sweet bloom attracts innumerable nations of winged insects, and these in their turn attract all the insect-eating tribes of birds. Nature works her wonders by methods that may seem roundabout, but the result somehow is always equilibrium. And so, though the lucern flower may nourish injurious insects, it also concentrates them for their easier destruction. In the mean time, the naturalist delights in the purple fields of blossom, and gathers in his treasures with little trouble. "Have you got one of our horned toads yet?" asked a rustic one day as he saw me searching, after my fashion, for small game among the rose-bushes and yellow currants up the Logan Cañon. And after that I always kept my eyes upon rocks in the hope of meeting with a horned toad. But in vain, until at last one day, wandering among the rocks that overlook Salt Lake, I caught sight of a frog-like object crawling across a slab of wrinkled gray-green stone. It looked like a wrinkled gray-green stone itself, but it was obviously alive. So I scrambled up to it, and the thing, as I approached, immediately squatted itself flat on the surface it was traversing, and with that instinctive assimilation to surroundings which is always so surprising, became at once indistinguishable from the stone it rested motionless upon. I stooped over it, and scrutinizing my captive, saw at once that this was the rustic's "horned toad." and when I got home I made it apartments out of a large millinery box, which I furnished handsomely, not to say luxuriously, with stones and sprigs of sagebrush. Inside it I hung up a piece of paper smeared with molasses, and then I put my horned toad in his cage out in the sun. The flies soon found out the molasses— and the "toad" soon found out the flies. For straightforward, all-round ugliness I think I can safely commend the phrynosoma, but ugliness does not necessarily interfere with agility or other virtues, and the way in which this reptile managed to get outside of the flies showed that he was a professional. Have you ever seen a “horned toad"? They are found, I am told, in several parts of the States, but are by no means common, so it is probable that the creature is a stranger to you. Imagine, then, a frog with four legs, all the same size, that end in long thin claws. Wrinkle or pinch up the skin on its back into ridges and sharp points and warts, till it looks as if the creature had been unskillfully stuffed with peas and tin tacks. Add a short stump of a tail to one end of the thing, and put on at the other end a head, all pimpled and peaky and spiny, to match the body. Finally, take a handful of dust and powder it all over. It is not a lovable object, is it?-not exactly the kind of animal to make a pet of? But all the same it is well worth watching; for whether in repose, pretending to be only another stone, or in motion when on the war-path after a fly, the "horned toad" is distinctly an "amoosin' cuss." I was staying at the time on the shore of Salt Lake, and every morning after breakfast used to take a stroll with my pipe through the sage-brush that stretched from my door to the foot of the hills about a quarter of a mile off. I generally had my botanizing tin on my back, my insect forceps in my pocket, and a short alpenstock, fitted with a geological hammer, in my hand. Thus equipped, I was sauntering along one day, when I heard a soft rattling at my feet, and looking down, saw that I had brushed against a plant which bore a bunch of dry pods filled with ripe seeds. I stooped and pick Nor is the name altogether misapplied, for if ever there was a creature that succeeded in looking like what it wasn't it is this lizard-the phrynosoma of the scientific. I had never seen one before, but I recognized it from written descriptions. At the first glance I thought it was a frog, or a frog's brother-in-law, or something very german to a frog. But at the second I noticed that it had a short tail, and then (by experiment) I found it couldn't jump worth a cent, and then I turned it over on its back, and found its legs were all the same length, and so fact by fact I discovered that my new posses-ed it, and as I went along I kept rattling sion was a lizard-a very stumpy, truncated, spiny, horny, and knobby lizard, it was true, but still a lizard. So I picked it up and put it into my collecting case, the pods in an idle way. All the time, too, I was birdnesting, for the sage-brush abounded in the nests of three species of birds, which from the eggs I knew to be er and lazier tone than at others, so that there seemed to be almost a regular cadence, a rise and fall, in the sound. But at last the snake grew weary of even rattling and hopeless of escape, and lay obstinately knotted up, with its head flat on the ground, peering up from under its coils. of the linnet, pipit, and blackbird kinds. | the rattle was kept sounding without any I used to find some every day, for not intermission, though sometimes in a lowonly have I been an expert from my youth up at birdnesting under any circumstances, but the ground here was particularly favorable. Your footsteps, as they fell upon the carpet of last year's sage leaves, were muffled, while the bird sitting on its nest could not see you, owing to the density of the sage-bushes, until you were close upon it. Sometimes, indeed, the hen bird would fly startled off her nest as I was actually stepping over the bush where her treasures were. So, as I went along, I was examining the roots of the sage-brush, and groping about with my hands among the leaves, picking up an insect here or a flower there, and, as I have said, rattling the seed-pods in my hand from time to time. Suddenly I heard a responsive rattle, and looking down, found that I was walking through quite a cluster of the same plants. I picked a handful, thinking they would amuse my host's children, and soon after turned to saunter homeward. I had taken only a step or two when again I heard the same sound, and instinctively looking down, was just in time to see the last few inches of a dark-colored snake slipping under a tuft of sage-brush. I turned back the tuft with my alpenstock, and as I did so the ominous rattle of the dangerous reptile sounded its warning, and there, curled up at the root of the bush, was the first rattlesnake I had ever seen, and the largest I have ever seen alive. My experience of snakes of all kinds in Asia and Africa had long ago cured me of any superstitious dread of them, so I proceeded to experiment upon the "worm" before me. I gave it my alpenstock to strike at. The second time I did so it struck with such viciousness that one tooth pierced the wood, and I lifted the snake nearly off the ground by its imbedded fang. The tooth broke off, however (I cut out the tiny point afterward with my knife), and the rattlesnake re-coiled itself, and again sprang its rattle. In reply I rattled the seed-pods, and the snake responded immediately, attempting after each rattle to make its escape. But I jerked it back again, and continued my experiments, offering it my alpenstock to strike at. It struck at it seven times in succession, and then, exhausted, refused to be irritated into retaliation any more. During all the time I had half a mind to let the creature go with its life, such is my aversion to needless killing; but remembering how favorite a spot this was for pleasure-seekers from Salt Lake City, and what numbers of children are brought out on holidays to wander about among the sage - brush picking flowers, I killed the incautious reptile, and carried off the rattle-twelve rattles and a button"-as a reminder for the future that all that rattles is not seedpods. How often, I wonder, during my walks had I innocently heard the snake at my feet and thought it was the plant? During my stay I killed thirteen rattlesnakes, and all near the same spot; so the chances are that I made the mistake more than once. But, after all, the rattlesnake, from the very fact of its rattle, must be considered one of the least dangerous of the venomous reptiles. How many thousands of lives would be annually saved in India if the cobra had a rattle at the end of its tail! How immeasurably the terrors of the korait would be lessened if it only gave warning of its presence? In the case of the rattlesnake there must be stupidity or deafness as a factor in every accident, for it is hardly possible to disregard so distinct a sound. While on the subject of snakes, it is worth saying, perhaps, that one of the most universally accepted superstitions in the world is that of the jumping snake. Wherever you go you are assured, even by so-called eye-witnesses, that snakes can leave the ground and leap up at the victim's face. In America I believe the error to be very wide-spread, for wherever conversation has turned upon the subject, and the company begins exchanging snake stories, the snake that "sprang from the ground” is sure to come to the front. Now, as a matter of fact, no snake can leave the ground to strike; indeed, it can only raise one-third of its total length off the ground at a time. A six-foot snake, therefore, has a striking radius of only two feet. At any point within that circle is probable death, but one inch beyond that circle is complete security. A sixfoot snake of any venomous species is, however, a rarity, and though I have been often assured by those who thought they had seen them that six-foot cobras and ten-foot rattlesnakes exist, I believe in them no more than I do in that other persistent fiction, the ten-foot tiger. The largest rattlesnake I killed myself and its rattles proved it to be an old one-was barely three feet in length. The largest cobra (and I have killed a considerable number) was four and a half, and none of my venomous acquaintances, whether cobra, korait, or rattlesnake, daboia, blacksnake, whip-snake, coral-snake, or viper, has ever committed the colubrine impossibility of springing off the ground at me, although abundantly provoked to every species of irregularity by teasing before execution. A singular superstition, to which I paid some little attention while I was in Utah, and which I find is still prevalent in many parts of America, is that of the waterwitch. Rabdomancy, or divination by rods, is, of course, as old as history, and certainly therefore much older, and the very form of it which still flourishes, the discovery of subterranean springs by means of a divining-rod, is known to have been in use in the earliest times of which any records have survived. The Bible, for instance, denounces its use more than once. Nevertheless, Christian bishops still carry it as the emblem of authority, and the divining-rod finds its professors and disciples in one form or another in every part of the world. All over Europe, in places remote from advanced intelligence, the magic twig is used for searching for water and for precious metals, and in France just now a professor of the science of rabdomancy has arisen in the person of Madame Cailhava, who claims not only the power of discovering hidden treasures, but the merit of having actually discovered them. In Australia the miners sometimes appeal to "the twig" for information, and I am told that in Colorado and in California the same belief in the mystic affinities of certain temperaments and certain metals is practically acted upon. However this may be, the location of water wells by the agency of the divining-rod is a matter of common usage in many parts of the States, and notably in the West. Utah itself abounds in “ water-witches" of varying degrees of local celebrity, but all held more or less in popular repute. I found little difficulty, therefore, in making the acquaintance of professors of the art, and in their company I spent (I am half ashamed to say) many hours sauntering about with the water-finding fork in my hands. It worked with me without any difficulty, but the results very seldom coincided, I regret to say, with those of my companion's experiments. My twig and his were hardly ever en rapport, and the upshot, as a rule, of an hour or two's marching and countermarching was that there ought to be water under every few feet of the ground, and “indications" every few inches! One man in particular has the reputation in the Territory of being a successful and trustworthy diviner, and there is no doubt of it that his reputation so far stands him in good stead that he is always in request, and always, therefore, at work. By trade he is a well-digger, but to this commonplace occupation he has added the more unusual profession of water-finder, and it is a curious fact that his claim to the occult properties involved in the second capacity is really the reason for his employment in the first. And this, too, not by silly, woolly-headed people, but by practical, hard-headed men of business. Thus he is locating for a local railway company all the wells along the new line which they are now constructing through the Piute country. He works invariably with his "twig," and as yet has not failed once. Yet who could say that Cedar Valley was a promising place or its approaches likely places for water? Nor do his employers make any secret of their preference for a workman with a water-witch reputation. They laugh, of course, at his pretensions, but they employ him all the same. I have spoken to them frequently on the subject, and they admit not only the man's uniform success in placing wells in unlikely places, but their own belief that without the "twig" he would have been unable to locate them! The instrument of divination is a forked twig, by preference in Europe a hazel, in Utah a mulberry. The prevalent idea that the rod must be cut from a tree that bears stoned fruit is therefore incorrect. Next to the mulberry in popularity is the peach, after that the pear, and after that anything. Even sage-brush is not reject- | that results gives the twigs just the assisted, and, as I know from personal experi- ance they need. ence, not without reason, for it turns in the hand almost as readily as any other vegetable. For myself, after a careful experiment, I must confess I have no faith in the water-witch, and my reasons are these: that the twig has obstinately refused in my hands to dip over spots where it is certain there was water; that it has dipped in the course of an hour over nearly every yard of ground in a half-acre plot; that in the hands of a blindfolded person it will vary in its indications in such a way as to stultify itself completely. The twig, in fact, will never say the same thing twice, and I refuse, therefore, to believe in such a very dubious oracle. It is generally supposed, I find, that the simple fact of the declination of the twig is in itself remarkable. "There!" says a person in triumph, as soon as the twig turns of its own accord, and against his will, in his hands. But, as a matter of fact, the wonder is when the twig does not turn. For the difficulty is to keep the angle of the forks perpendicular, and the most natural thing for it to do is to dip down, and the reason for this is almost obvious. The grasp clinches the forks tightly enough at first, and at first, therefore, the rod never dips, for the hands are dry, the muscles vigorous, and the will strong. But a very few minutes of such violent effort to keep the hands clinched suffices to make the fingers perspire, the muscles relax, and the will flag. The alteration is imperceptible to the performer; the languor comes on insensibly. But the twig detects it at once, and the instant that the force that keeps it rigidly perpendicular at first begins to lessen, it begins to decline. Once on the dip, it is more difficult than ever to keep the twig straight, and though spasms of muscular contraction may check it temporarily in its downward dip, the necessity for obedience to natural laws triumphs in the end, and the twig insists on ultimately having its heaviest point downward. Moreover, the very tightness of the grip has a tendency to accelerate the speed of the declination, on the simple principle that the tighter you squeeze a slippery object the harder it is to hold it, and also from the fact that as the twigs are not perfectly circular, the grip of the hand is not applied with equal force all round, and the unequal pressure Idling on the hill-side one spring morning, close to the city creek, I saw two hyacinth-like blades of green thrusting themselves up from the ground. "That is the sego," said my friend, “and it is good to eat. When we first came into the valley we used to consider the sego almost a staple of our food, and for myself I far preferred it to thistle root, which was about all I used to get to eat as a lad." Thinking I should like to taste the original food of the primitive Mormon in the days before wheat and potatoes grew in the Salt Lake Valley, I dug up the root and ate it, and, as my friend had said, found it was good to eat. Indeed, cooked, I can understand its being a very agreeable and nutritious vegetable. A few days later, being alone, I chanced again upon some sego plants, and proceeded to dig them up. The small boy who was carrying my botanizing tin and other apparatus seeing me at work, came up and contemplated me. "That is the sego," said he. "It is deadly poison." "Well, my friend," I replied, "I am proof against poison. I ate several the other day, and am still alive." "Maybe," answered the lad, "you ate the proper sego. This 'ere's the poisonous sego. That's the proper sego," said he, pointing to another hyacinth leaf so nearly like the one I was digging up that I could see no difference between them. But the boy was quite right. Had I eaten the other I should not probably have died-though deaths have not been infrequent among children-but I should certainly have been very ill indeed. The moral of this is, when you go eating sego, see that you eat "the proper sego." Among the quests in which I busied myself when wandering among the Mormon settlements was that of Indian arrowheads. The central and southern portions of Utah were once favorite haunts of the red man; and hunting parties from the different tribes used often-when following game across the Utah valleys from the hill range on one side to that on the other-to meet on the Sevier and San Pete bottom lands, and there fight out their rival claims to antelope and bison. In later years, that is, since Mormon settlement, the Indians still continue to haunt the southern cañons, and again bore being nearly exactly the same, but this is intended for the insertion of the mouth - piece. There seems, however, to be no reason why either should not be used as the bowl, and, indeed, from examination of the bore, I am inclined to think that its late possessor used sometimes to use them indiscriminately. The mouthpiece is a flat lath of locust-wood an inch and a quarter wide, and pierced with a bore about as large as a 0.45 revolver barrel. One end of this is sharpened for inserting in the stone, the other for inserting in the mouth, a notch being cut about a couple of inches from each end for a bunch of blue-bird feathers. and again the settlers have had to aban- | projects at right angles from the first, the don their infant colonies to the desolating Navajo. Nearly every mile of the country, therefore, from the Utah Lake southward, has its local tradition of Indian warfare, and nearly every river bend, willow bush, cedar clump, or isolated rock marks the scene of some tragic encounter. A somewhat barbaric but very effective tobacco was also among my Indian experiences. I was on the extreme south of the Territory, on the frontier, in fact, of Arizona, when we came upon a lodge of friendly ("tickaboo") Indians pitched on the pine-covered slope of Long Valley, and I succeeded in accomplishing a longcherished ambition, namely, smoking with Indians out of an Indian pipe some Indian tobacco. Another cake of tobacco readily enlisted a red man to show me how to prepare My friends, being able to converse with Indian tobacco. We went together down the red men, gave them to understand that to the stream and cut a handful or two of I wished to buy a pipe, and the assertion red willow twigs, while the boy who was was confirmed by my producing from our with us picked a handful of sumac leaves, wagon a number of cakes of tobacco, and another of wire-grass. Thus provided, which I held out in the primitive attitude we returned to the lodge, and the ashes of of bargaining. The gesture gave rise to a cedar-charcoal fire being fanned into a much "how-howing" among the Laman- red heat (with my hat, by-the-way, which ites (such is the name given to the In- one of the Indians unceremoniously took dians in the Book of Mormon), and event- off my head for the purpose), the process ually a pipe head was produced, and then commenced. The outer red bark of the a pipe stem, and after much grunting and willow twigs was first of all peeled off and ejaculation the one was fitted into the oth- thrown aside-it is generally supposed that er and handed to me. Affecting to be a the Indians smoke this bark, but this is a connoisseur in Indian pipes, I examined mistake-and then the under yellow bark it with an assumption of critical precise- was peeled upward in strips, but left attachness, and then, putting on an air of only ed to the twig at one end. As each twig very moderate approbation, I offered two was peeled it was stuck into the ground cakes of tobacco in exchange for it. A at the edge of the fire (sloping slightly grunt of dissatisfaction was the only re- over the embers), and the strips of yelply of the noble savage, upon which, as if low under-bark hanging down gradually after mature calculation, I put the pipe curled up with the heat, crinkling themdown on the ground with three cakes by selves in a kind of rosette round the its side, and assumed an expression of top of the twig. When they had shrivfinal determination. But they were not elled up as tightly as they could do the satisfied, and after some minutes of bar- twig was pulled up, and the crisp bark gaining it was decided by my friends that crumbled off between the hands on to a I should buy the pipe for three cakes, but clean spot prepared for it “on the hearth.” that I should "make a present" to the The result was the "kinnikinic" of travchief of three more. To this honorable ellers, a pale yellow pile of stuff recompromise I gladly consented, and so the sembling "granulated" tobacco. Meanpipe became mine for seventy-five cents' while the wire-grass had been roughly worth of tobacco. plaited into a little mat about the size of the palms of the two hands, and on this a layer of sumac leaves had been spread out. As soon as the latter began to wrinkle up with the heat they were turned over, and eventually, when they had ceased forming into blisters, and when, therefore, the moisture was all dried out, The bowl is fashioned out of a piece of a very heavy red limestone of such fine grain that it might almost be called "marble." | It is three and a half inches long, with a bore about a third of an inch in diameter, the sides of the pipe being over a third of an inch thick. A second bowl, as it were, |