BREWSTER : BIRDS OF THE CAPE REGION, LOWER CALIFORNIA. 9 



Sierra de la Laguna. — The last few days of April, the whole of May, 

 and the first week of June were spent on the Sierra de la Laguna. 

 This is said to be the highest mountain on the Peninsula south of La Paz, 

 although Mr. Frazar, who notes its altitude as about six thousand feet, 

 thinks that several of the mountains which lie between it and Cape 

 St. Lucas are but little inferior in elevation. He tells me tliat it is 

 also called Eosario de la Laguna and Mount San Simon, but, if I under- 

 stand him correctly, the latter name is more properly restricted to the 

 highest of several peaks all of which, together with the broad-topped 

 mountain mass on which they rest, and above which they rise only some 

 two hundred or three hundred feet, are known collectively as the Sierra 

 de la Laguna. 



This and the neighboring mountains are invariably referred to in 

 Mr. Belding's papers as the " Victoria Mountains," and the general 

 range of which they form a part is marked " S. de la Victoria " on the 

 map of Mexico compiled and drawn by Mr. Hendges and published 

 (in 1900) under the auspices of the Bureau of the American Republics. 

 Mr. Fnizar assures me, however, that, so far as he was able to learn, the 

 people of the Cape Region have no distinctive name for the range just 

 mentioned, while he heard the term Victoria Mountains applied only 

 to the group of mountains opposite Carmen Island which he visited 

 during his trip up the Gulf of California. 



The road by which Mr. Frazar approached the Sierra de la Laguna 

 from Triunfo crosses a succession of canons with their intersecting 

 ridges, and hence is almost continually climbing or descending steep 

 inclines. After passing Las Animas, a deserted ranch wliere the real 

 ascent of the mountain begins, the trail becomes exceedingly difficult, 

 and in places is almost impassable for pack animals. From the summit 

 " the eastern, northern, and western sides of the mountain appear very 

 abrupt," but towards the south the slope is more gradual. The distant 

 view in this direction is interrupted by several mountains of considerable 

 altitude. In the immediate foreground, at the base of the highest peak and 

 scarce three hundred feet below it, lies a hollow completely surrounded by 

 mountain-tops or ridges, whose inner sides, together with the depression 

 towards which they trend, cover a total area of about four square miles. 

 This is everywhere densely wooded with large oaks and pines,^ the latter 

 predominating on the lower ground and the former on the hillsides. 



^ These trees have been identified at the Gray Herbarium, so far as could be 

 determined from leaves alone, as Pinus ayacahuite Elirenb., and Quercus emoryi 

 Torr. 



