16 
LIST OF MY ENTOMOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS ETC. 
during which I undertook excursions to San Diego and San Bernardino. 
Here, I had the good chance to make the acquaintance of the enthusiastic 
botanist J. G. Lemmon. We started together for a very primitive watering- 
place called Crafton’s Retreat, near Milk Creek, from which we had a mag¬ 
nificent view of Mount Sant Bernardino, with its snow-flag (it was in March). 
For my return journey to San Francisco, I went by land. Leaving Los An¬ 
geles at night, on top of a stage-coach, I had a most fatiguing drive of 24 
hours up and down hill across the Coast-Range, then through the Mojave 
Desert (at times with herds of antelopes in sight), over the Tachichipi Pass, 
finally arriving at a place called, if I remember right, Caliente , the termi¬ 
nus of the railway then in construction. I took a sleeping-compartment, and 
arrived at San Francisco next morning. I was much struck by the glory 
of the meadows through which we passed! Their original green was entirely 
hidden under a mass of flowers, distributed in large patches of different 
shades of blue, pink, red, yellow and white. I spent April and May prin¬ 
cipally in San Fraucisco and its environs; in June I started for the Yose- 
mite Valley. At that time this excursion was made in a very uncomfortable, 
usually crowded, stage-coach, starting from the railway station Merced. 
I and my companion (the then Russian Consul General at San Francisco) 
hired a private carriage and we travelled at leisure, stopping twice to spend 
the nights at Mariposa and Clark’s Ranch. From the latter place, we made 
on horseback the excursion up the mountain to the celebrated Mariposa 
grove of the gigantic Sequoia- trees, or Redwoods, as they are called. We 
saw the celebrated “Big-tree” of about 300 feet in height and 30 feet in dia¬ 
meter. I remained about two weeks in Yosemite Valley, making excursions 
on foot or on horseback, in different directions, among them to the top of 
the mountain called “Cloud’s Rest“, said to be 10,000 feet high. The sum¬ 
mit was snow-clad, although it was mid-summer. I returned to San Frau¬ 
cisco by another route (Chinese Camp, Stockton etc.), by stage and rail. The 
heat was intense (I remember, at one of the stations, reading 98° Fahren¬ 
heit, at 6 A. M.), but as dry heat is not oppressive, and as I kept quiet 
and did not drink (except a sip of water at rare intervals), I felt quite com¬ 
fortable, while my fellow travellers, big Californians, drinking all the time, 
looked very red and seemed to suffer agony. 
The rest of June and a part of July, I spent North of San Francisco, 
principally in Sonoma Co. and on top of the Sierra Nevada, near Lake Tahoe, 
Webber Lake etc. (8000 feet above sea-level), where I collected a fine booty 
of Diptera. At the latter place, I remember witnessing a singular natural 
contrast. In a shady place in the woods I observed a large heap of snow, 
a relic of the masses which fall in that mountain range in winter, and from 
which the name of these mountains, Sierra Nevada, is derived. At the same 
time I could hear a humming-bird (the Californian sp.) humming over my head! 
I cannot dismiss the subject of my journey to California, without 
paying my tribute of deep gratitude for the generous hospitality I enjoyed 
during lhat excursion. In many households I spent several days, and was 
thus enabled to explore the environs to my heart’s content. Sherman 
