The Gila monster attains a length of nearly two feet. It is covered with horny protuberances and scales similar to the horned toad, so called. When angry it makes a hissing noise not unlike that made by a serpent.
HORNED TOAD
The horned toad—which is not a toad, but the lizard phrynosoma—is an innocent little fellow, attaining a length of six or eight inches at the most. There was a time when his reputation for evil was second only to that of the Gila monster. Now that he is better known he has become a plaything of children and a pet in many a household.
A common creature in the portions of the desert in which cacti abound is the cactus rat, a small rodent about midway in size between the mouse and the ordinary rat. He is provided with a bushy tail which he carries over his back, squirrel fashion. He lives upon the barrel cactus, a plant so protected by spines as to seem unapproachable by man or animal. The cunning rat, however, has found a way of attacking this formidable vegetable. He burrows in the earth at the foot of the plant and comes at it from beneath. One specimen of the matured plant will keep a colony of the rats several months. They gnaw at its vitals till nothing but the empty shell remains, then they emigrate to some other plant and there set up housekeeping for another six or eight months.
Living so far from a habitable country, the rat finds few enemies to molest it. The rattler is about the only creature which preys upon it, therefore it thrives and multiplies in the midst of the fearful region it has chosen for its home.
It is astonishing to the desert traveler, after he has crossed half a hundred miles of parched and barren territory, to find about the spring of an oasis tortoises basking in the sun or swimming in the waters of the desert well.