hat comes
sounding over the bending woods like the roar of the ocean, mingling
raindrops, snow-flowers, honey-flowers, and bees in wild storm harmony.

Still more impressive are the warm, reviving days of spring in the
mountain pastures. The blood of the plants throbbing beneath the
life-giving sunshine seems to be heard and felt. Plant growth goes on
before our eyes, and every tree in the woods, and every bush and flower
is seen as a hive of restless industry. The deeps of the sky are mottled
with singing wings of every tone and color; clouds of brilliant
chrysididae dancing and swirling in exquisite rhythm, golden-barred
vespidae, dragon-flies, butterflies, grating cicadas, and jolly,
rattling grasshoppers, fairly enameling the light.

[Illustration: IN THE SAN GABRIEL VALLEY.--WHITE SAGE.]

On bright, crisp mornings a striking optical effect may frequently be
observed from the shadows of the higher mountains while the sunbeams are
pouring past overhead. Then every insect, no matter what may be its own
proper color, burns white in the light. Gauzy-winged hymenoptera,
moths, jet-black beetles, all are transfigured alike in pure, spiritual
white, like snowflakes.

In Southern California, where bee-culture has had so much skilful
attention of late years, the pasturage is not more abundant, or more
advantageously varied as to the number of its honey-plants and their
distribution over mountain and plain, than that of many other portions
of the State where the industrial currents flow in other channels. The
famous White Sage (_Audibertia_), belonging to the mint family,
flourishes here in all its glory, blooming in May, and yielding great
quantities of clear, pale honey, which is greatly prized in every market
it has yet reached. This species grows chiefly in the valleys and low
hills. The Black Sage on the mountains is part of a dense, thorny
chaparral, which is composed chiefly of adenostoma, ceanothus,
manzanita, and cherry--not differing greatly from that of the southern
portion of the Sierra, but more dense and continuous, and taller, and
remaining longer in bloom. Stream-side gardens, so charming a feature of
both the Sierra and Coast Mountains, are less numerous in Southern
California, but they are exceedingly rich in honey-flowers, wherever
found,--melilotus, columbine, collinsia, verbena, zauschneria, wild
rose, honeysuckle, philadelphus, and lilies rising from the warm, moist
dells in a very storm of exuberanc