to reach, while the slender 
brown-ringed body rests in sinuous curves 
among the terrible cholla joints which hold 
it as rigidly as steel. Hundreds of barbed 
points entered deeper and deeper with every 
writhe of the serpent, until it was transfixed 
and left to perish miserably, while the little 
wrens were hatched from the coveted eggs and 
on the first venture from the nest received an 
object-lesson in the value of the cholla to the 
race of cactus wrens. 
The plant does not serve the thrasher so 
well, for in a recently completed nest I found 
a cholla joint which had fallen in and driven 
the bird out. She had built a new one, how- 
ever, just above the first, in which were four 
eggs. The peculiar flask-shaped nest of the 
wren is far better adapted to this nesting-site 
than is the large open structure of the thrasher. 
In addition to the various cacti of the genera 
Cereus, Opuntia, and Echinocactus, some of 
which are now in flower, their brilliant scarlet 
or magenta blossoms as large as teacups and 
supplying the most vivid note in the desert 
landscape, there is the fishhook cactus of 
the genus Mamillaria, one of the prettiest of 
