IO 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. VII 
portance of the place. This importance, however, lasted but a few years, and was 
followed by complete abandonment. The roofs have been removed from most of the 
buildings with the result that a few winters’ rains reduce the adobe walls to low 
mounds of earth, in many places scarcely distinguishable from the surrounding 
ground. Earthquakes have also helped in this leveling process which will at the 
present rate before long result in the total obliteration of this, one of California’s 
most interesting land marks. The site is now owned privately and is part of the 
25,000-acre Tejon Rancho which is devoted to cattle raising. 
My assistant, Joseph Dixon, and myself arrived by wagon with our collecting 
outfit on the 19th of July, and were fortunate in obtaining prompt permission from 
the major-domo of that part of the rancho to camp right at the Fort which is a 
quarter of a mile off the main road. For the whole country is fenced, and hunters 
and campers kept out for fear of starting fires or disturbing the stock. 
One of the Spanish vaqueros lives with his family in the best preserved of the 
adobe buildings, and I believe I never met a more hospitable gentlemen anywhere, 
and this was surely welcome. He helped us to locate on the best camping ground 
near a clear, cool spring, turned our horse into the best pasture close at hand, and 
gave us many a pointer as to the whereabouts of the different animals we were 
after. We set up our skinning-table under an immense white oak, said to be the 
largest in California. It was 27 feet in circumference at the base, and was only 
one of many others nearly as large which form a group in front of the rectangle 
formed by the Fort ruins. In fact the most impressive feature of the Tejon valley 
to one entering from the dry barren plains on either side, are the magnificent oak 
groves, interspersed with green pastures. What an oasis this must have looked to 
the early traveler who had gotten safely this far after his perilous journey across 
the desert. Many springs contribute to a fair-sized brook, which, lined with im- 
mense willows and lofty maples festooned with grapevines, takes its tumultuous 
way down the narrow gorge below the Fort to the San Joaquin Valley. The hill- 
sides were at the date of our visit brown with a heavy clothing of dry grass, while 
the northerly slopes were covered with clumps of horse-chestnut (. /Esculus ), the 
first to be met with towards the north. 
As the reader will have already suspected, such a region fairly swarms with 
animal life, as compared with the usual desert or semi-desert of southern California. 
Insects were abundant, and insectivorous birds and mammals were corresponding- 
ly numerous. I have never anywhere seen such great numbers of bats as made 
their appearance at early dusk. They made their way in veritable streams out of 
the attics of buildings, hollows of trees, and even crevices in the adobe walls. The 
mellow notes of poor-wills were to be heard of evenings, while by day troops of 
violet-green swallows skimmed back and forth over the meadows. A few western 
martins had nests safely ensconced in holes of lofty oaks. 
From the dense green foliage of maples and willows came the melodious songs 
of the Cassin and warbling vireos. Western kingbirds were plentiful, and from 
their perches in the more open places assailed any whose intent might be suspie- 
ioned. The old government rain gauge out in the middle of the long-forsaken 
parade ground had evidently been a favorite perch for many a year, for it was al- 
most completely filled with excrement. Traill flycatchers were exceptionally 
abundant in shaded places, and several of their nests were discovered in goose- 
berry bushes two to five feet above the ground. Black phoebes fluttered about 
the crumbled walls, while a family of young wood pewees was noted daily lined 
up on a barbed-wire fence, getting pointers from their elders on how to catch bees 
without getting stung. 
