Succinea stretchiana (Bland) 



Fig.; Binney, Manual, 1885, p. 158, fig. 142. 



Canadian, possibly extending into Transition. 



Idaho, Nevada, south through the Sierra Nevadas to the 

 San Bernardino Mountains, California. 



Bluff Lake Cienaga, San Bernardino Mountains (S. S. 

 Berry, Miss N. G. Spaulding) fide Berry; Gainer's Cienaga, 

 San Bernardino Mountains (H. Hannibal) ; swamp between 

 Bear and Baldwin Lakes, San Bernardino Mountains (H. Han- 

 nibal). 



The Earliest Notes on the Natural History of California. 



S. B. Parish. 



The accounts which the early explorers of America have 

 left us contain occasional observations on the animals and the 

 plants which they- saw in this strange new world. It piques 

 the curiosity, and often baffles it, to determine what it was 

 which they saw, and attempted to describe. The earliest 

 notes of this kind, relating to California, which I have found, 

 are contained in "The World Encompassed by Sir Frances 

 Drake," published in London in 1628, and founded on the 

 diaries of the Rev. Francis Fletcher, the chaplain of Drake's 

 ship. 



It was in September, 1578, that this valiant corsair, emerg- 

 ing from the Straits of Magellan, entered the Pacific Ocean, 

 then the mare clausum of bis Most Catholic Majesty, 

 Philip of Spain. Some months were pleasantly spent in sys- 

 tematically and successfully plundering the Spanish ports and 

 galleons, and being thus "reasonably provided" with a rich 

 cargo, Sir Frances determined to return home by way of the 

 "Straits of Annian," that famous northwest passage which 

 was believed to afford an open channel to the Atlantic. 



So. on the 16th of April, 1579, he sailed north from Oajaca, 

 and early in June sighted the coast of California at a latitude 

 concerning which there has been some difference of opinion 

 among commentators. Probably it was near Cape Mendocino, 

 and he followed the coast to Cape Blanco. There must have 

 been great' changes since then in the climate, if we may be- 

 lieve what the worthy chaplain tells us. 



He gives a grievious account of the "extream and nipping 

 coald" so great that "our meat so soon as it was remooued 

 from the fire, would presently in a manner be frozen vp." 

 There were moreover, "most wile, thicke, and stinking fogges 

 euery hill being couered with snow." 



It was evident that the northwest passage must be aban- 

 doned, so Drake dropped down the coast to a harbour, exactly 



64 



