MINIATURE FORTRESSES 125 



them, for their supply of water will last for over a season. 

 Man and his domestic animals fear Cholla more than any 

 other plant on the desert I For their joints are easily dis- 

 lodged and the dangerous retrorsely barbed thorns are dif- 

 ficult to remove from the flesh. They are cruel plants, for 

 many an innocent young animal becomes entangled in their 

 spiny meshes, and not being able to free himself dies a horrible 

 death. On the other hand they are veritable fortresses 

 on the desert and are a haven of refuge for such wild life 

 as the rattlesnake, the chuckwalla, an enormous lizard of 

 the desert, and the large cactus wren which lives practically 

 its whole life in the Cholla bush, where the female rears 

 her young in absolute safety and without danger of being 

 disturbed. 



Cholla never relinquishes his right to land that he has ac- 

 quired, for when he dies of old age or even before that, a host 

 of young Cane Cacti, his children, spring up to take his place. 

 Thus it is that the Cholla prospers and multiplies in the face 

 of adversity, and even the hand of man cannot stay his prog- 

 ress. 



Cholla and Prickly Pears have advanced farther north in 

 the great cactus invasion from Mexico than any other group 

 of cacti, and Prickly Pears have extended farther north than 

 Cholla. Vast areas in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, and 

 even South Dakota are grown over with Prickly Pears; some 

 of these species have spread east to the Atlantic Ocean and 

 northward far into Canada, and it is said of one small species 

 that it has penetrated to within a short distance of the Arctic 

 Circle. 



From Los Angeles during the early part of June we start 

 on yet another trek over the California-Arizona desert. 

 Have our long travel across the great amphitheater of the sun 

 through trackless wastes of torrid heat and blazing rays of 



