132 Flo7'a of Guadahipe Island. [zoe 



there deposited. The few scattered pines still living on the ridge 

 afford a fine example of the power of trees in condensing and 

 storing water. When a strong wind blows the fog up from the 

 ocean, while the surrounding ground looks hardly wet, under 

 the pines it will be pouring hard with streamlets of water 

 running from the base of their trunks. For this peculiar oflSce 

 the acicular leaves of the pines are eminently adapted, and one 

 can easily understand that when all the northwestern part of the 

 island was clothed with a dense pine forest, springs must have 

 been much more abundant, and the vegetation on the eastern 

 side must have largely benefited by them. The springs are not 

 far from each other and nearly in the centre of them are the 

 cabins built a few years ago by the International Company of 

 Lower California, which has since abandoned the lease of the 

 island as unprofitable. 



The increase in the number of wild goats has gone on these 

 last years unchecked by the few thousand which may have been 

 killed by the poachers who visit the island from time to time. 

 The result is vividly shown by the fact that in all my ramblings 

 over the island I was unable to find but one single shrub, 

 CeanotJms crassifolius, alive in any of the places inaccessible to 

 goats. Endowed as these are with proverbial climbing ability, the 

 more so when pressed by hunger, the few plants that have escaped 

 destruction are those growing on the perpendicular basaltic cliffs, 

 accessible only to winged creatures, and old trees with bark too 

 hard and .woody to offer any food. Most of the shrubs and 

 perennials seem not to be much adapted to assume a " rupicole " 

 habitus, seedlings being exceedingly scarce, so that in a few 

 years' time many of the species, represented now by a very 

 limited number of individuals, will be entirely lost. The same 

 fate, in a longer period, is likely to be shared by the trees of which 

 at present only the cypresses and palms are growing in large 

 numbers, no reproduction being possible, as all seeds falling to 

 the ground are devoured by goats or by mice. It is won- 

 derful to see how kids a few months old, far from starving, 

 are able to break and chew the kernels of the palm, hard as 

 marble as they are. Anyone who has traveled along the 

 Mediterranean basin, especially in some parts of Turkey and 



