COPEIA 15 



2. — In the early days of California museums the 

 custom was to label specimens not with the exact lo- 

 cality of origin, but rather with the published habitat 

 or range of the species. 



3. — A short time after Stejneger described 

 Xantusia hcnshaioi, I visited the type locality, at 

 Witch Creek, and obtained three specimens. Some 

 time later Rivers, on seeing these specimens in my 

 office, said: 



"I see you have Xantusia vigilis. I sent a speci- 

 men to Professor Cope." 



4. — Some years later Dr. Frank E. Blaisdell 

 gave me a bottle containing several specimens of Xan- 

 tusia henshawi, collected by himself at Poway, San 

 Diego County, California. These he had labeled 

 Xantusia vigilis and upon my asking where he had 

 gotten that name for them, he said from Mr. Rivers 

 to whom he had given one of the same lot of speci- 

 mens a long time before. 



It therefore seems almost certain that the type 

 of Xantusia picta was collected by Dr. Blaisdell at 

 Poway, San Diego, County, California; that it was 

 sent by Dr. Blaisdell to Mr. Rivers; that it was 

 wrongly identified by Mr. Rivers as Xantusia vigilis 

 and labeled with the habitat of that species ; and that 

 Cope was thus led into error regarding the type local- 

 ity of his supposed new species, Xantusia picta. 



John Van Denburgh, 



San Francisco, Cat. 



A NOTE ON REPTILE COLLECTING. 



Where reptiles are plentiful they are usually col- 

 lected by means of a shotgun. One of the best that 

 I have found for the purpose is built like a pistol, 

 has 2 eighteen-inch, 22 and 44 gage barrels, and uses 

 machine loaded cartridges with fine shot. 



