The mountains of California . ss, though their suffering was less pain-fully apparent than that of the poor cattle. Thesewere falling one by one in slow, sure starvationalong the banks of the hot, sluggish streams, whilethousands of buzzards correspondingly fat weresailing above them, or standing gorged on theground beneath the trees, waiting with easy faithfor fresh carcasses. The quails, prudently consid-ering the hard times, abandoned all thought ofpairing. They were too poor to marry, and socontinued in flocks all through the year withoutattempting to rear young. The ground-squirrels,thoug
The mountains of California . ss, though their suffering was less pain-fully apparent than that of the poor cattle. Thesewere falling one by one in slow, sure starvationalong the banks of the hot, sluggish streams, whilethousands of buzzards correspondingly fat weresailing above them, or standing gorged on theground beneath the trees, waiting with easy faithfor fresh carcasses. The quails, prudently consid-ering the hard times, abandoned all thought ofpairing. They were too poor to marry, and socontinued in flocks all through the year withoutattempting to rear young. The ground-squirrels,though an exceptionally industrious and enterpris-ing race, as every farmer knows, were hard pushedfor a living; not a fresh leaf or seed was to befound save in the* trees, whose bossy masses ofdark green foliage presented a striking contrastto the ashen baldness of the ground beneath squirrels, leaving their accustomed feeding-grounds, betook themselves to the leafy oaks tognaw out the acorn stores of the provident wood-. 372 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA peckers, but the latter kept up a vigilant watchupon their movemeuts. I noticed four woodpeckersin league against one squirrel, driving the poorfellow out of an oak that they claimed. He dodgedround the knotty trunk from side to side, asnimbly as he could in his famished condition, onlyto find a sharp bill everywhere. But the fate ofthe bees that year seemed the saddest of different portions of Los Angeles and San Diegocounties, from one half to three fourths of themdied of sheer starvation. Not less than 18,000colonies perished in these two counties alone, whilein the adjacent counties the death-rate was hardlyless. Even the colonies nearest to the mountains suf-fered this year, for the smaller vegetation on thefoot-hills was affected by the drought almost asseverely as that of the valleys and plains, and eventiie hardy, deep-rooted chaparral, the surest de-pendence of the bees, bloomed sparingly, whilemuch of it wa
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectcaliforniadescriptio
