Quails,
too, seek the shade during the heat of the day about tepid pools in the
channels of the larger mid-river streams. Rabbits scurry from thicket to
thicket among the ceanothus bushes, and occasionally a long-eared hare
is seen cantering gracefully across the wider openings. The nights are
calm and dewless during the summer, and a thousand voices proclaim the
abundance of life, notwithstanding the desolating effect of dry sunshine
on the plants and larger animals. The hylas make a delightfully pure and
tranquil music after sunset; and coyotes, the little, despised dogs of
the wilderness, brave, hardy fellows, looking like withered wisps of
hay, bark in chorus for hours. Mining-towns, most of them dead, and a
few living ones with bright bits of cultivation about them, occur at
long intervals along the belt, and cottages covered with climbing roses,
in the midst of orange and peach orchards, and sweet-scented hay-fields
in fertile flats where water for irrigation may be had. But they are
mostly far apart, and make scarce any mark in general views.
Every winter the High Sierra and the middle forest region get snow in
glorious abundance, and even the foot-hills are at times whitened.
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