::.::::;:=>v WALKS IN THE CACTUS COUNTRY xfe:::::::: 



in the tubular yellow flowers does the nopal cactus 

 seem to have affinity with other plants. These flowers 

 spring- adventitiously from the sides and edges of the 

 pulpy, spiny pads — one can hardly call them leaves. 

 A discovery which was as interesting to us as though 

 we were the first to record it was that the oval pad is 

 the unit of which the entire tree is composed. The two 

 or three terminal pads were usually bright green and 

 covered with groups of the unpleasant spines. The 

 next Avas greenish brown in hue, with blunted spines 

 and the succeeding ones merged more and more com- 

 pletely into one another, at the same time becoming 

 thicker and developing a false kind of bark. This 

 resulted in a rough, brown-barked trunk and spineless 

 branches, which appeared identical with those of old, 

 gnarled apple-trees. A close examination would, how- 

 ever, show faint traces, down to the very ground, of 

 the internodes between the units. How curious, too, 

 when a dead branch fell, to see a tightly wrapped 

 bundle of delicate lace fibres instead of splinters and 

 decayed wood. We wondered how the birds could 

 alight so suddenly upon the spiny pads without being 

 wounded. Indeed one Lark Sparrow was impaled as it 

 attempted to dart through a maze of the sharp points. 

 But mockingbirds and towhees, finches and shrikes 

 seemed never to hesitate an instant in perching. 



Two species of hummingbirds were always to be 

 found along the ditches, conspicuous to eye and ear. 



«4 55 ^ 



