The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1897-01-10

How beautiful the storm has been
Half an hour ago the sky was dark and
frowning, and the rain descended tor
renIially. Now the silver drifts are mar
shaling out to sea, and the sun is touch
ing everything into cheer. The soaked
earth breathes out fragrance; the wet trees
sparkle rainbow-wise; and the whole
world looks dripping and sunshiny, like
good baby smiling through its tears.
We are having a singularly forward
springtime. The first catkins showed on
the willows week ago. The peoples have
good start, and in one of my rambles the
other day l found the brodiaa thrusting
up tiny baby fingers through the grass,
and the forage plants OF the hillside are
already welI-grown, sweet and nutritious.
A black-and -yellow-winged butterfly, that
for two months past has lain apparently
lifeless on window ledge in my study,
yesterday spread his wings and took flight
across the room, and / saw, only yester-
day, what looked like q white-crowned
sparrow, perched high above my head,
but whether he was a newcomer or a
lingering winter guest l have no way of
knowing.
Last summer while the hillside was bare
and brown road was cut along it, the
pillow going deep TO Tighten the heavy
grade. In some places the bank was cut
down several feet. The land has been
in cultivation for years. Successive crops
of barley and oats, potatoes, and of late
years persistent Canada thistles have
covered it, but now from the cut bank
along the edges and even in the middle of
the seldom fused roadway luxuriant
crop of ferns has sprung up Whence
have they come, one wonders. 1t seems
hardly possible tina: the spores have been
dormant during all these years that have
elapsed since these smiling hillside fields
and orchards were the messy. wet, laurel
grown sides OF canyon through which
sparkling stream rushed down to join the
great waters of the bay. But nature car
ries on wonderful processes in her great
laborato She is infinitely variable and l
suspect that with all our wisdom we are
yet as far as ever from exhausting her re-
sources. Was it not when Franklin few
his kite and coaxed the lightning from
the sky that some wiseacre declared his
conviction that discovery had probably
reached its ultimate limit?
Here upon the gray, moss-grown rock
where l am Sitting little lizard has
crawled out to get brief summing. He
sees me, but is too torpid with cold to be
frightened. / can even take him between
my palms, that the little chiIl-blooded
fellow may grow warm therein, without
causing him any apparent alarm. He
does not get warmer to the touch. I do
not think these little lizards ever do, but
hor dino lIu fNr1f 0F io
turns his head quickly from side to side,
watching me with his sparkling jewels of
eyes, and his throat begins to pulsate, al
ways sign of excitement in the lizard.
He is warm enough to think now, and he
evidently thinks about getting away if
be can only find way of escape from this
queer corner where he lies; so I open my
hands and he flashes forth upon the rock.
In nearly every order of life we find
some small specimen that. by reason of
its beauty and harmlessness, seems to
claim and win exemption from the harm
that usually besets its kind. Among the
birds the little hummer charms and de-
lights US by its winning, fearless grace.
What the humming-bird is among its
kind the Douglass squirrel always seems
TO me to be among animals, and some of
the dainty little lizards among the rep
tiles.
My small friend of the rock here is as
graceful in his way as any humming- bird.
Indeed there is something very birdlike
in the bright, fearless way he regards me
as, with lifted head, he seems 10 listen as
well as to watch for further Developments
If / were to move he would suddenly
whisk into some Granny and continue to
watch me, but l question ii he would be
greatly alarmed. l cannot understand
the shuddering horror with which some
people regard the whole reptile tribe. As
a matter of fact most of it's representatives
are harmless and many of them are very
beautiful. For my own part l question
whether the ancient story of the serpent's
bad behavior in Eden is the real explana-
ton of our dislike for all crawling erea-
lures. The human dread is probably
a survival of the terror which our pre-
historic arboreal ancestors felt for their
hereditary enemies, the snakes.
Yet, singularly enough, these creatures
are very friendly inclined toward hu-
manity. once they make our acquaint-
ance. There is no branch of the various
lizard families member of which in
captivity does not come 10 know and take
some sort of interest in the human being
with whom it is associated. Theirs Is
not cupboard friendship either, for they
are as nearly independent of food as living
creatures can well be, and can subsist for
months without nourishment. Even the
Notwithstanding ella monster is not with
out susceptibility to kindness.
A young girl of my acquaintance once
had one of these objects for pet and for
months handled ii, fed it and cared for it
daily. 1t never resented familiarity, even
when roughly handled. Had it done so
the result might have been tragical for,
popular assertion to the contrary notwith-
standing, the ella monster is unquestion-
ably venomous. l have repeatedly seen
| the fact contradicted in Californian publ
cations. but the creature has well-devel-
| oped poison apparatus, and scientific an
nails show plenty of instances of the death
dealing power of its bite.
| There is no other poisonous lizard,
however, known to science. The horned
toad, which is not toad at all, but a liz
ard, is startling enough looking
chap, but he is harmless, intelligent and
even capable of becoming attached to a
human being.
The little green, blue and gray lizards
| so common about our rocks and trees are
very useful members of society and should
never be harmed, for they do great good
"a Observation-Disclosures The small creatrro