634 12. BOIDE 
Habvits—Grinnell and Grinnell say: “During a camping 
trip the last week in March, 1906, at the mouth of the San 
Gabriel, our field party secured no less than four boas along 
the rocky southern base of the hills and at the mouth of 
Fish Canyon, a tributary of the San Gabriel River. 
“One was discovered during a driving rain. It was crawl- 
ing in the open canyon bed near the margin of a torrent. 
And this seems to be characteristic of this species, that it 
comes out in cloudy weather or else frequents shady places. 
Its movements are slow. When picked up it winds tightly 
about one’s arm or else coils up in an intricate knot. Hence 
one boy who had seen the species before called it the “rub- 
ber snake.” 
Atsatt records one as found trying to swallow a mouse. 
(Peromyscus) which had been caught in a trap. The snake 
had wrapped its body about the mouse whose head it had 
taken into its mouth. When disturbed it crawled slowly 
away, and upon being gently struck on the head, coiled up in 
a ball with the head hidden within the coils. 
Mr. A. H. Wright, states that “It might be of interest to 
note the food reactions of a California boa in captivity. The 
literature of the life-history of this species is somewhat 
scanty. The captive was taken, Dec. 16, 1917, in the desert, 
seven miles south of Palm Springs, San Bernardino Co., 
California, by Dr. J. Chester Bradley. He kept it as a pet 
until the following May when it was shipped to me at Ith- 
aca, N. Y. During the period of Dec. 1917-May, 1918, it fed 
on nothing. With us it began the same career and fasted. 
Flies, spiders, various insects, and worms were offered but 
not accepted. 
“In midsummer we placed in its cage a house mouse. 
Later the same day we discovered the mouse had been killed. 
It had apparently been seized between the eyes but not 
eaten. Ina few days we captured a live white-foot mouse 
