The Creating of Game Refuges 



At present a ranger can do little more than main- 

 tain, so far as he can, his authority by threats 

 threats which he has not the power to enforce. 



In the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Re- 

 serves one finds himself at last in a forest country, 

 with mountains which command respect, a section 

 full of superb feed for the deer, feed of many 

 sorts, for the deer have an attractive and varied 

 bill of fare. Whole hillsides are found of scrub 

 oak, their chief stand-by, and of wild lilac or 

 "deer brush," the latter familiar to all readers of 

 Muir as the Cleanothus, in those long periods of 

 Miltonic sweep and dignity in which he summons 

 the clans of the California herbs and shrubs; an 

 enumeration as stately as the Homeric catalogue 

 of the ships, and, to such as lack technical knowl- 

 edge of botany, imposing respect rather by sono- 

 rous appeal to the ear than by visual suggestion to 

 the memory. That herbs should be marshalled in 

 so impressive an array fills one with admiration 

 and with somewhat of awe for these representa- 

 tives of the vegetable kingdom. As Muir pro- 

 nounces their full-sounding titles, one feels that 

 each is a noble in this distinguished company. No 

 one unprotected by a botany should have the 

 temerity to enter, amid these lists, alone. 



We visited this country in the season of 



399 



