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NATURALIST IN CALIFORNIA. 471 
not over a mile wide. The whole upland has a most barren 
and desolate aspect, the only vegetation being low shrubs of 
the fetid Larrea Mexicana, with cacti and other. thorny 
plants beneath. The bottom land, however, supports a 
vigorous growth of cottonwood, willows, and mesquite, 
a name applied there to two quite different trees, the Alga- 
robia glandulosa and Strombocarpa pubescens. Dense shrub- 
ry and coarse grasses cover most of the ground, even 
under the darkest shade, though spots are sometimes too 
alkaline for any vegetation except a few sea-shore plants, 
and in places the winds keep up a rolling waste of sand 
hills. The river itself is so low in winter that the Indians 
can wade across with their heads above water, and is so 
. muddy as to fully deserve its name. 
After my desert experience, I gazed with delight on the 
broad flashing stream, with its forest-clad banks, even though 
the trees were then bare, and the whole country nearly of 
the same brown tint as the river, for I knew that the very 
barrenness of the surrounding regions must drive most of 
the animal life to the river banks, one class in search of 
vegetable food the other to prey upon the former, while 
such as loved water must necessarily seek it here. And, 
with the exceptions mentioned as desert animals in my for- 
mer article, nearly all of the higher animals are confined to 
this narrow belt of timber, stretching along the course of 
the Colorado from its Great Cañon, thirty miles higher up, 
down to its mouth. Those living permanently on the up- 
lands must depend on a very scanty supply of dew for water 
during most of the year. 
I must remark here that in climate this region belongs to 
Mexico, the winter being the dry season, and the summer 
Subject to violent thunder storms from the south, but not 
wet, the whole annual rain not exceeding three or four 
Inches, of which perhaps one falls in winter. The = 
fare rarely falls below the freezing point in latitude 35°, 
_ although the surrounding mountains were white with snow 

