762 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



vanished as by magic. One evening before, we had 

 caught a thousand insects by the aid of the lamp in a few 

 hours. The first evening after the rainstorm had passed 

 away we caught about ten in twice the time, and it did 

 not improve with time. The swarms of insects did not 

 return, and a few more showers made it worse yet. 

 Finally the dry season set in, and then there was hardly 

 anything more to be found anywhere except under rocks. 

 One of the features of the fauna of the Cape Region 

 is the immense quantity of land shells found in some 

 places. In certain evidently favored localities the ground 

 is literally covered with the dead and white shells of land 

 mollusks. We ride along for hours through canons, where 

 the ground is thus strewn. Then as we turn into another 

 canon, we find no shells at all, not even after close search 

 under rocks and trunks of trees. Then again as we pass 

 on, we may enter a locality where we again find an abun- 

 dance and are able to collect thousands in the space of a 

 very short time, there being actually no limit to the quan- 

 tity. Another peculiarity as regards the land shells is 

 that every sierra and every canon almost possesses peculiar 

 forms not found anywhere else. All the shells are white 

 or nearly so, a few are pinkish white. In places they 

 glimmer on the ground as close and as prominent as white 

 pebbles on a beach. 



A great deal has been said about the number of rattle- 

 snakes found in Baja California, but most stories about 

 them are greatly exaggerated. We may find several 

 during a day, or we may not see any for a week. It is 

 very rarely that any one is bitten by a snake, and scarcer 

 yet that the bite is fatal. A universal, and, as I am told, 

 a sure cure for the rattlesnake bite is the remedy used 

 by the natives. They take a piece of the pitahaya cactus, 

 roast is over the fire and apply it to the wound. It is said 



