:::::::::*^ TWO BiRD-LOVERS IN MEXICO M^- 



shadowy blue, against the paler blue of the sky. From 

 the living' cone a line o£ white smoke wreathed upAvard 

 and drifted toward the other peak, where it dipj^ed and 

 drifted about the snow-capped summit, merging its soft 

 filminess into the glistening snow. 



All about our feet, and in many other places around 

 our camp, grew clumps of the little club-moss, known 

 as the Resurrection Plant. We had often seen it sold 

 in New York and wondered where its home could be, 

 and here we found it, clinging in thousands to the 

 scanty film of parched earth in the crevices of the 

 boulders and cliffs. Each plant is like a little incurved 

 ball of arhor-vltai foliage, dry and brittle, but when 

 placed in a spring or a 2)ool of water, it opens wide its 

 little array of leaves, which, in a day or two, turn from 

 brown to green and send forth a sjjicy perfume. A 

 bucket of water thrown among a multitude of these 

 plants awakens into a brief greenness every one upon 

 which it happens to fall ; but soon, luiless kept moist, 

 the little leaves close and return to their parched 

 condition — the little brown fists are clinched again. 



Descending the arroyo wall obliquely, we continued 

 up the dry canyon, and at the very edge of the desert 

 patch, we came upon the first closed wasp's nest we 

 had seen. Among the mesquites of the Guadalajara 

 country, the wasps built their combs exposed to the 

 light and air, but here, on the low cactus-pads, they 

 made round paper stnictures, with a single entrance 



«4 236 ^ 



