them with a perfect means of defense.

Two things Nature is not chary of--fear and pain. She heaps the measure
here because fear puts her creatures on the safe side; it saves them
from many real dangers. What dangers have lurked for man and for most
wild things in the dark! How silly seems the fear of the horse! a
fluttering piece of paper may throw him in a panic. Pain, too,
safeguards us; it shields us against real dangers. The pains of
childbirth are probably no check upon offspring, because the ecstasy of
procreation, especially on the part of the male, overcomes all other
considerations.

VI. MOSQUITOES AND FLEAS

Mosquitoes for the North and mainly fleas and ticks for the South--this
seems to be Nature's decree, at least in this country. The mosquitoes of
the Far North pounce upon one suddenly and ferociously, while our Jersey
mosquitoes hesitate and parley and make exasperating feints and passes.
On the tundra of Alaska, if I stopped for a moment a swarm of these
insects rose out of the grass as if they had been waiting for me all the
years (as they had) and were so hungry that they could not stand upon
the order of their proceeding, but came headlong.

In Jamaica the dogs were persecuted almost to death by the fleas. They
were the most sorry, forlorn, and emaciated dogs I ever saw. Life was
evidently a burden to them. I remember that Lewis and Clark, in their
journey across the continent, were greatly pestered by fleas. I have
found that our woodchucks, when they "hole up" in the fall, are full of
fleas.

VII. THE CHANGE OF CLIMATE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

I have just been reading, for the third time, Dana's "Two Years Before
the Mast," my sojourn near San Diego for a few months, where so many of
the scenes and events he describes took place, having given me a renewed
interest in the book.

It is very evident that the climate of southern California has greatly
changed since Dana was here in the trading ships Pilgrim and Alert, in
1832 and 1833. The change has been from wet to dry. At that time his
ship collected, and others engaged in the same trade collected, hundreds
of thousands of hides and great quantities of tallow, all from cattle
grown by the missions between San Diego and Santa Barbara. This fact
implies good pasturage. The cattle grazed on the hills and plains that
are now, during a large part of the year, as dry as a bone. At present
cattle left to their own devices on this coast would soo