The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 10, 1901, Page 3

LU .,.4-714’;#' e T | - (L Lk L Ayt | p e . " e « > » . beyond the stage slow to g from a nt of commercial . s side and absorbing . the other, amounts to nothing e of this there are to-day be- d San war Diego. a of 6 native cu- eggregate volume of whose busi- s:ienfig’:s B £ oot i e rSOLF FADS MEXICAN <. LEATHE N 7 7 LT e tifi i h ness for the fiscal year & conservative cs- timate has fixed at not less than $1.500,000. The variety of articles repr trade covers a wide field entec in this and includes al- nd In g the sup with the truly leather Mexics exqu induce; this field were first & the and nt = which from the outstart has ed the work. This interest i¢ not orly by the uniquenes but likew whi from th wtions with rounded ather was e ornamental carvin st practiced by sequentiy whe, h 1 the elabor addlery ar It ha n resourc standard he suec that is characte manifest St te ¥ the where six skiiled leather f whom are mastered the for this & men of the land, artistic fecqu: results in work of iperior r wseult howev 1 by the © sense of work erit to that produced by In either much as hazy a2 Slave.OQwrer. fter all, your real fcon- content with toppling ¥ bee off her pinnacle » to attack the tern and moral say the wise men, have y bad umanity— r tyrannous, given to conquests, and rank expansionists, in that the territory Along with the terri- han not take tue neigh- holding them ever after gree. they are Just how this comes to pass is some- thing of a There are 700-0dd spe- t rs, that must possess puzzle e ouserve y attack, subju- er species igger, stronger and u the nests. After they aves, many other queer The slaves In some nests ny told off as sol- the gates, 80 many for foraging, the care of he soldier ants are fur- by The larger molety, , develop fierce nipping jaws, and polson stings. The others, in some curiouk fashion, Increase the size eir heads, especially if they happen be considerably bigger than their mas- to ters. Thus the big heads enable them to block & passageway solidly against an in- vading foe. Exceptionally elastic slaves are trans- 4 into Mving honey botties. They found with abdomens enormously dis- tended, and full of the honey dew the working slaves bring in. Honey dew, be + sald, is & secretion of the aphides, or rlant lice, which the ant swarms domesti- | cate and keep in herds within the nest. | RBut many more remain outside. Ants are | nately fond of honey, indeed of lll} They are further great| hroom eaters, and grow them within | ests. They also cuitivate certain s of orchids, and bring about dis- | tions of the plant form, »yung tender stems so flerce- i they swell, become almost globular, | and @istlll a thin, semi-saccharine juice, | ich the ants no doubt regard as rare ne. One particular specles of orchid, | deed, is ®0 infested with a virulently | stinging ant, the collection of it is very dangerous. The minute the plant is o Juices. elr £pec mod:fi the touched all rush to wever, the ants point of jess curfous th orchid will not fi but wit straggling year's growth Some few among slave-holding The most part be swarmir tack n the over it the that ut the feeble the ants, aw after a ants re- ut- main capable. me terly demoralized. They cannot bufld 5, « for thei ung, or even feed mselves. Not a few, when th s ve chosen and bullt a new nest, ride to t upon a slave's b; One spe s is noteworthy for having only s for workers, yet never containing within the nest an €-FEES Or YO As with bees the queen ant is the mother of the swarm. Unlike bees, however, there are often several queens in the same swarm. g workers are rudimentary females. In slave-making the victors kill all the per- fect ants and take home the others. Perfect males and females have wings, which they drop as soon as the marriage fight is over. Worker ants bave no wings. Worker ants, or rather slaves and the aphis-cows, by ne means exhaust the list of ant dependents. They kecp various smaller insects as men keep do- mestic animals. Just why is not yet clear. The fact remains, though, that in the crannies of some nests herds of a thousand almost invisible small creatures have been found. A year is the average span of ant life, but some specles live five years and exccptional individuals as much as seven. All species show the liveliest concern for their eggs, luggiug them up iInto sunshine on fair days, and scuttling back with them the minute the sky is overcast. Upon a fickle April day the eggs may be moved half a dozen L + Facis From Texas The census shows some queer things about Texas. For instance, Balley County has but 4 residents, Cockran has 2, An- drews 37, Lynn 17 and Dawson 36. Twen- ty-five other counties have less than 500. Some counties have no running stream within their borders, some are hundreds of miles from a rallroad and othérs are almost wholly inhabited by prairie dogs, jackrabbits and rattiesnakes. Tom Green County, the largest in the State, has 45,000 square miles, which s larger than the whole Btate of Ohio, and has but 6804 in- babitants. times. The ful of it they well y as reg: throug! +. shelter th earing their young. aphis-e their milch ong an. is igulshed Put to the stranger ant who comes uninvited to the shelter of an unwelcomir He meled, and finally ma elf by sho shown fon woe nest is by el 1 tied and ally-un- superior » saves hir power or posse f heels. After he Is down s mere sguirm- trunk, bereft of legs, unable to bite, | aves lay hold of him and drag him outside the nest to die. Possibly it Is an ant superstition that bad luck follows a stranger's death In the house. * Formic acid, the distinctive ant prod- uct, is one of the greatest vegetable stim- ulants known. The earth of a nest be- comes so saturated with it, some peopla explain the famous Hindoo mango trick” by supposing that the mango seed, which comes to flower and frult before eyes, is planted in a pot earth. However that may be, it 1s estab- lished beyond cavil that ants of some species cultivate, and presumably fertilize thelr favorite foodstuffs. Cases In polnt are the trimmer ants and the harvestiog ants, both of which abound in the State of Texas. The trimmers prune a sort of weed which is to thelr taste, so it shall grow strong and sturdy. The harvesting ants go even beyond that. They clear disks several yards across round about thelr nests of all manner of vegetation, then plant the disks with ant-rice, which they watch and tend until it ripens, le*- ting no vagrant nor allen twig show its head unscathed. Ants are entitled to plume themselves as the very first discoverers of the X-ray and Its mysterious powers. Sir John Lub- bock experimented extensively as to the effect of colored light upon ants In cap- tivity. He laid strips of colored glass over t. 3 nests, first putting the ant-eggs all under one special color. In the end he determined that the ants did not much mind the red light, that green light was also, In a measure, innocuous, but that invariably the eggs were"hustled from underneath the violet rays. In no case was more than a single egg left there at the end of two hours and oftener than not the removal was accomplished within less than an hour, - a clean palr | your | of ant-heap | 7 |rived from Mexican workmanship, ‘ The one serfous defect In the latter case had always existed in the designing, the most | popular themes running into exaggerated floral effects and making little of such vagaries as a rose at the end of a lily stem. The rose, however, under a more Intel. ligent treatment, has lost nothing save its former incongruities, and, with the oak leaf, acorn and flowering vine, will never cease to find Ideallstic em- bodiment in Mexican carved leather. The supplanting of thelr old tra- traditional ideas by designs of a more cosmical nature has, strangely enough, met with neither disparagement nor opposition on the part of the original native carvers; on the contrary, they are invariably quick to embrace the new order of things, and consequently are to be found in all the factories working side by side with their brethren of a latter-day doctrine, The methods pursued In the carved leather art are remarkably simple in view of the singular beauty and durability of the work produced. To obtain the best results only calfskin of the finest grain, which has originally undergone a special procesa of tanning, is employed. The pat- tern i first traced on the smooth surface 7 of the leather, after which the workman proceeds with an infinite number of keen- edged chisels to consummate his design. The work, though characterized by the greatest deftness, is necessarily performed with much care, as is evident from the perfectly wrought raised figures in the finished product. The variety of the con- ceits into which Mexican carved leather is worked embraces a muititude of uses alike practical and ornamental, ranging in character from a thimble case to a cell- ing panel, and in cost from a few cents into the hundreds of dollars. In addition to the larger enterprises which owe their existence to the Western curio craze there are a multiplicity of smaller pursuits In one way or another identified with the general Industry. Among these are mills for the manu- facture of noveltles from native woods, plants for the treatment of seashells and kindred marine products, metal filigree and stonecutting works and emcablfsh- ments where taxidermy in Its various phases is pursued along wholesale lines, While the great surplus of California’s curio output is industriously gathered by the transitory, yet omnuipresent multl- tude from other climes, not a few notable collections have been acquired by the more permanent habitants of this section. Aside from values estimated on a basis of miscellaneous associations the Intrinsic worth of certain collections the writer has been privileged to Inspect represents a .snug sum of money. In one instance the actual cost of the specimens accumulated figures up to something in excess of $12,000, ‘while in numerous other individual cases the amount of cash Invested represents over half that amount. Besides the legitimate fads—if “legiti- macy” exists in the vocabulary of the radical virtuoso—there are Instances ‘where the grotesque enters conspicuously [ Tyecars JEATHE R ¢ CARVER & VIORW - inio the whims of the curio enthustast. For example, whils coilecting the matertal for this sketch I chanced to witness a young woman in the act of purchasing a caddy bag made from the cuticle of a mammoth rattler; but when my gasze presently shifted to her escort, a strip- pling of twenty or thereabout, the enorm- ity of her purchass seemed In & measure justified; he was wearing a four-in-hand fashioned from the intact hide of a gila monster, Nor are such fantastical diversions es- sentially confined to cbjects of “utflity™ in the curio line, for on the same day I beheld as a central display in the show- window of a leading bazaar a full dozen stuffed horned toads. each mortised In between the two es of a bun, which ‘were held in place by means of a manila rope yarn—the whole assortment bearing the gruesome label, “Tourist Sand- wiches.”™