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Annual Reports of Academy of 
At Priest Valley, in the nearby mountains, we were across the 
divide of the range and on one of the upper tributaries of the Salinas 
River, which flows into Monterey Bay. The chamise or solid 
stand of the Chamiso bush ( Adenostoma ) was all about us on the 
hill slopes; we attacked it with avidity, as quite a few interesting 
Orthoptera are known to inhabit this shrub. Chamise beating is 
not pleasant work, as the dry hills and the bushes are very dusty, 
these having small readily detached needle-like leaves and fuzzy seed 
capsules. To push one’s way through heavy dense chamise is as 
unpleasant as beating work in the same environment, but we can 
forgive the bush its peculiarities for the interesting and little- 
known Orthoptera which we have found living upon it. On the 
open hill slopes about Priest Valley, the tar weed was much in evi¬ 
dence and soon reduced our beating nets to stiff and rubbery sacks. 
These mountains were in the past the homeland of the California 
Condor, but it is now a very rare bird in these parts, as is true of 
most parts of the state where it formerly ranged. The bushy-tailed 
ground squirrels (Ammospermophilus) were exceedingly abundant 
everywhere within the hills, while the strikingly marked California 
Woodpecker was in evidence wherever timber was present. 
From Coalinga we moved on to Bakersfield, at the southern end 
of the San Joaquin Valley. 
Mt. Pinos, the highest peak in the southern portion of the Coast 
Range, or more properly, the Ventura Mountains, was visited from 
Bakersfield. We following the splendid highway across a portion 
of the San Joaquin Valley floor, then up into the mountains, winding 
among the wonderful oaks of Tejon Canyon to Lebec, and, leaving 
highways behind, due west into a region of high forested ridges 
and beautiful valleys. The little settlement at Downey’s Ranch 
afforded us a base, close to Mt. Pinos, and here we did some very 
profitable work. The good-hearted old ranch proprietor might 
have stepped from one of Bret Harte’s stories, representative, as 
he was, of the vanishing California pioneer, having had, among 
other things, followed Yuba Bill’s profession of stage-driver, 
and at over seventy was still active and vigorous, just as keen a 
deer hunter as anyone. Northwest of the ranch lay Mt. Pinos, 
but a few miles away, and reaching an elevation of eight thousand 
eight hundred feet. An old logging road gave relatively easy 
access to the upper slopes, winding around the main peak itself 
