IN THE SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS 



TO a naturalist on his travels, enviable man, 

 few places are at first sight less encourag- 

 ing than a large city surrounded by wide areas of 

 cultivated land. Such a place is San Jose, the 

 principal town of the famous and beautiful Santa 

 Clara Valley. One of the most beautiful valleys 

 in California, it is said to be ; and I can easily 

 believe it. But a naturalist, as I say, even though 

 he be also a lover of beauty, looks with distrust 

 upon miles on miles of plum and cherry orchards. 

 Plums and cherries may be never so much to 

 his taste ; but by the time an electric car has 

 whirled him past a million or two of white trees 

 (I am assuming the month to be March), and the 

 ladies in the seat behind him have let off a hun- 

 dred or two of exclamations, he, poor man, is 

 ready to cry ''Enough." Now, if you please, he 

 would be thankful to see a stretch of "timber " (in 

 the New England dialect, "woods"), a swamp, 

 or even a desert ; almost any sort of place, indeed, 

 where he might expect to find a few wild things 

 growing, and among them a few birds and but- 

 terflies flitting about. 



The naturalist's predicament at San Jose, 

 149 



