CONDITION AND PLANTS OF THE RANGE. 23 
Warner Mountains to the east of Jess Valley. These conditions have 
been taken advantage of to a detrimental extent by the immense flocks 
of sheep which winter on the deserts to the southward and eastward 
in Nevada and Oregon. One characteristic feature of those portions 
of these mountains is the abundance of browse plants, which make 
them especially attractive to the sheep grower. Sheep need a change 
of ration in order to thrive to the best advantage, even if that change 
be to weedy pastures, which are ordinarily considered of little value. 
Often they appear to be benefited by such a change from a good grass 
pasture. This testimony of the herder is substantiated by the fact 
that when grass is abundant the sheep will feed on such bitter plants 
as the willow, poplar, and some of the so-called sunflowers previously 
mentioned. In this region such shrubby plants as the gooseberry 
(Ribes lacustre, R. luteum, R. cereum, and R. aurewm), snowberry 
(Symphoricarpos oreophilus), willow, poplar, mountain ash (Pyrus 
sambucifolia), service berry (Amelanchier alnifolia), and Purshia 
- tridentata are very abundant. At the time of this visit immense num- 
bers of sheep were practically subsisting on these plants. There really 
was no grass. Even the banks of the rivulets were chopped up by 
the incessant tramping, and the steep hillsides, protected by jagged 
rocks, were dusty. The writer has never seen a more deplorable con- 
dition than existed here. The sheep region was visited about the Ist 
of August, and sheep were supposed to remain there two months 
longer. It is difficult to imagine what the animals could find to live 
on. Onan area shown in Plate VI, figure 2, the snowberries had been 
cropped so that there was nothing left but short, barked stumps and old, 
woody stems. ‘This is in the vicinity of an old corral, but photographs 
taken in the same region show that similar conditions exist over a 
large part of the mountains. 
The range regions traversed between the Blue Mountains, in Oregon, 
and Reno, Nev., with the exception of the Warner Mountains, have 
muchin common. ‘The mesa region does not differ greatly in appear- 
ance, although the black sage of the northern part is almost entirely 
replaced to the southward over large areas, especially in the vicinity 
of the Black Rock and Smoke Creek deserts, as well as in the Hum- 
boldt Valley, by the saltbushes, hop sage, bud sage, red sage, and 
white sage. These sage plants are of much more value as winter feed 
than the saltbushes. In this general region eight sinks were passed 
over. Some of these had water in them in places, but for the most part 
they were dry, the surface being smooth, showing level narrow fissures, 
and having no vegetation. The main areas of this character seen were 
in the Harney, Guano, and Catlow valleys, in Oregon; Surprise Valley, 
in California; and Long Valley, Smoke Creek, Black Rock, Humboldt 
Sink, and White Plains, in Nevada. All of these areas located in the 
lower portion of their drainage basin have as a first distinct zone of 
