6 PINES 
moment taken advantage of, you can fill a cart with 
them. 
Some, on the other hand, are easily obtained. In 
the case of the trees that produce cones of the 
asymmetrical and persistent type, the difficulties of 
the collector diminish. Where the tree is, there also 
are the cones, generally as plentiful. on the stems as 
blackberries—when they live up to their reputation— 
in October. 
Other types with other habits, the Nut Pines and 
the Albicaulis perhaps in particular, have devastating 
enemies to contend with, and are only obtained with 
greatest difficulty upon this side of the water, and 
then only after having been conveyed overseas 
from the limited supply on the other side. 
Children from village schools—and at times other 
bipeds of more adult experience—squirrels in England, 
chipmunks in America, all these, for various reasons, 
upon various trees wage a predatory warfare, and 
against their fruit production. With the represen- 
tatives of the higher creation, it is the rare sight of, 
say, a Coulteri cone in all its monstrous proportions 
that prompts the appropriating impulse. ‘With the 
representatives of the lower creation, it is the dainty 
delights of the edible inside that attract their greed. 
We will not compare further the strength of the 
temptations that assail, or the motives that move 
these two classes of voracious sinners against the 
statute-made laws that define the difference between 
meum and tuum (mine and yours). The writer 
knows of many a whacking specimen of Coulteri cone 
that adorns the mantelpieces of homes located in the 
environment of theix®production. Of the Sabiniana 
and Ayacahuite doubtless the same story could be 
told. The Lambertiana; or Sugar Pine, is another 
which produces giant specimens, but it seldom cones 
in England, and when it does, hardly comes up to 
