wide-spread fable that the
Yosemite is birdless. No doubt, happy talkative tourists, in companies
and regiments, afoot and mounted, drive bird and beast alike to silent
cover--and comment on the lifeless forests. "The whole range, from
foothill to summit, is shaken into song every summer," wrote John Muir,
to whom birds were the loved companions of a lifetime of Sierra summers,
"and, though low and thin in winter, the music never ceases."

There are two birds which the unhurried traveller will soon know well.
One is the big, noisy, gaudy Clark crow, whose swift flight and
companionable squawk are familiar to all who tour the higher levels. The
other is the friendly camp robber, who, with encouragement, not only
will share your camp luncheon, but will gobble the lion's share.

Of the many wild animals, ranging in size from the great, powerful,
timid grizzly bear, now almost extinct here, whose Indian name, by the
way, is Yosemite, to the tiny shrew of the lowlands, the most frequently
seen are the black or brown bear, and the deer, both of which, as
compared with their kind in neighborhoods where hunting is permitted,
are unterrified if not friendly. Notwithstanding its able protection,
the Yosemite will need generations to recover from the hideous slaughter
which, in a score or two of years, denuded America of her splendid
heritage of wild animal life.

Of the several carnivora, the coyote alone is occasionally seen by
visitors. Wolves and mountain lions, prime enemies of the deer and
mountain sheep, are hard to find, even when officially hunted in the
winter with dogs trained for the purpose.

II

The Yosemite Valley is the heart of the national park. Not only is it
the natural entrance and abiding place, the living-room, so to speak,
the central point from which all parts of the park are most comfortably
accessible; it is also typical in some sense of the Sierra as a whole,
and is easily the most beautiful valley in the world.

It is difficult to analyze the quality of the Valley's beauty. There
are, as Muir says, "many Yosemites" in the Sierra. The Hetch Hetchy
Valley, in the northern part of the park, which bears the same relation
to the Tuolumne River that the Yosemite Valley bears to the Merced, is
scarcely less in size, richness, and the height and magnificence of its
carved walls. Scores of other valleys, similar except for size, abound
north and south, which are, scientifically and in Muir's meaning,
Y