THE STORY OF THE NAVEL ORANGE

Who has not enjoyed a juicy navel orange, while wondering at its peculiar shape and lack of troublesome seeds? Yet few people know that this particular variety has brought millions of dollars into our state and made orange growing our third greatest industry.

Read this story of the seedless orange, this "golden apple of California," which was first cultivated by Luther Tibbets, of Riverside, and learn how Southern California has profited by its navel orange crops.

Nearly thirty years ago Mr. Tibbets came from New York to this state and took up free government land near what is now the beautiful city of Riverside. He was one of the half-dozen pioneer fruit-growers of that region, and had noticed at the San Gabriel Mission how well orange trees grew there. His wife and daughter waited in Washington, D.C., until a home should be ready here for them, and they often sent Mr. Tibbets plants and seeds from the Department of Agriculture. To this Department and its gardens in Washington, many curious plants are forwarded from other countries for growing and experiment in the United States. New kinds of grain or fruits are carefully cultivated and watched by the Department, and from it farmers can always get seeds or cuttings to try on their own farms.

Mrs. Tibbets often visited the Department gardens, and in 1873 she wrote to her husband that she could get him some fine orange trees if he would promise the government to take great care of them and to keep them apart from other trees till they fruited. Of course he agreed to give them special attention, and therefore that December he received three small, rooted orange trees. A cow chewed up one of these, but for five years the others were watched and tended. Then sweet white blossoms appeared on each little tree, and afterwards two oranges, like hard green bullets at first. Finally, in January, 1879, Mr. Tibbets picked four large, well-flavored, golden oranges, the first seedless ones ever grown outside of Brazil.

From the hot swamps of the tropical country at Bahia the United States Consul had sent six cuttings of this peculiar orange to be planted in the Washington gardens. All died but the two at Riverside. In 1880 they bore half a bushel of fruit, and the new seedless oranges were talked of throughout Southern California. The other orange growers had been cultivating "seedlings," trees which bore smaller fruit, with many bitter seeds and a thick skin. Many of these growers now cut back their seedlings to bare limbs, and grafted the new orange on these branches. This is called "budding," and is done by cutting off a thin slip of bark with a tiny folded-up leaf-bud on it, inserting the graft in the branch to be budded and securing it there with wax to keep the air out. The little bud drinks in sap from the tree stem, and grows and blossoms true to its own mother tree.

There were few orange groves then, but soon nearly all were budded to the new kind, seventy-five acres being so changed on the Baldwin Ranch; and when these trees began to bear, some five years afterwards, people were much excited over the seedless fruit.

Such high prices were paid for these oranges at first, that orange growing boomed all over Southern California. People thought their fortunes were made when they set out a few acres of small budded trees they had paid a dollar or more apiece for. Whole towns sprang up in dry treeless valleys where only cattle and sheep had pastured, and land worth only twenty-five dollars an acre before the orange excitement, sold quickly for eight hundred and a thousand when planted with trees. The towns of Pomona, Redlands, Monrovia, and others in the orange localities were unknown before 1885, and grew to several thousand population in a few years. Everybody talked of the great profit in orange growing, and people who had nurseries of young trees grown from navel buds made fortunes.

At this day thousands of acres of seedless oranges are in full bearing and no one buys the old kinds. Hundreds of car-loads of the seedlings are not even picked, and ninety per cent of the eighteen thousand car-loads which make the season's orange crop are navel oranges. Over forty-five millions of dollars are now invested in the growing and marketing of this remarkable fruit.

At Riverside, the home of the orange, the two original Washington navel trees still stand. Mr. Tibbets guarded them for years, had them fenced with high latticework, and seldom allowed any one to touch them. He refused ten thousand dollars for them, since for months he sold hundreds of dollars' worth of buds from these parent trees. These two trees and their large family have caused thousands of people to come to the state, and have built up Southern California wonderfully.

THE LEMON

For many years people who use that sour but necessary fruit, the lemon, thought that only the little yellow ones which came from the far-away island of Sicily were good. The men who import foreign fruits always said so; and in spite of the fact that the larger California lemon was more acid, of as good flavor, smooth skinned, and golden, people believed the Mediterranean groves produced the best. But, at last, our warm, dry air, good soil, and plenty of water, together with care and skill while growing and packing, have made California lemons the most in demand. These lemons keep well, and bear shipping and long journeys better than the imported fruit.

Citrus fruits, as the orange and lemon are called, do well in all the southern counties, and San Diego County boasts of not only the largest lemon grove in California, but in the world. This is a thousand-acre tract overlooking San Diego Bay and cultivated by the Chula Vista colony. It was once a pasture given up to wandering bands of cattle and sheep. There was little water, and no one ever thought these dry mesa lands would one day be a beautiful garden spot, green with the shining lemon leaves, and golden with fruit.

A company was formed to develop this forty-two square miles of land, and to get water for irrigation, since all the trees must have little streams of water round their thirsty roots three or four times during the dry summer. A great dam was constructed on the Sweetwater River, near Chula Vista, and a reservoir built. Water was piped from this to the lemon groves, which are about a hundred feet below the reservoir, and from May to September the trees are irrigated. This is done by ploughing furrows on each side of a row of trees and turning small rills of water slowly down them till the ground is soaked around the tree roots. No one thought the great reservoir would ever be empty, but two winters with but little rain made it necessary to put down many wells in the dry bed of the Sweetwater River, and from these a strong steady flow of millions of gallons is pumped into the water pipes. So this great lemon orchard is always sure of water enough, returning the gift later in generous golden measure.

One may pick lemon blossoms, ripe and green fruit every month in the year from the same tree, but most of the crop ripens from November to June.

Lemons are carefully cut from the tree, and usually picked by size, a ring being slipped over them, without regard to their ripeness. They grow so thick on the tree that a man can pick more than twenty boxes a day. In preparing it for market the fruit "sweats," as it is called, in airy boxes, for a month in winter and ten days in summer, and ripens and colors during this process. Then each lemon is wiped dry and clean, wrapped separately in tissue-paper, and packed for shipment. The cost of a box of lemons from the tree to the railroad is about thirty-five cents.

Thousands of car-loads are shipped to the Eastern and Middle states, while the Pacific Coast is a never-failing market.

Small, imperfect, and bruised fruit goes to the citric acid factory near the packing-houses. From these oil of lemon, lemon sugar, and clear green citric-acid crystals are made, and the crushed waste is returned to the grove and ploughed in about the trees as a fertilizer.

FLOWERS AND PLANTS

"When California was wild," says John Muir, "it was one sweet bee-garden throughout its entire length, and from the snowy Sierra to the ocean."

There were so many yellow poppies in this great unfenced garden, that the Spanish sailing along the coast called it the "Land of Fire" from the golden flowers covering the hills. Near Pasadena, in Southern California, these poppy fields may still be seen glowing so brightly in the sun that you do not wonder at the name "Cape Las Flores," or Flower Cape, which the sailors also gave to this part of the country.

The poppy is our best-known wild flower, planted by Mother Nature before white men ever visited these shores. When the Spanish settled here they called the poppy copa de oro, or cup of gold. The gold hunters spoke of it as the California gold flower, and sent the pressed poppies home in their letters. But its correct name is the Eschscholtzia (esh-sholt'si-a), from the name of a German botanist and naturalist, who studied the plant and wrote about it almost a hundred years ago.

From February to May the poppies are most plentiful, but a few may be found almost every month in the year. Have you noticed the finely cut green leaves, and the pointed green nightcap that covers each bud till the morning sunshine coaxes off the cap and unfolds the four satiny golden petals? The flowers love the sun and close up on dark, cloudy days, or if brought into the house. But put them in a sunny window the next morning, and you may watch the cups of gold open to the light.

Some of the poppies are a deep orange-color, while others are a pale yellow. And as you walk through the fields you may pick a hundred at each step, so thick do the plants grow. The wild bees find a yellow dust called pollen or "bee-bread" in the poppy, the same golden powder that rubs off on your nose, when you put it too close to this cup of gold or to lilies.

Then in this "unfenced garden" were also the baby blue-eyes, whose pretty pale-blue blossoms come early in the spring, each one with a drop of honey at the foot of its honey path, as the black lines on its petals are called.

Can you name twenty kinds of wild flowers? Around San Francisco and the bay counties you will count, after the poppy and baby blue-eyes, the shining yellow buttercup, the blue and yellow lupines that grow in the sand, the tall thistle whose sharp, prickly leaves and thorny red blossoms spell "Let-me-alone," the blue flag-lilies and red paint-brush, yellow cream-cups, and wild mustard, and an orange pentstemon. These with many yellow compositæ or flowers like the dandelion, you will find growing on the windy hills and dry, sunny places. Hiding away in quiet corners are the blue-eyed grass, and a wild purple hyacinth, the scarlet columbine swinging its golden tassels, shy blue larkspur, a small yellow sunflower, and wild pink roses. Among the ferns in shady, wet nooks are white trilliums and a delicate pink bleeding-heart, while the wild blue violets and yellow pansies love the warm, rocky hillside.

Mariposas, or butterfly tulips of many colors, grow in the foot-hills and mountains. Perhaps our most beautiful wild flowers are the lilies, of which we have over a dozen kinds. In the redwood forests there is a tall, lovely pink lily, and many brown-spotted yellow tiger-lilies. Up in the mountain pines a snowy white Washington lily sometimes covers a mountain side with its tall stems bearing dozens of sweet waxen blossoms. In the wet, swampy places bright red, and many small orange lilies bloom in late summer.

In the high Sierras are found strange and pretty blossoms unlike the flowers of valleys and sea-coast. There you will see the mountain-heather with pink, purple, or dainty white bells, the goldenrod, and gentians blue as the sky. Strangest of all is the snow-plant. This curious thing sends up a thick, fleshy spike a foot or so in height and set closely with bright scarlet flowers. It grows where the snow has just melted round the fir trees, and leaf, stem, and blossom are all the same glowing red.

Most of the valley and coast wild-flowers bloom and ripen their seeds before the dry summer begins. Such plants die and wither away in the heat, but their seeds are safe on the warm ground till fall rains soak the earth and set them growing again. In the high mountains a thick blanket of snow covers the sleeping seeds till May or June, and then sunshine wakes them once more.

No doubt you have seen many of our shrubs or tall bush-plants in your vacations. Do you remember the sweet creamy white azaleas and the buckeyes that grow along the creeks in the redwoods? And the feathery blue blossoms of the wild lilac crowding in close thickets up the hillsides? One of our shrubs is a holiday visitor, the Christmas-berry, whose bright-red clusters trim your house at that gay, happy season. The manzanita is another pretty bush, with pink bells that ripen to small scarlet apples in the fall.

Usually, these and other shrubs cover the hillsides with a thick, matted tangle of stems and branches almost impossible to get through. This chaparral, as the Spanish called it, clothes the foot-hills and mountain sides with a close growth through which deer and bears alone can travel and make trails or runways. Great stretches of buckthorn in the north, and of sage-brush in the south, cover the wild lands, while in the sandy desert tall, prickly cactus, yucca, and mesquite grow with the sage-brush in the blazing sun.

Only a few of California's wild plants and flowers have been now called to your notice. But children have sharp eyes, and you will find many more to inquire about in your vacation days. Then the blackberries and thimble-berries will be ripe, and the pink salmon-berry in the redwoods. Perhaps you will look for and dig up the soaproot, that onion-like bulb of one of the lily family with which the Indians make a soapy lather to wash their clothes. Let us hope you will know and keep away from the "poison-oak," the low bush with pretty red leaves, for its leaves are apt to make your skin swell up and blister wherever they touch you.

What a long and pleasant story might be told you of our state's real gardens! Perhaps your teacher will give you an hour to talk about your home gardens, and to see how much you can tell about them. You may have flowers the year round, if you live on the coast, or in the warm valleys where no Jack Frost comes with his icy breath to kill the tender plants. In such genial climates roses and geraniums bloom all year, and only rest when the gardener cuts them back; and most of the shrubs and trees in parks and gardens are always fresh and green.

Florists who raise flowers to sell find that here they can grow the choicest and finest carnations, roses, and all the garden blossoms you know so well. Many of these florists deal only in flower-seeds, and bulbs or roots of the lilies to send to the Eastern states or abroad, where people greatly prize California flowers.

Plants and trees from all parts of the world thrive here, also. You have seen the palms, the tall sword-palm with its great spike of snowy bloom in the spring, the fan-palm whose dried and trimmed leaves are really used for fans, and, perhaps, the date-palm. This tree was planted round the Missions by the Padres, and some, more than a hundred years old, are still standing at the San Gabriel Mission. These, and the magnolia with its large creamy blossoms, as well as the graceful pepper-tree, are natives of warm, southern lands, while the eucalyptus, or gum-tree, was brought here from Australia.

Look round, children, as you walk to and from school, or in the park, and try to know and name the green things growing there, the flowers and plants sent to make our world a pleasant place to live in.

THE BIG TREES AND LUMBERING

The largest trees in the world are those forest giants of California which grow on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas, and nowhere else on the globe. People carelessly call these grand trees "redwoods" or "big trees," but their family name is Sequoia, an Indian chief's name. When the trees were first discovered, in 1853, accounts of their height and size were sent to England. Supposing this giant to be a new tree, it was there christened Wellingtonia, and also gigantea for its immense measurements. While Americans were trying to have it called Washingtonia, a famous Frenchman who knew all about trees decided that the specimen sent him was certainly a sequoia, as named by a German professor some six years before this time. So the tree was called sequoia gigantea and quietly went on growing, unmindful of the four nations who had quarrelled over its christening. Why, indeed, should it bother its lofty head with the chatter of people whose countries were unknown when this mighty tree was full grown? For these sequoias are the oldest of living objects and have probably been growing for four thousand years. How do we know this? Well, when a fallen trunk is sawed across, one can see rings in the wood, and it is thought that each ring is a year's growth. John Muir counted over four thousand of these annual rings on the stump of one of the Kings River trees.

These fine old trees grow in groves, and of the nine or ten groves the Calaveras and Mariposa are the best known. The Calaveras group of nearly a hundred mighty trees was the first one discovered, and four trees here are over three hundred feet high. The fallen "Father of the Forest" must have been much higher, for it measures a hundred feet round its trunk at the root end. A man can ride on horseback for two hundred feet through its hollow trunk as it lies on the ground. Many of the standing trees hollowed out by fires are large enough, used as cabins, to live in.

The Mariposa grove of Big Trees, being not far from Yosemite Valley, is the best known, as thousands of tourists visit both places. There is a big tree at Mariposa for every day in the year, and two very wonderful ones, the Grizzly Giant and Wawona. Stage-coaches drive into the grove through the tree Wawona, which was bored and burned out so as to make an opening ten by twelve feet. A wall of wood ten feet thick on each side of this opening supports the living tree. The great Grizzly Giant towers a hundred feet without a branch, and twice that height above the first immense branches that are six feet through. This was, no doubt, an old tree when Columbus discovered America, yet it is alive and green and still growing.

The largest tree in the world is the General Sherman, in Sequoia National Park, and it is thirty-five feet in diameter. This means that the stump of the tree, if smoothed off, would make a floor on which thirty people might dance, or your whole class be seated. You can scarcely imagine what a mighty column such a tree is, with its rich red-brown bark, fluted like a column, too, and with its crown of feathery green branches and foliage. The bark is a foot or two thick. The trees are evergreens, and conifers, or cone-bearers. Sequoia cones are two or three inches long and full of small seeds. The Douglas squirrel gets most of these seeds, but there are still seedlings and saplings or young trees enough to keep the race alive in most of the groves.

These groves of wonderful and rare trees are protected as National Parks in the Sequoia and Grant groves, and Mariposa belongs to the state. It is against the law to cut the trees in those groves. Their worst enemy is fire, and a troop of cavalry is sent every year to guard them, and to keep out the sheep-herders, whose flocks would destroy the underbrush and young trees. But, unfortunately, lumbermen have put up mills near the Fresno and Kings River groups, and, wasting more than they use, are destroying magnificent trees thousands of years old in order to make shingles. When nature has taken such good care of this rare and wonderful tree, the Sierra Giant, men should try to preserve the groves unharmed in all their beauty.

Another sequoia grows in great forests along the Coast Range from Santa Cruz to the northern state-line, and beyond into Oregon. This is the sequoia sempervirens, the Latin name meaning always green. Redwood is its common name, and the lumber for our frame or wooden houses is cut from this tree. Millions of feet of this redwood lumber are shipped from the northern counties of the state every year, up to Alaska or down to Central and South America. It is also sent far across the Pacific to the Hawaiian and Philippine islands and to China and Australia.

While the sequoia gigantea delights in a clear sky and hot sunshine, its brother, the sempervirens, prefers a cool sea-coast climate, offering frequent baths of fog. There is also a difference in the size of these trees; the redwood is often three hundred feet high, but is less in girth than its relative in the Sierras. There is not much underbrush and little sunshine in the cool, green redwood forests, each tree rising tall and stately for a hundred feet without branches, while the green tops seem almost to touch the sky as one looks up. Through the woods one hears the blue jay scream and chatter, and the tap, tap of the woodpecker as he drills holes in the bark to fill with acorns for his winter store.

When the lumberman looks at these beautiful forests, he sees only many logs containing many thousand feet of lumber, which he must get out the easiest and cheapest way. He only chooses the finest and largest trunks, and there is great waste in cutting these. The men begin to saw the tree some eight or ten feet from the ground, and soon it trembles and falls with a mighty crash, often snapping off other trees in its way to the ground. After all the selected trees have fallen, fires are started to burn off the branches and underbrush so that the men can work easier. This fire only chars the outside bark of the big, green logs, but it kills all the young saplings, and leaves the once beautiful forest a waste of blackened logs and gray ashes. When the fire burns itself out, the logs are usually sawed with a cross-cut saw into sixteen-foot lengths, since in that form they are easy to handle. Then oxen or horses haul them out; or sometimes a wire cable is fastened to them by iron "dogs," or stakes, and a little stationary engine pulls them away to the siding at the railroad track. Here they are rolled on flat-cars, fastened with a big iron chain around the four or six logs on the car, and taken on the logging train to the mill-pond. They lie soaking in the water until drawn up to the keen saws of the sawmill that cut and slice the wood like cheese. The bark and outside is carved off as you would cut the crust off bread, and then sharp, circular saws cut boards and planks till the log is used up, and the log-carriage lifts another to its place. As the shining steel bites into the wood the noise almost deafens you and the mill shakes with the thunder of log-carriage and feeders. Useless ends, slabs, and refuse are burnt in the sawdust pit, where the fires never go out. Very much of the tree is wasted and all the limbs. The redwood tree has so much life and strength, however, that it sends up bright green sprouts around the burnt stump, and standing trees charred outside to the tops will have new branches the next season. In the older forests tall young trees are often seen growing in a ring round an empty spot, the long-dead stump having rotted away.

Near Santa Cruz is a grove of large and beautiful redwoods, many of the trees being over three hundred feet high and from forty to sixty-five feet around the base of the trunk. The Giant is the largest, and three other immense ones are named for Generals Grant, Sherman, and Fremont. In 1846 General Fremont found this grove, and camped, on a rainy winter night, in the hollow trunk of the tree bearing his name. Here is also seen a group of eleven very tall trees growing in a circle around an old stump.

In the Sierras, both in the sequoia groves and forests above the Big-Tree region, are very large sugar-pines, red firs, and yellow-pine trees, all of which make excellent lumber. Great forests of these trees, with cedars almost as large as the redwoods, are in the northern counties also. You may have seen sugar-pine cones which are over a foot long, the largest of all found, while redwood cones are the smallest. Another great tree is the Douglas spruce, the king of spruce trees, growing in both Sierra Nevada and Coast ranges.

The California laurel, or bay tree, with its beautiful, shining green leaves, and the madroño, the slender, red-barked tree on the hillsides you must have noticed in your trips to the country, as well as our fine valley and mountain oaks. Try to learn the kinds of trees and study their leaves, blossoms, and fruit, and you will find every one a friend well worth knowing. Then you will wish to save them from fire and the lumberman's axe, especially the rare and old sequoias.

OUR BIRDS

More than three hundred kinds of these dear feathered friends and visitors live in California. Along the sea-shore, in the great valleys and the mountain-forests and meadows, even in the dry, hot desert, the birds, our shy and merry neighbors, are at home. In many parts of the state they find sunshine and green trees the year round, and food always at hand. Yet sparrows, robins, and woodpeckers will stay in the snowed-in groves of the Sierras all winter, contentedly chirping or singing in spite of the bitter cold.

If you know these wanderers of wood and field, these birds of sea and shore, and their interesting habits, you will wish to protect them from stone or gun, and their nests from the egg collector. You will listen to the lark and linnet, and be glad that the happy songster trilling such sweet notes is free to fly where he wishes, and is not pining in a cage. And you, little girl, will not encourage the destruction of these pretty creatures by wearing a sea-gull or part of some dead bird on your hat.

To become better acquainted with birds, let us call them before us by classes, beginning with our sea-birds and those round the bays and on the coast. Some of these not only swim but dive in the salt waters, and to this class of divers belong the grebe, loon, murre, and puffin. They dive at the flash of a gun, and after what seems a long time, come up far away from the spot the hunter aimed at. These birds usually nest on bare, rocky cliffs near the ocean, or on islands like the Farallones, and their large green eggs hatch out nestlings that are ugly and awkward and helpless on land. But they ride the great ocean-breakers, or dive into their clear depths easily and gracefully; and as they live upon fish or small sea-creatures, the divers only seek land to roost at night and to raise their young.

Next come the gulls, who belong to a class known as "long-winged swimmers." They have strong wings and fly great distances, and with their webbed feet swim well, too. Most of the sea-gulls are white with a gray coat on their backs, but they look snowy-white as they fly. You may see them walking about the wharves, or perching on roofs and piles watching for food, and seeming very tame as they pick up bits of bread or the refuse floating in the water. They follow steamers for miles, scarcely moving their wings as they float in the air; and if you throw a cracker from the deck, some gull will make a swift swoop and snatch it before the cracker reaches the water.

Far out on the Pacific the albatross sails proudly on his broad wings, and cares nothing for high winds or storms. He rests and sleeps on the billows at night with his little companions, the stormy petrels. He is the largest and strongest of our birds of flight, the very king of the sea. The stormy petrels are not much larger than a swallow. Sailors call them. "Mother Carey's chickens," and are sure a storm is coming up when petrels follow the ship. The albatross, petrel, and a gull-like bird called a shearwater belong to the "tube-nosed swimmers," on account of their curious long beaks.

Along the coast, and wading in the shallow waters around the bays, are some strange birds known as pelicans and shags. They are good fishers, and drive the darting, finny fellows before them as they wade in the water till they can see and gobble them up. Most waders have under their beaks a skin-pocket deep enough to hold a fish while carrying it to their nestlings, or making ready to swallow it. All of these sea-birds raise their young as far from the shore and from hunters as possible. Great flocks of them roost on islands fifteen or twenty miles out in the ocean, and fly into the bays every morning.

Wild ducks, geese, the herons, mud-hens, sandpipers, and curlews are marsh and shore birds that feed and wade in the shallow salt water, and nest on the banks or, like the heron, in trees near the bay. The heron is a frog-catcher, and he will stand very still on his long legs and patiently wait till the frog, thinking him gone, swims near. Then one dart of the long bill captures froggy, and the heron waits for another. You know the red-head, green mallard, canvas-back, and small teal ducks, no doubt, and have seen the flocks of wild geese flying and calling in the sky, or standing like patches of snow as they feed in the marshes or grain-fields.

Down on the mud-flats at low tide you see birds called rails, and also "kill-dee" plovers. The shoveller ducks are there, too fishing up with broad, flat beaks little crabs and such creatures as are in the mud, straining out mud and water, but swallowing the rest. All these birds are "waders" and delight in mud and cold salt water. They are usually quiet, or make only strange, shrill cries.

In the sunny fields and woods we shall find many of the land-birds, and first comes a family whose habits are so like those of chickens that they are called "scratchers." These birds depend for food upon seeds and bugs or worms they scratch out of the ground. Up in the Sierra sugar-pines and fir-woods lives the largest of these "scratchers," the brown grouse. He is a shy creature, rising out of his feeding-ground with a great whirring of wings and out of sight before the hunter can fire at him. His peculiar cry, or "drumming," as it is called, sounds through the woods like tapping hard on a hollow log. His equally shy neighbor is the mountain-quail, while through the farming lands and all along the hillsides the valley—quail are plenty. Perhaps you have seen a happy family of these speckled brown birds. Papa quail has a black crest on his head, and he calls "Look right here" from the wrong side of the road to fool you, while Mamma and her little, cunning chicks scatter like flying brown leaves in the brush. After the danger is past, you hear her low call to bring them round her again. In the desert and sage-brush part of the state the sage-hen, another "scratcher," runs swiftly through the thickets, but many are caught and brought in by the Indians.

Our birds of prey are eagles, vultures, hawks, owls, and the turkey-buzzards, those big black scavengers that hang in the air. In circles high above woods and fields some of these birds of prey sweep on broad wings, searching with keen sight for their food in some dead animal far below. The California condor, a great black vulture-like bird, is almost extinct, and is only found in the highest mountains. It is very large of wing, and strong enough, it is said, to carry off a sheep. Both golden and bald eagles nest in tall trees in the wildest parts of the state. The chicken-hawk, whose swift sailing over the poultry-yard calls out loud squawking from the frightened hens, you have often seen, and the wise-looking brown owls, too. A small burrowing owl lives in the squirrel holes, and you may catch him easily in the daytime, when he cannot see.

The road-runner is of the cuckoo family of birds. It seldom flies, but runs swiftly along the roads, or in the desert, and is said to kill rattlesnakes by placing a ring of thorny cactus leaves around the snake as it lies asleep. The rattler is then pecked to death, since it cannot get out of its prickly cage. This fowl is like a slender brown hen in size.

In the redwoods you hear the tap, tap, of the "carpenter" woodpecker, with his black coat and gay red cap. He drills holes in the bark of a tree with his strong beak and then fits an acorn neatly into each safe little storehouse. It is thought that worms and grubs fatten while living in these acorns, so that the woodpecker always has a meal ready in the winter when the ground is wet, or the squirrels have carried off the acorns under the trees.

Humming-birds, or "hummers," as the boys call them, are plenty in city and country and so fearless that they will take a bath in the spray of the garden-hose, or dart their long bills in the fuchsias almost within your reach. The bill shields a double tongue, which gets not only honey, but small insects from the flower or off the leaves. The humming-bird's tiny nest is a soft, round basket, not much bigger than half a walnut-shell, and holding two eggs, which are like small-white beans. Bits of moss and gray cobwebs are woven in this nest till it looks like the branch itself; and here the little mother in her plain brown dress hatches out and feeds the baby "hummers." Her husband has glistening ruby feathers at his throat and green spots on his head and back that glow in the sun like jewels.

The highest class of birds is the "perchers," and many friends of yours belong to this. There are two families, however, of perchers, those that call and the song-birds. Calling over and over their peculiar note, the pewees, flycatchers, and king-birds, fly through the forests. The crow and blue jay belong to the singers, you will be surprised to hear. And what a crowd of these song-birds there are trilling and warbling in the sunshine! Have you ever watched the meadow-lark singing as he sits on guard on the fence, while the rest of his brown-coated yellow-vested flock run along the field picking up seeds and insects?

Then there are the linnets, or "redheads," who sing their sweet, merry tunes all summer, and if they do take a cherry or two the farmer should not grumble. They destroy many bugs and caterpillars and eat weed-seeds that might trouble the fruit-grower more than the missing cherries. The yellow warbler, sometimes called the wild canary, flits through bush and tree and trills its gay notes in town and country. Song-sparrows, thrushes, and bluebirds warble far and near, while the red-winged blackbird makes music in wet, swampy places. The robin, who comes to city gardens in the winter, has a summer home in the mountains or redwoods. There, too, the saucy jay screams and chatters, and flashes his blue wings as he flies, scolding all the time.

In Southern California, among the orange groves or in gardens, the mocking-bird trills in sweet, liquid notes his wonderful song. He mimics, too, many sounds he hears, and sometimes when caged will whistle tunes or say words. The mocker can crow or cackle like the chickens, or mew like the cat. Then he will whistle clear and loud till dogs or boys answer his call. When they find themselves fooled, it is said, he mimics a laugh.

From April to July the birds are busy, nesting, feeding their families, or teaching them to fly. Many eggs never hatch, and some are destroyed by wild animals. Boys often rob a whole nest to have one little blown egg in their collections. Then again the mother is killed and her brood starves to death. When the parent birds are teaching the nestlings to fly, cats also catch the little ones. So you see the poor feathered things have many enemies.

Let us try to protect the birds, and to let them live happy lives in freedom. Each one will thank you, either with sweet songs or with being a beautiful thing to see on land or ocean.

OUR WILD ANIMALS

Once upon a time, when the Spanish owned this state and called it their province of Alta California, there were great herds of antelope feeding on the grassy plains, and at every little stream elk and deer and big grizzly bears came down to drink. No fences had been built, and the wild animals had never heard a rifle-shot. Free and fearless they ranged valley and hillside, or made their dens in the thick brush, or "chaparral," as the Spanish called it.

Indian hunters watched the paths over which these wild creatures travelled to water, and killed deer and antelope with their arrows. But these hunters were afraid of grizzly bears, for an arrow in Mr. Bear's thick hide only made him cross, and with one hug, or even a light blow from his paw, he could cripple the poor Indian. So in those early days the old bears came year after year, and carried off sheep and cattle. The simple folks did not even try to kill them. Indeed, many of the red men believed that very bad Indians were punished by being turned into grizzly bears when they died, and they would not hurt their brothers, they said.

When Father Serra's Mission people were starving at Monterey, the Padre learned that at a place called Bear Valley near by, there were many grizzlies which the Indians would not kill. He sent Spanish soldiers there, and they shot so many bears that the hungry Mission family had meat enough to last till a ship came from Mexico with supplies.

Of all flesh-eating animals this grizzly bear is the largest and strongest. He can knock down a bull with his great paws, or kill and carry off a horse. He can live on wild berries and acorns with grass and roots he digs out of the ground, yet fresh meat suits him best, and he prefers a calf, which he holds as a cat does a mouse.

Nothing but stock was raised in California in those days so long ago, and cattle were counted by the thousands and sheep by tens of thousands. Then the grizzly and cinnamon, or brown, bear feasted all the time on stray calves and yearlings. Every spring and fall the cattle, which had roamed almost wild in the pastures, were "rounded up" by the cowboys, or vaqueros. After the work of picking out each ranchero's stock and branding the young cattle was over, the vaqueros thought it fine fun to lasso a bear,—some old fellow, perhaps, who had been helping himself to the calves. It is told that one big cinnamon bear, while quietly feeding on acorns, looked up to find three or four cow-boys on their ponies in a circle around him. They spurred the trembling ponies as close to him as they dared, and yelled at the tops of their voices. The great brute sat up on his haunches and faced them, growling and snarling. One vaquero sent his rope flying through the air, and the loop settled over a big, hairy fore paw. Then the bear dropped on all fours and made a jump at the pony, which got out of his reach. Another Mexican threw a lasso and caught the bear's hind foot; and as he sat up again a third noose dropped over the other fore paw. Then the poor trapped creature, growling, snarling, and rolling over and over, began a tug of war with the lariats and the ponies. Once a rope broke, and horse and rider tumbled in front of the bear. He made a quick, savage jump, but was pulled back by the other ropes. Then Mr. Bear sat up straight and tugged so hard that another lariat broke and sent the saddle and rider over the pony's head. With one sweep of his paw the bear smashed the saddle, but the cow-boy saved himself by running to an oak tree. At last Mr. Bear was getting the best of the fight so plainly, and had pulled the frightened ponies so near him, that the man who was thrown off ended the poor animal's struggles with a rifle-ball.

A Chinese sheep-herder tells this funny story about a bear: "Me lun out, see what matta; me see sheep all bely much scared, bely much lun, bely much jump. Big black bear jump over fence, come light for me. Me so flighten me know nothin', then me scleam e-e-e-e so loud, and lun at bear till bear get scared too and lun away."

A few grizzlies are still found in the Sierras, and black and brown bears are often seen with their playful little cubs. The small fellows are easily tamed and may be taught many tricks. They will live contentedly in a bear-pit, or even if chained up, and as most of you know, they like peanuts and pop-corn well enough to beg for them.

The panther, or mountain-lion, is another large flesh-eating animal which makes his home in the thick woods conveniently neighboring the farmers' corrals and pastures. Not long ago a boy in Marin County, who was sent to look after some ponies, saw a big yellow dog, as he thought, "worrying" one of the colts. When he came nearer he found it was a wicked-looking, catlike creature, and knew it must be a California lion. He had nothing with him but a heavy whip. The panther left the wounded colt and crouched ready to spring at the boy, but he was on the alert and struck it a terrible blow across the eyes with his whip, and then another and another. Half-blinded and whining with pain, the panther turned tail and ran away, while the boy's pony, trembling and snorting with fright, galloped home with his brave rider.

In one of the mountain counties a woman, hearing her chickens squawking one day at noon, ran out to find what seemed a big dog among them with a hen in his mouth. She rushed straight at him with a broom, when the animal turned. She found it was a great panther, who snarled and made ready to spring at her. As she screamed and started to run away, her foot slipped on a steep and muddy place, and she slid down the little hill right into the panther's face. He was so frightened that he jumped the fence and hurried to the woods.

This great yellow cat is both savage and cowardly, and he has been known to follow a man walking through the woods, all day, yet he sneaked out of sight at every loud call the man gave. He chases deer and gets many small and helpless fawns, hunters say.

Fur-hunting was once a profitable business for the Indians, who were clothed in bear and panther skins when the first white men came to California, and had many furs to trade or sell. The Indians trapped otters, beavers, and minks, and the squaws tanned the deer-hides to make buckskin shirts or leggings. Hunters and trappers still bring in these wild animals' furry coats after trips to the high mountains or untravelled woods, where the shy creatures try to live and be safe from their enemies.

In early days herds of a very large deer, called elk, fed on the wild oats and grass. These elk had wide, branching horns measuring three or four feet from tip to tip. Only a few of them now survive in the redwood forests in the northern counties. There were plenty of them once where San Francisco now stands. Dana in his book called "Two Years Before the Mast," tells us that when his ship dropped anchor off the little village of Yerba Buena about sixty-seven years ago, he saw hundreds of red deer and elk with their branching antlers. They were running about on the hills, or standing still to look at the ship until the noise frightened them off. At that time the whole country was covered with thick trees and bushes where the wolf and coyote prowled, and the grizzly bear's track was seen everywhere.

There are plenty of deer in the redwoods now, and in the high Sierras are black-tailed and large mule-deer. In the woods round Mount Tamalpais timid red deer live, too. In winter, when it is cold and snowy in the northern counties of our state, these deer often come into the farmer's barnyard to nibble at the hay.

There are still left in the mountains among the pines and snowy cliffs many mountain-sheep. These curious big-horned animals resemble both the elk and the sheep, and it is said they can jump from a high rock and land far below on their feet or heavy, twisted horns without being hurt in the least.

Of all the great herds of graceful, fast-running antelope, once the most plentiful of our wild animals, only a very few can now be found on the eastern slopes of the Sierras.

But Master Coyote, who might well be spared, so cruel and cowardly is he, still sneaks up and down the whole state, and his quick sharp bark gives notice that the rascal is ready to steal a chicken or a lamb if it is not protected. With his bushy tail and large head he is half fox and half wolf in appearance, and mean enough in habits to be both. He can outrun a dog and even a deer, and though he catches jack-rabbits and the Molly Cottontail usually for food, he would help his brother, the wolf, to kill a poor harmless sheep.

This gray wolf is a savage creature and hides in the thick forests by day, slinking out at night to the nearest sheep corral or turkey-pen if he can find one unwatched by some faithful dog. His friend and neighbor, the fox, likes fat geese and chickens as well as birds, squirrels, and wood-rats. The queer raccoon lives in the redwoods and is often caught and kept in a cage or chained for a pet.

Wildcats, both gray and yellow, are found in the thickly timbered parts of California, and the badger makes his home in the mountain cañons or pine woods. There, too, the curious porcupine dwells. He is covered with grayish white quills, which bristle out when he is angry or frightened. No old dog will touch this animal, for he knows better than to get a mouthful of sharp toothpicks by biting Mr. Porcupine, who is like a round pincushion with the pins pointing out. A dog who has never seen this prickly ball will dab at it, and have a sore paw to nurse for weeks after.

Two or three kinds of tree-squirrels live in the pines and redwoods, the Douglas squirrel being well known in the mountains. The ground squirrel, or chipmunk, digs holes in the ground, where he hides his winter's store of grain and nuts.

Three of our smaller wild animals are very common and very troublesome to the farmer. The skunk, which looks like a pretty black and white kitten with a bushy tail, and also the weasel, destroy all the chickens and eggs they can reach, and they are so cunning that it is hard to keep them out of the hen-house. That little pest, the gopher, we are all well acquainted with, since he gnaws the pinks and roses off at their roots in your city garden while his large family of brothers and sisters kill the farmer's fruit-trees and vines. The gopher digs long tunnels under ground, making storerooms here and there in these passages, which he fills with grass, roots, and seeds. In each cheek he has a pouch, or pocket, large enough to hold nearly a handful of grain, so the little rascal carries his stores very easily. The traps and poison by which the farmer is always trying to make way with him, he is sly enough to let alone. His greatest foe is the cat, which watches patiently at the hole where the destructive little fellow is digging and usually catches him. A mother cat will sometimes bring in two or three gophers a day to her kittens.