198 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



Clara (Los Gates, San Jose, Palo Alto), San Francisco, 

 Alameda (Haywards, Oakland), Marin (Tamalpais), 

 Sonoma (Petaluma), Lake (Kelseyville), Mendocino, 

 Shasta (McCloud River), and Siskiyou (Mt. Shasta) 

 Counties. 



Habits. — The Gopher or Bull Snake is the largest as 

 well as one of the most abundant of Californian serpents. 

 Individuals more than six feet long are not rarely found. 

 These are usually very gentle and show little resent- 

 ment even when roughly handled. The younger snakes, 

 however, sometimes strike very fiercely, but of course 

 harmlessly. This snake shares with many others the 

 curious habit of rapidly vibrating the tip of its tail when 

 excited; an action which sometimes, when the tail hap- 

 pens to strike upon dry leaves or grass, produces a sound 

 not unlike the warning whir of the rattlesnake. Its 

 food, so far as is known, consists of small mammals, of 

 which gophers are said to form a large part. 



64. — Pituophis catenifer deserticola Stejneger. Desert 

 Gopher Snake. 



Pityophis sai/i bellona, Cope, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XIV, 1891, p. 



641 (part). 

 Pituophk cateuifcr deserticola, Stejneger, N. A. Fauna, No. 7, 1893, 



p. 206 (type locality Great Basin and southwestern deserts). 



Description. — I have seen no specimens of this '' richly- 

 colored form from the Great Basin and southwestern 

 deserts, which agrees with true P. catenifer in having a 

 broad and low rostral. * -^ ^ As a general rule this form 

 has a more pronounced carination of the scales and a less 

 number of smooth scales on the sides, but this character 

 cannot be relied upon at all, and whether a specimen 

 shall be referred to either typical P . catenifer or to this 

 desert form must be decided upon the totality of the 

 characters, as a reliance upon the carination leads to 

 very erroneous results." 



