13. COLUBRID.^ 



small Streams are numerous. It usually is very gentle, but 

 sometimes fights its captor most fiercely, rarely, however, 

 being able to draw blood with its small teeth. I have twice 

 found it swallowing the contents of quails' nests, and once 

 observed one crawling along the ground and looking up 

 into the bushes for nests of small birds. Several times while 

 I watched, its quick eyes detected nests three or four feet 

 above it, but although the snake immediately climbed up 

 to these, it did not obtain a meal, for the nests which it 

 examined had been abandoned by their builders or robbed 

 by some earlier comer. 



While I was watching a man spade up a small plot of 

 ground, he killed two gophers (Thomomys) and threw 

 them a few feet away. A few minutes later a snake of this 

 species appeared, went directly to the spot where the gophers 

 lay side by side, and swallowed first the adult and then the 

 half grown one. It took no notice of our presence, and 

 after completing its hearty meal disappeared in the direc- 

 tion whence it had come. 



Dr. Merriam notes (N. Amer. Fauna No. 7) that several 

 were secured in dense thickets of Atriflex torreyi at Overton, 

 Nevada. About dark they began to emerge from these re- 

 treats, making a great noise in crawling over the dry leaves, 

 and were soon found in the open. 



A specimen preserved in the collection of the University 

 of California, had partially swallowed a rattlesnake about 

 two feet long. Plate 82 shows a Boyle's Milk Snake eating 

 a Coast Gopher Snake which it had just killed. 



