130 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA 



representative overhead. Dragon-flies shoot in vig 

 orous zigzags through the dancing swarms, and a 

 rich profusion of butterflies the leguminosse of in 

 sects make a fine addition to the general show. 

 Many of these last are comparatively small at this 

 elevation, and as yet almost unknown to science; 

 but every now and then a familiar vanessa or papilio 

 comes sailing past. Humming-birds, too, are quite 

 common here, and the robin is always found along 

 the margin of the stream, or out in the shallowest 

 portions of the sod, and sometimes the grouse and 

 mountain quail, with their broods of precious fluffy 

 chickens. Swallows skim the grassy lake from end 

 to end, fly-catchers come and go in fitful flights 

 from the tops of dead spars, while woodpeckers 

 swing across from side to side in graceful festoon 

 curves, birds, insects, and flowers all in their own 

 way telling a deep summer joy. 



The influences of pure nature seem to be so little 

 known as yet, that it is generally supposed that 

 complete pleasure of this kind, permeating one's very 

 flesh and bones, unfits the student for scientific 

 pursuits in which cool judgment and observation 

 are required. But the effect is just the opposite. 

 Instead of producing a dissipated condition, the 

 mind is fertilized and stimulated and developed like 

 sun-fed plants. All that we have seen here enables 

 us to see with surer vision the fountains among the 

 summit-peaks to the east whence flowed the glaciers 

 that ground soil for the surrounding forest; and 

 down at the foot of the meadow the moraine which 

 formed the dam which gave rise to the lake that 

 occupied this basin before the meadow was made; 



