46 NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA. [no. 16. 



only rarely dotted by living plants. lu moist spots, partienlarly along 

 the borders of the tiuy sparkling streams, the red heather {PliyJlodoce 

 emj)etr{formlfi) forms little beds and the delicate leathery Lutkea pecti- 

 naia spreads a faint veil of green over the dark soil. In the drier 

 parts of the forest hardly a plant is seen save now and then a solitary 

 clnmi) of prince's pine {ChimapMIa mrnziesi) or painted wintergreen 

 ( Pi/roJd picf(i). 



Late in Se])tember the hendocks molt and the wind brings down show- 

 ers of needles that falling on the tent at night sound like rain. Their 

 color has now changed from green to golden brown and they s[)riidile 

 the black lloor of the forest so thickly as to change its appearance. 



FOREST FIRES. 



During the past ten years the country about Shasta, particxUarly on 

 the west and south, has been repeatedly devastated by forest tires. 

 Here, as elsewhei-e, lumbermen and fires have destroyed the greater 

 part of the timber on the lower slopes and adjacent i)lain, Avhich are 

 now covered by a dense cha[)arral of manzanita and buckbrush, dotted 

 with scattered pines. Fortunately, the fires have not as yet spread 

 upward far enough to do much damage to the Shasta firs of the middle 

 timber belt. Whether the character of these trees and the freedom of 

 the ground beneath from combustible material will prevent the spread 

 of fire remains to be seen. Thus far the greatest harm has been done 

 in the forests of ponderosa and sugar pines, where lumbering opera- 

 tions are being carried on with painful vigor. 



While we were on the mountain, from the middle of July until the 

 end of Sei)tcnd)er, one or more fires, the result of van<lalism or neglect, 

 were raging continuously on the south and west slopes, and two of them 

 did irreparable injury. One began near some woodcutters' shanties, 3 

 or 4 miles below Wagon Camp, on the road to Sisson; the other and 

 more destructive originated in the area covered by the lumbering opera 

 tions from McCloud Mill and pushed swiftly up the Panther Creek 

 slope, consuming the greater part of the only area of Finns attenuata 

 on Shasta and l)urning great tongues into the handsome fir forest on 

 both sides of Wagon Camj), which it closely and almost completely 

 surrounded. 



The fire that lasted longest in the summer of ISO.S did the least harm. 

 It consunn-d a worthless tract of manzanita chaparral between Black 

 l>utte and tlie mountain, and gave off a surprisingly enormous (|uantity 

 of smoke, ]ii<ling the country to the west lor a full month. During its 

 continuaiKJc the entire mountain was often enveloped in smoke and 

 when the wind was northwest, as it was a great deal of tlic time, 

 showers of burned leaves fell daily at our camps. On August U, when we 

 were at work on the rocky slo))es above the head of Scpiaw Creek at an 

 altitude of *.>,")()() feet, chari-ed leaves fell so abundantly that we caught 

 many in our hands. (Ireat clouds of smoke rolled ni) between us and 



