WILD LIFE IN CALIFORNIA 



Arriving at the cabin upon the occasion of 

 our first visit we found the nature man sit- 

 ting outside playing on a guitar-like instru- 

 ment which under his handling gave forth 

 most pleasing and delightful music, finished 

 and artistic. Although aware of our presence 

 he made no sign of recognition of the fact, 

 but went on playing as if his soul and the 

 instrument were in some form of communion 

 not to be interrupted. Nor did we care to 

 interfere. We were willing to listen as long 

 as the spell was upon him to play. Finally 

 he stopped playing and with a smile on his 

 face bid us "Good morning." Our apprecia- 

 tion of his musical efforts pleased him and 

 he proceeded to give us another number or 

 two. The instrument he said he had made 

 to order, but its peculiarities were not original. 

 It was constructed after a form in common 

 use in the Hawaiian Islands. The music is 

 produced by manipulating the strings on the 

 finger board with a small piece of tempered 

 steel held in the left hand, while the strings 

 are vibrated with the fingers of the right 

 hand over the sounding board or the usual 

 place in playing a guitar. 



One of the pictures he has for sale is a 

 photograph of himself playing on this instru- 

 ment. However, as there was some little 

 chill in the morning air at the time of our 

 visit he wore more clothes than when the 

 picture was taken, but not very much — just 

 a shirt. 



He told us that he built the cabin himself, 

 cutting all the lumber used, out of the trunks 

 of fallen palms he found in the canyon. Be- 

 side being an excellent musician, he was a 

 good mechanic. All the work of the cabin 

 was well done, and as the wood seems to be 

 strong and durable, barring accidents, it 

 should afford a shelter for years to come. I 

 asked him for the names of the flowers I 

 held in my hand. He looked at them for a 

 moment and then replied: "They are all 

 flowers to me; I do not need to label them." 



It was plain from his accent of speech that 

 he was a German. He said he had been in 

 the United States ten and a half years, and 

 in that vicinity for a year and a half; that 

 when he first came on the desert he located 

 and built a cabin in Chino Canyon, but as so 

 few people went up there the location af- 

 forded a little more solitude than he was 

 looking for. The present site of his cabin 

 supplied other advantages — more sunshine 

 and more air, so he had moved to where we 

 found him. 



From the cabin the canyon extends south- 

 erly several miles, but for lack of time we 

 were not able to go, in our explorations of 

 it, beyond a couple of miles. For the greater 

 part of this distance the going was easy, but 

 beyond it appeared to be rough and difficult. 



It was on this trip where we saw our first 

 Phainopepla, a handsome crested male bird, 

 a little smaller than a male blackbird and like 

 which, wore a coat of irridescent black but 

 w ith white patches on its wings. This bird 

 is peculiar to the southern part of the State, 

 where it is quite common in some sections. 

 It does not have much of a song but its notes 



are not unmusical. The female is of rather 

 a dull black and leaves it all for her mate 

 to make a show. We also noted a pair of 

 Yellow warblers, a Mocking bird and a King 

 bird, sometimes called Bee Martin, which 

 has a more severe name in the bird books, 

 Tyrannus vociferans. Strange it is that while 

 this bird will attack and drive away birds 

 much larger than itself, even crows, it will 

 flee from the attacks of humming birds. They 

 are rather noisy birds and anything but 

 musical. We also saw several Audobon 

 warblers flitting around among the trees 

 bordering the canyon stream. They are 

 pretty birds with their slaty, black, white and 

 yellow colors, but always in such a hurry 

 that it is difficult to get a satisfactory view 

 of one. 



The palm trees grow in the bottom of the 

 canyon and we found them scattered along 

 as far as we went, and were told they con- 

 tinued to be a feature of the canyon for 

 nearly its entire length. Nearly all the trees 

 we saw had their petticoats burned off and 

 the trunks were blackened by the fires. How- 

 ever, the tops looked thrifty and therefore 

 the trees had suffered no injury. 



We found some wild hollyhock with a 

 delicate pink shade and others of plain white; 

 there was no difference otherwise from the 

 plant with the scarlet blossoms found else- 

 where on the desert. Another attractive flower 

 noted was the vervenia, Phacolia distans. 

 The plant grows from one to two feet high. 

 The leaves and stems are hairy. The blos- 

 som stems carry a mass of small violet 

 colored flowers. We saw but few flowers 

 common to the northern part of the State, 

 not more than four or five varieties, of which 

 the white forget-me-not, the larkspur, the 

 evening primrose are all that I can recall, 

 unless I should include one little, sickly, half- 

 developed "blue dick" or "cluster lily," or 

 Brodiaca capitata. 



Palm Canyon was made the scene of opera- 

 tions of a large moving picture company from 

 Los Angeles during our stay at the springs. 

 The advent of this company, with its actors, 

 photographers, superintendents, assistant 

 superintendents, mechanics and laborers to 

 the number of a hundred or more people ac- 

 companied by horses and camels and an im- 

 mense amount of paraphernalia, was some- 

 thing like a circus coming to a country town. 

 The commotion caused in our. little burg could 

 not have been greater if it had been a circus. 

 The purpose of the company was to take ad- 

 vantage of the natural scenery with the tropi- 

 cal character given to it by the groves of palm 

 trees as a setting for an act or two in a play 

 being prepared for exhibition in movie 

 theaters. A well-known actress and some 

 actors not so well known, together with the 

 nature man, appeared in the scenes. Owing 

 to imperfect arrangements for transportation 

 quite a number of the men, women and chil- 

 dren taking part in the production were left 

 at the canyon to get back to the springs the 

 best way they could. Some of them were still 

 in their grotesque costumes scattered along 

 the desert on foot, making their way home- 



