REVISION OF THE KING SNAKES. 225 



A specimen kept in captivity by the writer ate an adult ThamTwphis 

 hutleri, coiling about it in true constrictor style. 



Range. — Occurs throughout the State of California except in the 

 deserts. A fine large specimen from Callahan, Siskiyou County 

 (California Academy of Sciences, no. 36062), constitutes the most 

 northern record; San Diego is the most southern locality. A speci- 

 men in the collection of the Field Museum of Chicago (no. 1426) 

 from Mount Whitney in Inyo County proves its occurrence east of 

 the Sierra Nevada. It is found at greater elevations than any other 

 form of the genus (Hot Springs, Long Canyon, Mount Whitney, 

 8,000 feet; Strawberry Valley, San Jacinto Mountains, 6,000 feet; 

 Lyth Crick, San Bernardino Mountains, 6,000 feet; Santa Ana 

 River, San Bernardino Mountains, 5,600 feet; San Jacinto Mountains, 

 5,400 feet; King River Canyon, Fresno County, 5,000 feet; Yosemite 

 Valley, 5,000 and 4,000 feet; San Bernardino Mountains, 4,000 feet). 



In addition to the localities included in the list of specimens 

 examined. Van Denburgh (1893, 169) records Santa Barbara; Soquel, 

 Santa Cruz, and Glenwood, in Santa Cruz County; Hodgdon's, 

 Tuolumne County; Heaven's Gate, near Little Kern Lake, Tulare 

 County. Grinnell (1908, 165) records a specimen from Cedar Cabin, 

 at about 5,500 feet in the San Bernardino Mountains. 



Variation. — ^The different scale formulae, as shown by the table, 

 are numerous. Little can be said about their geographic variation, 

 except to note indications of higher averages in the Sierra Nevada 

 and lower averages in western California. But between the sexes 

 a decided difference is observable. Reference to the table of scale 

 formulae wall show that the highest formulae are not reached by 

 the males, and that, in this sex, there are usually only 17 rows at 

 the posterior end of the body, while in females there are 19; the 

 few of the latter that do have 17 at the end fail to reach 23 at the 

 middle of the body. Therefore from the scale formulae alone one 

 may make a close guess as to the sex. 



The numbers of ventrals and annuli are likcAvise unsatisfactory 

 from a geographic standpoint, but the indications are in much the 

 same sense as the scale rows. While but little difference is noticeable 

 between eastern California and Los Angeles County, there is sugges- 

 tion of decrease in both in the northwest. And in this connection 

 it may be remarked that the most heavily pigmented individuals 

 come from the Sierra Nevada, and the least from western and north- 

 western California. One specimen from Santa Clara County has but 

 23 white rings, and the pairs of black ones are separated by wide 

 intervals of red. In fact individuals from this region seem generally 

 to have the red in complete rings, and there is sometimes a develop- 

 ment of red in the prefrontal region. 



