942 16. CROTALIDA 
against the time when the close settlement of our land 
accomplishes the extinction of many of our wild things. 
“A thing we cannot help mentioning here, is the popular 
exaggeration as to the size of snakes. We have heard 
thoroughly honest people tell about rattlesnakes five and six 
feet long and “as big around as a man’s leg.” In all our 
experience the largest measurement we have obtained from 
fresh specimens was 42 inches; in this instance the girth was 
just four inches, which is rather less than in some shorter 
examples we have seen. We refer here to the Crotalus luci- 
fer of the Pacific Slope of Los Angeles and San Bernardino 
Counties. Doubtless the desert and San Diego County rat- 
tlers, which are of different species, do attain greater length. 
But snakes look bigger to most people than they really are! 
Then too, some people base their statements on the measure- 
ments of skins. Now a three foot rattler will produce a 
skin, when stretched and tanned, four and one-half feet 
long! We do not doubt that four-footers of our species do 
exist though we haven’t found that size yet ourselves. But 
we want the chance to apply the yard stick to larger ones, 
for our own satisfaction.” 
“During all three summers we found rattlers actually 
abundant along the upper Santa Ana between Seven Oaks 
and Big Meadows (5,000 to 6,800 feet altitude); also in 
the lower Fish creek cafion (6,500 to 7,000 feet), and on 
the south face of Sugarloaf up to 6,800 feet. We ran across 
fully thirty individuals in that neighborhood in the summer 
of 1906. Most of these were on the cafion bottom near the 
willow or rose thickets, though some were along the trail 
that wound through the sage, in places a hundred yards or 
more from the stream. The line of cienagas running up 
the south base of Sugarloaf appeared to be a favorite resort 
for rattlesnakes, doubtless due to the abundance of gophers 
and meadow mice there. 
