Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-05-10
ARIZ0NA'S MONSTER.
iNHABlTANT OF THE DESERT WHOSE
BITE CAUSES QUEER SYMPTOMS.


Professor Myron P. Kirk, formerly
of the Smithsonian institution, has
come in from year of scientific ex-
ploration and collection out across the
! Cocopah desert-in the most desolate,
forbidding and blasted region in the
union-where Arizona. California and
Sonora, Mex. come together at the
mouth of the muddy Rio Colorado,
writes the Los Angeles correspondent
OF the Chicago Record. He has a mar
Vellous collection Of specimens of rep
tllian and insect life on the desert
wastes, and as soon as they are catal-
| ogued and made ready for museum
uses he will ship them to Harvard
university.
Il have found three new varieties OF
the Gila monster in the Cocopah desert
region" said Professor Kirk the other
day, "and | believe l have some scien-
tific information about the most veno-
nous reptile in North America. For 20
years l have been travelling up and
down the country. across the deserts
and in the mountains, getting the
strangest specimens of animal life.
And among the oldest in all my exper-
ience is the Gila monster. Now. to
this day many people think there is no
such thing as the Gila monster And
yet, throughout the Colorado desert,
especially along the Gila river, you
may encounter thousands. On the
contrary, too, you may scarcely see
one. The Gila monster is almost as
thick as your arm and IS or 20 inches
| long. 1t has a head which is pretty
near all mouth and opens clear back
to its ears. The head is about as big
as common teacup, set with little,
vicious eyes, and the mouth is power
| fully muscled and set with four sharp
fangs and lot of grinders. The color
! of the monster is reddish. with brown
spots. 1t has blunt tail, as nearly all
poisonous lizards have.
Il found these monsters living in the
hot sand. They are not good to fool
| with, and a man who is in the Gila
monster business must know what he
is about. One day last June l pulled
up from the hot desert to little ranch
on the Colorado river. The man who
owned the place had a pet Gila mon
ster which he kept in a barrel. He
stopped down to get him out to show
hhm to me and some friends of his who
were there. and the monster shut
down on his thumb. He gripped it so
/ tiuht in bie oNsrf11 ,rrbi
like a wise. that his jaws had to be
| pried open with an iron bar. The man
| lived only few hours, and died in ter
rible spasms. Another man bitten
while | was down there has ever since
been paralyzed in the side. Hardly
anybody ever gets over bite from
this terrible animal.
what physical effects come to a
man who has escaped death from poi
son by Gila monster? Why, ] have
seen several different results. For in
stance. there was the case of bar
keeper in Benson some years ago. He
had a pet Gila monster that he kept
in box on the bar. and sometimes
he would let it cut and play with it.
| He ridiculed stories the cowpunchers
! told about the poison of Gila mon
sters. He would put one finger in it's
mouth and drag it up and down the
bar, and the thing seemed to enter
into the fun, and would hold back and
wiggle its tail and appear as pleased
as dog. l told him once that he was
taking terrible chances, and that some
day the monster would bite him, Just
as sure as fate But he only laughed
at the idea of it's biting hint knew
| him so well-and even if it should he
didn't believe it would be poisonous.
"Well, one day he put his finger into
its mouth when it didn't happen to feel
sood-natured, and it sent its teeth to
the bone. Its Jaws closed down like
wise, and the men in the saloon
couldn't pry them open. 1t just sat
there and blinked it's wicked eyes at
them and held on. and they had to
cut its head off before they could make
it let go. That poor fellows arm soon
| began to swell, and he suffered intense
pain in his arm and hand and in his
back. And after awhile the flesh be-
gan to shrivel and the muscles to be-
come weak, and inside of three months
the whole arm from the shoulder down
was as shriveled and helpless as
paralytic's. That was some four or
five years ago, but his arm remains
in that condition to this day, and
there's no prospect that he'll ever have
the use of it. There was no perma-
nently i'll effect. nothing but the ten
porary pain in any other part of his
body.
The postmaster at Nogales Ton the
boundary line between Arizona and
Mexico) told me of little Yuma In,
dian girl who stepped on a Gila mon
ster one night in the dark along the
mud banks of the Colorado river sew
eral miles below Yuma. She was
bitten in the ankle. Two army
|