ber. The forests fill the valley floors, thinning rapidly
as they climb the mountain slopes; they spot with pine green the broad,
shining plateaus, rooting where they find the soil, leaving unclothed
innumerable glistening areas of polished uncracked granite; a striking
characteristic of Yosemite uplands. From an altitude of seven or eight
thousand feet, the Canadian zone forests begin gradually to merge into
the richer forests of the Transition zone below. The towering sugar
pine, the giant yellow pine, the Douglas fir, and a score of deciduous
growths--live oaks, bays, poplars, dogwoods, maples--begin to appear and
become more frequent with descent, until, two thousand feet or more
below, they combine into the bright stupendous forests where, in
specially favored groves, King Sequoia holds his royal court.

Wild flowers, birds, and animals also run the gamut of the zones. Among
the snows and alpine flowerets of the summits are found the ptarmigan
and rosy finch of the Arctic circle, and in the summit cirques and on
the shores of the glacial lakes whistles the mountain marmot.

The richness and variety of wild flower life in all zones, each of its
characteristic kind, astonishes the visitor new to the American
wilderness. Every meadow is ablaze with gorgeous coloring, every copse
and sunny hollow, river bank and rocky bottom, becomes painted in turn
the hue appropriate to the changing seasons. Now blues prevail in the
kaleidoscopic display, now pinks, now reds, now yellows. Experience of
other national parks will show that the Yosemite is no exception; all
are gardens of wild flowers.

The Yosemite and the Sequoia are, however, the exclusive possessors
among the parks of a remarkably showy flowering plant, the brilliant,
rare, snow-plant. So luring is the red pillar which the snow-plant lifts
a foot or more above the shady mould, and so easily is it destroyed,
that, to keep it from extinction, the government fines covetous visitors
for every flower picked.

The birds are those of California--many, prolific, and songful. Ducks
raise their summer broods fearlessly on the lakes. Geese visit from
their distant homes. Cranes and herons fish the streams. Every tree has
its soloist, every forest its grand chorus. The glades resound with the
tapping of woodpeckers. The whirr of startled wings accompanies passage
through every wood. To one who has lingered in the forests to watch and
to listen, it is hard to account for the