786 _ Walks Round San Francisco. | December, 
WALKS ROUND SAN FRANCISCO. 
BY W. N. LOCKINGTON. 
No. III—LAKE HONDA AND SEAL ROCK. 
Ancylus fragilis, the so-called fresh-water limpet, is on record 
in Cooper’s list of the Californian mollusca from Laguna Honda, 
or Deep Lake, as the name, being translated, implies. 
Now Laguna Honda, a pond at the bottom of a deep valley 
about three miles south of the Golden Gate, has been captured 
by the Spring Valley Water Co., and converted, by upright 
retaining walls, and dams, and flood-gates, into a reservoir some. 
thirty feet deep. 
It is therefore pretty clear that the Ancyli in Laguna Honda are 
not easy to collect, but with the object of searching for the spe- 
cies in a lower lake which receives its overflow, my son and I 
start off for the locality one windy summer morning. Our road 
from the cars lies across Golden Gate park, the public park of 
San Francisco, a long narrow strip of land commencing some 
distance from the city and running straight out westward to the 
ocean beach. The greater portion is as yet park by courtesy, as 
the strip of land is principally drifting sand. A small portion at 
the city end is laid out, and drives are made through the whole 
length, but nineteen-twentieths of the area either lies at the west 
wind’s will, or is covered with a growth of the large yellow 
lupine (Lupinus arboreus) and the blue wooly-leaved lupine (Z. 
chamissonis vel albifrons). As the city has chosen a site without 
soil for its park, it is bound to try to make its own soil, and these 
lupines, hardy natives of the sand, have been selected as aids in 
the work. They prove very efficient, but the annual appropria- 
tion for park expenses is so small, and the west wind so constant, 
that he would be a bold man who would prophesy that the 
- lupines shall be victorious for a generation or two. Between the 
park and the valley where lies Laguna Honda, is a high hill 
called Sweeney’s Peak, from whose summit is obtained an exten- 
sive view over the peninsula and the bay. 
There is little to detain us in the ravine by which we ascend, as 
pe season is too advanced for many flowers, but the snow- -ball 
te : bush (Symphoricarpus racemosus) displays its white bunches of 
_ fruit in the hollows, the red-flowered Allium acuminatum grows 
