126 East and West 
I crossed the range for the first time. Up 
from the fields of the Montecito valley came 
the melodious and mysteriously beautiful 
song of Western meadow larks. Seemingly 
distant because of some ventriloqual quality, 
the birds were in reality singing nearby in the 
tops of lemon trees. There is a certain serious 
import in this song, a something mystical 
and cosmic yet lyrical, as if they chanted 
some epithalamium. They who aver the 
birds of California do not sing, cannot know 
the Western meadow lark. Entering the 
cafion I began to hear the call of the spurred 
towhee and the dramatic song of the Cali- 
fornia thrasher and these continued to near 
the summit. 
Growing in rocky places, was the prickly 
phlox, one of the beautiful Western gilias. 
A shrubby, sage-green, prickly leaved plant— 
unpromising in itself—it is surmounted in 
spring with rose-purple stars which glorify 
the stony hillsides. It is a noteworthy 
fact in plant lore that some of the most 
ethereal and lovely flowers blossom in bar- 
ren and unsightly places. Higher up grew 
yellow lupine and patches of delicate moun- 
tain forget-me-not bloomed among the spiny 
yuccas. The trail, badly washed out in 
