CHANGES IN FAUNA AND FLORA. 97 



the species of Eutaiuia, otherwise so universally distributed, 

 are not often met with ; the rattlesnake has, however, dis- 

 tinctly gained ground. 



The population consists chiefly of the owners of large 

 tracts of land, most of them in easy circumstances, and 

 employing a good deal of manual labor in orchards and 

 vineyards. The farmers keep some cows and horses on 

 their premises or a neighboring hillside, but the region can 

 hardly be called a grazing country. 



The professional sportsman or pot-hunter rarely visits the 

 district, but boj s and dogs of roaming disposition abound, 

 and account in some measure for the diminished number of 

 eagles, hawks and owls. 



Let us now consider the causes which have led to the 

 increase of so very undesirable a neighbor as Crotalus luci- 

 fer. 



First. — The protection given to it by the nature of the 

 country; the inaccessible hillsides and uninhabited upland 

 abounding in gopher and squirrel holes of the Contra Costa, 

 and the impenetrable thickets of chapparal in the Coast 

 Range. These conditions change oi\\j very slowly with the 

 settlement of the districts. 



Second. — Destruction of its natural enemies. 



There are very few persons carrying a gun who can resist 

 the temptation of killing an eagle, a hawk or an owl, and 

 many of them are probably ignorant of the fact that by so 

 doing they preserve a rattlesnake or even a whole brood of 

 them. Eagles and hawks will, I know, occasionally help 

 themselves to a chicken or a young turkey, but their war- 

 fare is usually directed more against gophers, squirrels, 

 snakes, etc., avoiding as long as possible the dangerous 

 vicinity of the hencoop with its hysterically noisy inmates 

 and attendant shot-gun. 



2d Ser. Vol. I. Issued Feb. 28, 1888. 



