24 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1893. 



lakes. Alluvial tide meadows, of which the Nisqually rank as 

 the most extensive, occasionally break the monotony of the shore. 

 These are grass grown, and, along the river banks, bear Cottonwood, 

 aspen, vine-maple, willow and giant cedar, in some places joined by 

 bush and vine in an inextricable tangle. The tides fall from nine 

 to twelve feet below high water, exposing at Nisqually thousands of 

 acres of mud-flats which afford subsistence to myriads of water fowl. 

 During the winter of 1891-2 it did not snow, nor did the ground 

 freeze, at Tacoma. Twenty-three of the thirty April days spent in 

 this region were rainy ; only two were cloudless ; but the total pre- 

 cipitation for the month was less than four and a half inches. 

 There are no mountains in the near vicinity, the central Cascades 

 being forty miles distant. 



3. Victoria, B. C, j ^ g 



4. Goldstream, B. C, ) •* ' 



Goldstream is a ranch about twenty miles north of Victoria, 

 Vancouver Island. The features of the southern part of the island 

 are those of a rocky, open, hill-country, sometimes densely wooded 

 but often relieved by open stretches of a park-like character dotted 

 with lakes. An exceptional feature is the presence of oaks, Quer- 

 ent garryana, which appear here and nowhere else in British Colum- 

 bia, nor in Washington. The mountains rarely attain an elevation 

 of 2,000 feet ; precipitation less and summer temperature greater 

 than on Puget Sound. 



5. Lulu Island, B. C, May 26- June 1. 



A delta of the Frazer River, two and a half feet below neap 

 tides, dyked throughout and covered with grass, bushes and isolated 

 higher tracts of woodland. Much of the land is fertile and well 

 cultivated. 



6. Ashcroft, B. C, June 2-12. 



Ashcroft is on the northernmost frontier of the Great Basin or 

 arid upper Sonoran region, or, as Dr. Merriam rightly terms it, in 

 the area of "Transition " from that life-region to the Boreal Zone. 

 British Columbia rainfall is here at its minimum, and summer tem- 

 perature at its maximum. Fauna and flora coincide remarkably 

 with those of Arizona found above an elevation of 4,000 feet, the 

 mountains about Ashcroft rarely reaching that altitude. Ashcroft 

 is on the west bank of the Thompson River, in a narrow valley, 

 1,500 feet above the sea, hemmed in by mountains thinly clad with 



