THE CACTUS HOUSES WOODPECKERS 
because it wastes some of its precious water supply. So 
the sahuaro sets about stopping the leak. It deposits a 
thick, woody substance all around the wound and seals it 
as tightly as its outer walls. These walls become as hard 
as an oak knot. 
The Indians often cut into the sahuaros and take out 
the woodpecker nests which have been thus water¬ 
proofed. They cut away the soft material that surrounds 
them and use what is left as dippers or food containers. 
When the sahuaro dies, its pithy insides soon go to 
pieces. The ribs which give it form are harder and sur¬ 
vive longer. But these pockets that have been formed 
where the plant has patched a wound made by the wood¬ 
pecker last longest of all. For decades, about the base of 
what was once a sahuaro, one is likely to be able to pick 
up strange wooden pieces in the form of these hardened 
pockets. 
Alongside the Superstition Mountains, in Arizona, 
where the Apache trail winds from Roosevelt Reservoir 
to Phoenix, on the hillsides about Castle Creek Hot 
Springs, studding the broken mesas about old San Xavier 
Mission near Tucson, the stately sahuaro offers its fluted 
column to the woodpecker. Often a dozen pairs of these 
sprightly birds will arrange their homes in true cliff- 
dweller style in a single trunk. The woodpecker insists 
on a fresh apartment every season, and its old quarters 
pass on to the pigmy owl, which is not so particular. 
These two members of the feathered tribe here live to¬ 
gether in harmony and contribute variety to the solitudes 
of great open spaces. 
189 
