The Gila Monster has at last succeeded in disclosing to Science the
trend of his appetite toward that comestible with the strong foreign
accent, the gull’s egg. That the product of the merry sea-fowl is the
creature’s regular diet in his desert habitat circumjacent to Death
Valley is a proposition so obvious that one would have thought it
self-evident, even to him on whose humble birth fair science frowned
not; yet the discovery appears to have been made by accident, as is so
frequently the case with great truths which seem so simple when we come
to know them.
Now that his Monstership’s favorite food is no longer a matter of
controversy to scientists and concern to the tenderfoot, we may
reasonably hope that the interesting but hitherto misunderstood and
calumniated reptile may be domesticated among us; for there is no
longer a doubt of our ability to support him in the style to which he
is accustomed, nourishing him to a proper growth and suitable flavor
for the table.
In the gastronomical curriculum of the southern Red Man the Gila
Monster has always held an honorable place when well roasted
by exposure to the climate of his choice; and that aboriginal
trencherman’s dietetic practices have frequently pointed the way to
reform at the tables of the Paleface, a notable instance being his
advocacy of the potato and the tobacco leaf, in the consumption of
which he had long been happy before he discovered Columbus and Sir
Walter Raleigh. In the spud and the quid we have, doubtless, his best
benefactions to Caucasian gastronomy; but if the seed of his example
with regard to the Gila Monster do not fall upon the stony soil of
a reasonless conservatism the minor pleasures of existence may be
augmented by an addition distinctly precious, and the female gull be
accepted and venerated as a philanthropist of the deepest dye.
By knowledge not only of the gratifying fact that the Monster eats
gulls’ eggs, but of the at least interesting one that he does
_not_ eat the Eastern tourist, we attain to something like an
understanding of his disposition, which is seen to be peaceable and
humane. It is therefore probable that he is no more venomous when he
bites than poisonous when bitten. The current stories attesting the
noxiousness of his tooth have their origin, perhaps, in a strong sense
of his destitution of beauty; for it must be frankly confessed that the
impulchritude of his expression and general make-up is disquieting to
the last degree. But, for that matter, so is that of the toad—not only
the horned toad, which is known to be harmless, but the common hop-toad
of the garden, whose bite is believed by some to be actually wholesome.
Shakspeare was of a different conviction, but Shakspeare was not very
strong in zoology, nor was he over-conscientious in verification of
all the statements that he put into the mouths of his characters—a
circumstance which seems to have been overlooked by those who are most
addicted to quoting him.
Science having done so much for the Gila Monster and, in a sense,
made him its own, will be expected by the public to carry the good
work forward by settling, once for all, the vexed question of his
brotherhood to the rattlesnake and the woman scorned. Is he really
venomous? With a view to determining the point it is to be hoped that
some unselfish investigator may permit himself to be bitten by the
accused; and I think a very proper person to make the experiment is Dr.
Theodore Roosevelt, the illustrious zoölogist who wrote the monograph
on the invertebracy of the spineless cactus.