A Rainbow in the Sierra Madre 83 



As the days pass, the floral display seems to attain 

 its maximum effort, and then there comes a change ; 

 Spring is pouring her glories into the lap of Winter. 

 The rippling fields of oats and barley take on a lighter 

 green ; the south face of the range, especially the 

 spurs of the lower mountains, begins to turn and as- 

 sume umber and grey tints ; new and strange flowers 

 appear ; the alfileria seeds are boring into the soil ; the 

 wild-oat awns are twisting and untwisting, day and 

 night, and the clovers lie brown on the surface. Tall 

 green forms are now seen on the hills, forests of green 

 against the slopes ; suddenly they turn to a golden hue, 

 and over the hills the golden glow of the mustard races, 

 bends with the wind in varying shades, until in places 

 the entire range of hills have become mountains of gold 

 through which one can ride, the blossoms meeting over 

 the horse's head. 



On the mountain slopes the green Heteromeles are 

 spangled with white blossoms, and the sage-covered 

 mesa waves in masses of gray and green spires. Along 

 the foothills a little wash is covered with wild roses 

 that are now in bloom, filling the air with fragrance. 

 The Arroyo Seco, the San Gabriel, the Santa Ana, and 

 the Los Angeles rivers have in the centre of the gravelly 

 waste a silvery stream of water ; and so by many tokens 

 the angler in Southern California knows that winter has 

 waned, and April, the month of anglers, when the rod may 

 be plied, has come. If the winter has been very rainy, 

 if thirty or forty inches has fallen, about the annual fall 



