Cape Region of Loiver California. g^ 



no time in contracting with the laborers for a general assortment 

 of reptiles, scorpions, centipedes, tarantulas, etc. About half of 

 the species I got from La Paz, came from that garden of two or 

 three acres, and among these was a lizard, an individual, which 

 Dr. Yarrow described under the name of Crotaphytus copei, and 

 which is the only specimen of its kind, as I did not find it else- 

 where. The reptile crop of that garden was prodigous, though I 

 took only a small part of it, as I wanted only a few individuals of 

 .each species. 



Probably it was about an average yield for that part of the pen- 

 insula. One day while at the garden, I lay down by the side of 

 the cabin to rest, using a saddle that lay there for a pillow. After 

 sleeping a few minutes, I arose, and soon after found a large Dia- 

 mond rattlesnake coiled beneath it. I was not greatly startled by 

 the discovery as I had previously been, on more than a dozen oc- 

 casions, within the striking distance of rattlesnakes, without their 

 attempting to harm me. Mayor Pond, of San Francisco, had 

 about such an experience as the above, when we were fishing on 

 the Stanislaus River, a few years ago, except that his pillow was 

 a trout basket, and his snake did not remain until he finished his 

 sleep. 



Our revolutionary forefathers were evidently acquainted with 

 this reptile, as they placed the figure of one on their fiag with the 

 motto, "don't tread on me or I will bite " Rarely, however, an 

 individual will behave in an unaccountable manner. One that I 

 met with in the mountains of Pennsylvania, when a boy, has been 

 a life long puzzle to me, and I have never been able to decide if it 

 was trying to '• charm " me or if I charmed it. As I shot its head 

 off, and dimmed its piercing, glistening eyes forever, after it had 

 steadily, slowly and silently approached to within three feet of me, 

 its impulses can never be known. Perhaps it was a " crank." I 

 use the word crank with much hesitation, for since the death of 

 the criminal Guiteau, I have heard it used in various connec- 

 tions. 



A single example will sufficiently explain why I hesitate to ap- 

 ply the name to a dead rattlesnake. When I w^as in Sierra Val- 

 ley, in the summer of 1885, I enquired about a distinguished 

 botanist, of whom I had often heard but had never met, and a 

 lumberman said he was a crank, giving as a reason for the asser- 

 tion, that ' ' he did nothing but go about the mountains gathering 

 weeds." This man was like a few more of our enterprising people, 

 who think the chief object of life is to gather dollars and cents, and 

 surround themselves with "gew gaws." (A friend who resides in 

 this town, tells me *'a great many people in San Diego have the 

 Natural History Craze.") 



Besides the specimens obtained in the garden, I increased the 

 number of species by visiting all sorts of places, and by the middle 

 of March, 1 was happy in the behef that I had nearly duplicated 



