The Texas quote of the day comes from a 1916 book entitled A Book of Texas. I found this description, in a chapter titled Animals of Texas, interesting. It makes you wonder why anybody ever moved here: Ants, wasps, bees, scorpions, spiders, beetles, and butterflies are numerous in variety and quantity. The centipede and the tarantula and the vinegarroon are really an asset, for they rarely or never harm any one, and they are the basis of many horribly interesting tales and an object of never-failing interest to the newcomer. At certain times in the fall swarms of crickets surround electric lights and pile up around buildings so as to disturb city sanitary departments. It is sometimes possible to scoop up beetles by the shovelful; flocks of grasshoppers occasionally harm the crops; plaster ants (really a kind of wood louse) sometimes daub acres of grass with mud; flies and mosquitoes are sufficiently common to cause many houses to be screened. The heel fly, the screw fly, and the horn fly, each after his fashion, afflicts Texas. The horn fly sucks the blood of stock; the screw fly, found nearly all over the Americas but commercially important in the United States only in Texas, kindly puts into wounds of live stock eggs that shortly develop into voracious maggots which often enlarge the wounds until their poor hosts perish. The heel fly also is a fearful obstacle to the theory that all things are for the best, for in the spring of the year, when the cattle are thin from the winter scarcity, he attacks their heels with painful bites and causes the poor beasts to rush to the nearest hole of water to stand therein for protection. If the hole be boggy and the cow feeble, she sometimes dies a fearful death. Such, however, were episodes of the olden time when cattle were cheap and roamed at will for miles. Now, being so valuable, they are carefully protected by man, the tragedy is gone, and there is only amusement in seeing a sleek bovine suddenly twist her tail into a knot and rush abruptly to the nearest pond. The quarantine line, famous among cowmen and running from the Rio Grande northeasterlv to the Red River, with the two-fifths of Texas to the west of it above quarantine, marks the area below which cattle are subject to the Texas fever (which is not peculiar to Texas) and must be inspected for the fever tick before being allowed to go farther north or west. Five millions of cattle below the line are subject to the attacks of these ticks, which do millions of dollars of damage a year. Prof. Mark Francis of the Agricultural and Mechanical College deserves great commendation in Texas for his efforts to eradicate this tick. This may be done by dipping the cattle in a disinfectant and by removing them from a range long enough to starve the ticks that infest it. It costs about 50 cents a head to dip cattle. The young tick is able to live five or six months without food. For many years practical cowmen poured oceans of ridicule upon the scientific veterinarians who were vainly telling them that the tick caused the fever. The Mexican boll weevil, which has invaded Texas in recent years, is a beetle which is extending its habitat eastward along the Coastal Plain. There seems to be a sort of general drift from Mexico into Texas; in recent years the boll weevil, the armadillo, the Mexican and the Inca dove have increased in numbers and spread over wider areas. We shall conclude this inadequate discourse on the animals of Texas by quoting from James R. Steele of the United States Signal Service, who was stationed at Brownsville in early days. In fine poetic excess he has described the Rio Grande region as follows: The devil put thorns on all of the trees, And mixed up the sand with millions of fleas; And scattered tarantulas along all the roads. He put thorns on the cactus and horns on the toads, He lengthened the horns of the Texas steers, And put an addition to the jack rabbits ears; He put a little devil in the broncho steed, And poisoned the feet of the centipede. The rattlesnake bites you, the scorpion stings, The mosquito delights you with buzzing its wings, The sand burrs prevail and so do the ants, And those who sit down need half-soles on their pants. The red pepper grows on the banks of the brook, The Mexicans use it in all that they cook; Just dine with one and then you will shout, Ive hell on the inside as well as the out
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 14:30:00 +0000