Roadrunners kill rattlesnakes.

Desert turtles live a hundred years.

The loudest noise in the world is thunder.

The horned toad is not a toad; it’s a lizard.

The Vinegaroon is half spider and half scorpion.

Animals are wild because man has made them so.

The largest gold nugget ever found weighed 630 pounds.

A cubic foot of gold weighs more than half a ton — 1203 pounds.

There are many kinds of cactus that will not grow in the desert.

A lightning flash lasts approximately one-millionth part of a second.

Horsehair rope as a barrier to stop rattlesnakes has been proved a myth.

One pound of honey represents the lifetime work of more than 1,000 bees.

A mule knows three times as much as a horse, and a burro is smarter than a mule.

The Indian population in the desert is steadily growing — from 8,000 to 45,000 in 60 years.

Needles of the prickly pear cactus are cut to size, shaped, polished, and sold as phonograph needles.

Each rattlesnake helps man by killing off between 100 and 150 rats, mice, gophers, and ground squirrels every year.

The dried stalks of the desert yucca are gathered and sent to a factory in Brooklyn, New York, for the manufacturing of artificial limbs.

Horned Toads sometimes lay eggs and other times will give forth living young. It seems that the mother can’t quite make up her mind.

Over 3,000 different herbs and plants for therapeutic use were grown in Montezuma’s Mexican botanical gardens years before the discovery of America.

It is estimated that half a million snakes and twice that number of lizards were killed for their skins and turned into shoes and purses last year for milady’s fancy.

The department of education in Mexico wants the children in that country to look to the old Aztec god, Quelzaoatl, for their presents each Christmas, rather than Santa Claus.

Many old prospectors have been saved from thirst by the water contained in the famous barrel cactus. Today this barrel cactus furnishes the base for some of the noted cactus candies.

Wrinkled inhabitants of the desert shake their heads and whisper startling exaggerations when you ask about the Jumping Cactus (Cholla); nevertheless, it does jump, but only when stirred by the swish of your pant leg or coat sleeve.

INDIAN NAMES. In the matter of geographical names, the contribution of the Indian is conspicuous. At least twenty of the states comprised in the United States bear Indian names, while for rivers, lakes, and towns, the list of Indian names is in almost equal proportion.