COMPARATIVE nil LO LOGY. 26 1 



self as the willing nurse and bountiful step-mother of the 

 feeble and unprotected. Of all countries on the globe, there 

 is probably not one in which a little flock of very young 

 children would find the means of sustaining existence more 

 readily than in California, Its wonderful climate, mild and 

 equable beyond example, is well known. Mr. Cronise, in his 

 volume on the ' Natural Wealth of California,' tells us, that 

 ' the monthly mean of the thermometer at San Francisco 

 in December, the coldest month, is 50° ; in September, the 

 warmest month, 61°.' And he adds: — 'Although the State 

 reaches to the latitude of Plymouth Bay on the north, 

 the climate, for its whole length, is as mild as that of 

 the regions near the topics. Half the months are rainless. 

 Snow and ice are almost strangers, except in the high 

 altitudes. There are fully two hundred cloudless days in 

 every year. Roses bloom in the open air through all sea- 

 sons.' Not less remarkable than this exquisite climate is the 

 astonishing variety of food, of kinds which seem to offer 

 themselves to the tender hands of children. Berries of 

 many sorts — strawberries, blackberries, currants, raspberries, 

 and salmon-berries — are indigenous and abundant. Large 

 fruits and edible nuts on low and pendent boughs may be 

 said, in Milton's phrase, to 'hang amiable.' Mr. Cronise 

 enumerates, among others, the wild cherry and plum, which 

 * grow on bushes ; ' the barberry, or false grape {Berbcris 

 herbosa), a ' low shrub,' which bears edible fruit ; and the 

 Californian horse-chestnut {j^sculus Californcia), ' a low, 

 spreading tree or shrub, seldom exceeding fifteen feet high,' 

 which ' bears abundant fruit much used by the Indians.' 

 Then there are nutritious roots of various kinds, maturing at 

 different seasons. Fish swarm in the rivers, and are taken by 

 the simplest means. In the spring, Mr. Powers informs us, 

 the whitcfish ' crowd the creeks in such vast numbers that the 

 Indian.s, by simply throwing in a little brushwood to impede 

 their motion, can literally scoop them out.' Shell-fish and 

 grubs abound, and arc greedily eaten by the natives. Earth- 

 worms, which are found evcr}whcre and at all seasons, are a 



