combined. Of the total, California
yielded between a quarter and a third. A third of her fish comes from
the Sacramento river. Some 230--more or less--marine food fishes are to
be found in the market at San Francisco. The exports of fish from that
port from 1892-1899 were valued at from $2,000,000 to $2,500,000
annually. Native oysters are small and of peculiar flavour; eastern
varieties also are fattened, but not bred in California waters. Shrimp
are abundant; the shrimp fishers are Chinese and four-fifths of the
catch is exported to China. Sturgeon were once the cheapest fish after
salmon; to-day, despite all efforts to increase the supply, they are the
dearest. Salmon, once threatened with extinction, have been saved,
maintained in good supply, and indeed have probably regained their
pristine abundance. Shad and striped bass are both very abundant and
cheap. Black bass, flounders, terrapin, sea-turtles, perch, turbot, sole
and catfish are also common. Great herds of seals once lay like
toll-gatherers off the Golden Gate and other bays of the coast, taking a
large share of the salmon and other fish; but they are no longer common.
The sea-lions sometimes raid the rivers for 100 m. inland. They have
greatly increased since hunting them for their hides and oil ceased to
be profitable, and thousands sometimes gather on the Farallones, off the
Golden Gate.

_Flora._--Inclusiveness of range in the distribution of vegetable life
is perhaps more suggestive than the distribution of animal species. The
variation is from dwarf mountain pine to giant cactus and dates. The
humid transition belt is the habitat of California's magnificent
forests. Nut pine, juniper and true sage-brush (_Artemisia tridentata_)
characterize the upper Sonoran,--although the latter grows equally in
the transition zone. Cereals, orchard fruits and alfalfa are of primary
importance in the upper and of secondary importance in the lower
Sonoran. In the arid portions of this and the tropic areas the
indigenous plants are creosote, mesquite and alfileria bushes, desert
acacias, paloverdes, alkali-heath, salt grass, agaves, yuccas
(especially the Spanish-bayonet and Joshua tree) and cactuses. Among
exotics the Australian saltbush spreads successfully over the worst
alkali land. The introduction of other exotics into these zones,--made
humid by irrigation, which converts them, the one into true
austro-riparian the other into true humid tropical,--has revolutio