COMING, as I had, from the far East, where nature, if seen at all, is viewed from a comparatively near stand-point, it was a novel experience to while away the hours of a sunny day, studying mountains apparently near at hand, yet miles and miles away. As I glanced, for the last time, at the landscape from the car-windows, I planned to wander across the intervening plain to at least the base of a beautiful range of rocky hills that bounded it in one direction; but learning soon after that the proposed goal was twelve miles away, contemplated it, as stated, from afar. Probably I did not lose much, for, protected from the searching sunshine of a New Mexican noontide, it was possible to remain delightfully cool and yet mark the endless changes on the mountains beyond.

The country here is simply a broad, treeless plain, hemmed in, at scattered points, by mountains. Without these the hotel would have seemed more like a ship at sea, so monotonous are these level stretches of almost barren ground; but there is endless variety where the hills begin. Against the background of cloudless, deep-blue sky there is traced the most fantastic grouping of tapering points, narrow notches, and that chance accumulation of shapeless sculpture one tries in vain to disentangle. For this reason the outlook never becomes monotonous. Fancy is slow to weary of playing with such building-blocks; but when she does, it is but a step from form to color, and the magnificence of this is only equalled by the magnitude of the other. The restless chasing of light and shadow across the rugged hill-sides never ceases. What but a moment ago were deep, dark gorges are now sunlit prominences, and the outstanding features that held our gaze so recently have now faded from view. Later, when the long shadows creep slowly across the plain, masses of snowy clouds rest upon every peak. The scene is wholly changed. Mountains and clouds become as one; a mighty barrier that shuts out the sun.

And now what of the intervening plain? The soil is very like, if not, pulverized lava, and that vegetation should exist at all is marvellous. Yet there are bushes that thickly cover the ground, but, if we except the few sickly cotton-woods that have been planted near the dwellings, there are no trees; their place is taken by countless windmills. These are no addition to the landscape, and are made the more hideous from being painted white, and too often spotted and splashed with red and blue. A green windmill would be far less conspicuous, but this color appears to find little favor with the dwellers on this plain. One needs but to tarry here for a few days to learn to love trees, and, indeed, well-nigh every feature of the Atlantic seaboard States.

Without this beggarly show of vegetation there would be no animal life here worth mentioning; but as it is, the plain is far from being deserted. My attention, on leaving the cars, was first called to a few swallows twittering about the railway station; then a dull-gray kingbird perched upon the telegraph-wires, and launched out into the glaring sunshine for huge green beetles, that seemed to replace the house-flies at home. Then, too, there were ravens that flapped lazily over the long rows of freight-cars, croaking dismally, and, by their presence, adding no charm to the landscape>as do the merry, noisy, cunning crows at home. Of the two birds, I prefer the latter. The raven may figure better in poetry, and its name sound less harshly upon the ear; but for the pleasant purpose of recalling days gone by, or as an object of study, give me the crow. If the ravens at Deming are fair representatives of their race, then the crow is, I believe, a brainier bird.

Strolling about the plain, one other bird attracted my attention continually, and made the place less dreary. It was the black-throated sparrow. Although the voice was harsh and dry, fitting the arid surroundings, there was an assurance in its lame attempts at song that the world here was not utterly desolate. I listened hour after hour to these cheerful birds, fancying there was melody in their attempts at song, and wondering why, when their lines had been cast in such forbidding places, the gift of a sweet voice had not been vouchsafed them. Does the extremely dry atmosphere have to do with it? Not a sound that I heard had that fulness of tone common to the allied utterances at home. At the limit of my longest stroll I heard a mountain mocking-bird, as it is misnamed in the books, and his was a disappointing song. It was the twanging of a harp of a single string, and that a loose one.

Of skunks, lizards, snakes, and creatures of that ilk I heard much, but my stay was too brief to encounter any; but of the dreaded tarantula I saw much, and, as usual, was disappointed. One would fancy, from what he reads, that this huge spider was a veritable fiend incarnate. If so, it must be at seasons only. They were not so here and now. During the day I could find no trace of them, and it is said that during the dry season they remain in their burrows or under heavy timber, as the floor of the railway platform, but after sundown they made their appearance, and the first impression I received was that no other spider was so very timid. They started at approaching footsteps, were ever disposed to run when approached, and showed fight only when cornered. This seemed to me the more strange, as every person I met held them to be very brave, very fierce, and very poisonous. I could not verify these assertions, although I did not experiment upon myself as to the effects of their biting. That they can produce a very irritating sore, and the venom, when taken up by the circulation, produces constitutional effects, is unquestionably true, but I do not believe that death ever results directly from their bites. Not fearing the creatures, I watched one in particular, to see what evidences of intelligence it would exhibit. These were not very apparent. It simply realized that it was a prisoner, and made desperate efforts to escape. When teased with a bit of straw or leaf, it made no attempt to bite, but appeared to recognize my finger, although protected by a glove, and gave me several vicious nips, but could not penetrate an ordinary kid glove. I noticed that there was left upon my finger a minute drop of yellow, sticky fluid, after the first and second attempts to bite, but not afterwards, these two efforts seemingly exhausting the contents of the poison-sacs.

No person that I questioned attributed a voice to the tarantula, and I failed to demonstrate that they could make a faint whizzing or whirring sound, but I fancied such was the case. On the whole, these huge black spiders are disappointing, and would scarcely have received the attention that has been given them were they not superlatively ugly, and mankind naturally afraid of the whole race of Arachnids.

I was sorry to see no tarantula-hawks, as a certain gigantic blue wasp is called. They are formidable-looking creatures themselves, but deserve encouragement as the relentless foe of the dreaded spider. It is said of them: they seem “never to rest a moment, and with tireless energy fly and walk rapidly along the ground, running into every crevice and hole, and examining every suspicious object, after the dreaded tarantula. The fate of the giant spider when discovered by the hawk is both certain and attended with fascinating horror.

“The winged insect hovers over the victim until it finds a good opportunity to sting. The poison acts in a peculiar manner, the tarantula becoming paralyzed."

The twilight is short at Deming, and when the sun sinks at last behind the distant hills it is quickly night. The birds, unlike many a robin and thrush at home, have no evening song, and silence, were it not for myriad insects, would brood over the plain. But the crickets are now in their glory, and a sound as of rushing waters fills the air. Its volume increases and diminishes with the fitful breeze that rushes by or lazily toys with the stiff shrubbery that dots the plain. And it matters not if there be moonlight. Except the insects' steady trill, the world was now at rest; hushed, as in deep slumber, albeit the moon overtopped the distant hills and flooded the plain with a mellow light that caused every object to stand out with startling distinctness. Here was a feature unlike our moonlit fields at home. There, the charming indistinctness shrouding every object, even when the sky is cloudless, gives the fancy full play, and a bush or tree is whatsoever we are pleased to think it; but not so here. The plain that was bathed in brilliant sunshine through the day is almost as distinct now; and even the mountains are not less rugged, and every peak pierces the upper air, but with an added glory, for upon each there rest, and over all there twinkle, millions of glittering stars.