GILA MONSTER 63 



robust health, the body and tail seem stuffed to the point 

 of discomfort. Externally the whole of the creature appears 

 to be covered with round glass beads, jet black and orange- 

 yellow in color, and laid on in a Navajo pattern. 



This remarkable lizard inhabits the desert regions of 

 Arizona and the adjoining state of Sonora, Mexico. It is 

 more sluggish in its movements than a box tortoise, and the 

 very slow and clumsy manner in which it partakes of its 

 daily meal of raw eggs and chopped meat leads the observer 

 to pity its helplessness. How it manages to secure a suffi- 

 cient quantity of acceptable food on the deserts where it lives 

 is a puzzle. 



Whether the bite of this creature is poisonous or not is 

 yet a debated question among naturalists. Several authori- 

 ties cite the deaths of various small animals bitten by it, 

 but others point to other victims which were bitten, but did 

 not die. At the United States National Museum, Mr. A. 

 Z. Schindler was bitten by a Gila Monster, but aside from a 

 very natural degree of irritation and soreness of the wound 

 during two or three days, he experienced no permanent ill 

 effects from it. It is quite certain that the bite of this crea- 

 ture is seldom fatal to man, even if it ever is; but it can cause 

 the death of small and weak creatures, like frogs and guinea- 



pigs. 



This reptile lives well in captivity, and half a dozen of 

 them in a desert cage make a very showy exhibit. 



The Horned "Toad,"^ so dear to the heart of every 

 eastern traveller on his first visit to the great Southwest, 



' rhrij-no-so'via cor-nu'tum. 



