Meanwhile, other attempts have been made to confuse it as to its own individuality; and if the rabbit eventually gives itself up as a hopeless conundrum, it is not more than might be expected. Its fur is now called "seal-skin" in the cheap goods market; the fluke has attacked it as if it were a sheep; while in recent English elections, when the Ground Game Bill was to the front, it was a very important factor. All the same, everybody goes on shooting it just as if it were a mere rabbit. This, I would contend, is hardly fair; for if its skin is really sealskin, the rabbit must, of necessity, be a seal, and, as such, ought to be harpooned from a boat, and not shot at with double-barrelled guns. It is absurd to talk of going out "sealing" in gaiters, with a terrier, for the pursuit of the seal is a marine operation, and concerned with ships and icebergs and whaling line. A sportsman, therefore, who goes out in quest of this valuable pelt should, in common regard for the proprieties, affect Arctic apparel; and, instead of ranging with his gun, should station himself with a harpoon over the "seal's" blow-hole, and, when it comes up to breathe, take his chance of striking it, not forgetting to have some water handy to pour over the line while it is being rapidly paid out, as otherwise it is very liable to catch fire from friction. By this means the rabbit would arrive at some intelligible conception of itself, and be spared much of the discomfort which must now arise from doubts as to its personality. Nothing, indeed, is so precious to sentient things as a conviction of their own "identity" and their "individuality," and I need only refer those who have any doubt about it to the whole range of moral philosophy to assure themselves of this fact. If we were not certain who we were two days running, much of the pleasure of life would be lost to us. We entered the arid tract somewhere near the station of the Seven Palms. They can be seen growing far away on the left under the "foot-hills." About half way through we find ourselves at the station of Two Palms, but they are in tubs. Of course there may be others, and no doubt are. But all you can see from the cars is a limited wilderness. Yet on those mountains there, on the right--one is 12,000 feet--there is splendid pine timber; and on the other side of them, incredible as it seems, are glorious pastures, where the cattle are wading knee-deep in grass! For us, however, the hideous wilderness continues. The hours pass in a monotony of glaring sand, ugly rock fragments, and occasional bristly cactus. And then begins a low chapparal of "camel-thorn" or "muskeet," and as evening closes in we find ourselves at the Colorado River and at Yuma, where the sun shines from a cloudless sky three hundred and ten days in the year.