634 12. BOID& 



Habits. 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, 1 9 1 7, 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, 191 8, 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. In a few days we captured a live white-foot mouse 



