BREWSTER: BIRDS OF THE CAPE REGION, LOWER CALIFORNIA. 9 
Sierra de la Laguna. — The last few days of April, the whole of May, 
and the first week of June were spent on the Sierra de la Laguna. 
This is said to be the highest mountain on the Peninsula south of La Paz, 
although Mr. Frazar, who notes its altitude as about six thousand feet, 
thinks that several of the mountains which lie between it and Cape 
St. Lucas are but little inferior in elevation. He tells me that it is 
also called Rosario de la Laguna and Mount San Simon, but, if I under- 
stand him correctly, the latter name is more, properly restricted to the 
highest of several peaks all of which, together with the broad-topped 
mountain mass on which they rest, and above which they rise only some 
two hundred or three hundred feet, are known collectively as the Sierra 
de la Laguna. 
This and the neighboring mountains are invariably referred to in 
Mr. Belding’s papers as the “ Victoria Mountains,” and the general 
range of which they form a part is marked “S. de la Victoria” on the 
map of Mexico compiled and drawn by Mr. Hendges and published 
(in 1900) under the auspices of the Bureau of the American Republics. 
Mr. Frazar assures me, however, that, so far as he was able to learn, the 
people of the Cape Region have no distinctive name for the range just 
mentioned, while he heard the term Victoria Mountains applied only 
to the group of mountains opposite Carmen Island which he visited 
during his trip up the Gulf of California. 
The road by which Mr. Frazar approached the Sierra de la Laguna 
from Triunfo crosses a succession of ‘caiions with their intersecting 
ridges, and hence is almost continually climbing or descending steep 
inclines. After passing Las Animas, a deserted ranch where the real 
ascent of the mountain begins, the trail becomes exceedingly difficult, 
and in places is almost impassable for pack animals. From the summit 
“‘the eastern, northern, and western sides of the mountain appear very 
abrupt,” but towards the south the slope is more gradual. The distant 
view in this direction is interrupted by several mountains of considerable 
altitude. In the immediate foreground, at the base of the highest peak and 
scarce three hundred feet below it, lies a hollow completely surrounded by 
mountain-tops or ridges, whose inner sides, together with the depression 
towards which they trend, cover a total area of about four square miles. 
This is everywhere densely wooded with large oaks and pines,’ the latter 
predominating on the lower ground and the former on the hillsides. 
1 These trees have been identified at the Gray Herbarium, so far as could be 
determined from leaves alone, as Pinus ayacahuite Ehrenb., and Quercus emoryi 
Torr. 
