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BY PATH AND TRAIL. 193 half- ape half- man of the Agnostic to lift himself to a higher plane ? I cannot resist the malicious suspicion that all these puerile and violent attempts to account for the origin of man were intended to destroy the credibility of revelation and belief in the divinity and perpetuity of Christianity. Here, near the Casa Grande, I saw for the first time the alligator lizard or " Gila monster/ ' imprisoned in a wire enclosure on the ranch of a Mexican vaquero. Full grown, this repulsive reptile is three feet long, of a black- brownish color, with the snout of a crocodile and the eye of a snake. The hideous and venomous thing bore an evil reputation three thousand years ago. He is the only surviving reptile that answers to the Biblical description of the cockatrice or basilisk. In those early days it inspired loathing and was shunned for its subtlety and dreaded bite. It was selected, with the asp and other poisonous creatures, by Isaiah to illustrate the benign influence of our Divine Lord in subduing the fierce pas sions of men which he compared to ravenous beasts and poisonous reptiles. In prophetic allegory the inspired Judean foretells the time when " the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp and the weaned child shall put his hand in the den of the basilisk. " Is the bite of this repulsive creature fatal? When the Gila monster at tains its growth and is not in a torpid or semi- torpid condition its bite is as serious as that of the rattlesnake. When young or in a torpid state, often for four months of the year, the " hila" does not secrete poison. Ignor ance of the habits of the reptile have led to interminable disputes and discussions making an agreement of opinion impossible. When I was in Yuma I met a surgeon who, last year, treated two men who had been bitten. I need |
