when the soul takes its departure. To accomplish this they burn their dead. The friends are all 
summoned to attend the funeral. The pile of wood is arranged so as to insure rapid combustion. 
After the body is placed upon the pile, the nearest relative communicates the fire. All attending 
the funeral are dressed in the most 
uncouth garbs imaginable, and are 
painted in the most frightful manner. 
Each one carries a flag, painted with 
some uncouth or horrible design. 
As soon as the fire reaches the 
body, they commence dancing and 
whooping around the pile, making 
the most frightful noise possible, 
jumping and leaping, assaulting each 
other, etc.— all of which attracts the 
attention of the Bad Spirit, when 
suddenly, as the fire reaches the 
heart, the spirit of the poor Indian 
escapes, and the bad fellow after 
awhile wakes up to the fact that in 
consequence of not attending to his 
business he has lost the game. 
In the valley and its neighborhood 
we observed many of the trees bored 
with immense numbers of large holes 
half an inch or more in diameter, 
some of them filled with acorns. In¬ 
deed, all seemed made exactly to fit 
the acorn. About them we noticed 
woodpeckers, apparently very busy. 
We learned that these large circular 
holes were first made by the birds 
and then plugged up with acorns — 
not that the bird needed the acorns, but merely used them as a bait for worms. As soon as the 
worms attack the acorns, they are “gobbled up” by the birds. We were so interested in this 
curious matter that we made a little sketch on the ground. 
On another page will be found an engraving illustrating the appearance of the California 
Holly, and a communication on the subject. This tree, from what we heard and what we know, 
must be beautiful, in the autumn and winter, but we were not in the season to see it in its glory. 
We were both surprised and delighted at the wonderful exhibition of Mistletoe. The mountains 
abound in Oaks, and on almost every tree we saw the Mistletoe in immense masses. In one 
view we beheld more than we ever before saw growing in all our travels in Europe, though by 
the quantities brought into Covent Market during the Holidays it must abound in some parts of 
England. The Mistletoe of California is called the False Mistletoe and is really a Phoradendron , 
while the true Mistletoe is Viscum album. We must here close our remarks on California and 
the Yosemite Valley, and if all the stories are not true, our readers have them as “told to us,” 
and at less price. 
THE CALIFORNIA WOODPECKER (CARPENTERIA). 
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