562 NATURAL HISTORY. 
one. The frightened animals ran a short distance, and then 
stopped and turned round to see what the mysterious noise 
was that had so alarmed them. ‘They even returned to the 
spot where their dead comrade lay. A second shot brought 
another to the ground. The herd, again startled at the report 
of the rifle, loped slowly away a short distance, and once more 
returned to the fatal spot, when another was brought down. 
The sportsman now rose from his place of concealment and 
secured his three animals. How long they would have con- 
tinued to return, I know not. He had but three bullets with 
him. 
In some parts of Texas deer are so abundant that it ceases 
to be a sport to kill them. Neither skill nor ingenuity is re- 
quired, and even the usual caution of the practised sportsman 
is unnecessary. Such is the case on the lower road from San 
Antonio to Hl Paso, at a stream called Turkey Creek. Here 
the train stopped one day to rest, when twenty deer were killed 
and brought to camp. After leaving the Rio Grande we found 
none until we reached the Rio Mimbres, where again they 
became numerous. Beyond that we found them in the moun- 
tains and along the bottom-lands of the Gila, but not in large 
numbers. 
On the whole, game, both animals and birds, was scarce 
throughout the broad regions traversed by us, except in the 
mountain districts, where it was abundant. In California, 
however, after reaching the rich valleys and timbered country, 
it is found in still greater quantity and variety; but my 
stay was so short there, and my journeys confined to so limited 
a district, that [am unprepared to testify except to the general 
fact. | 
In noticing the distribution of animals over the desert 
regions which occupy so large a space of the interior of our con- 
tinent, it will have been observed how beautifully nature has 
adapted them for these districts. Here man, the terror of all 
animals, cannot live; for there is no soil that he can cul- 
