78 BULLETIN 114, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



making a great noise in crawling over the dry leaves, and were soon 

 found in the open." Van Denburgh (1897, 171-2) says "The black 

 and white king snake is most abundant where the country is covered 

 with chaparral and where small streams are numerous.' ' Grinnell 

 and Grinnell (1907, 41), reporting for Los Angeles County, California, 

 say "it is one of our least common snakes," and that they have 

 "met with it only in the upland regions bordering the foot hills." 

 That it occurs in the foot hills, along streams and small canyons 

 throughout its range, and not in the high mountains and on the open 

 deserts, seems evident from the material at hand and the few references 

 in the literature. 



Its disposition Hallowell reports (1859, 14) as "timid, always 

 endeavoring to escape its pursurers." Van Denburgh (1897, 172) 

 says "it is usually very gentle, but sometimes fights its captor most 

 fiercely, rarely however, being able to draw blood v/ith its small teeth." 



Concerning its food the last-named author (1897, 172) writes 

 "I have twice found it swallowing the contents of quails' nests, and 

 once observed one crawling along the ground and looking up into the 

 bushes for nests of small birds. Several times v/hile I watched, its 

 quick eyes detected nests 3 or 4 feet above it, but although the snake 

 immediately climbed up to these, it did not obtain a meal, for the 

 nests which it examined had been abandoned by their builders or 

 robbed by some earlier comer. 



"While I was watching a man spade up a small plot of ground, 

 he killed two gophers (TJiomomys) and threw them a few feet away. 

 A few minutes later a snake of this species appeared, went directly 

 to the spot where the gophers lay side by side, and swallowed first 

 the adult and then the half-grown one. It took no notice of our 

 presence, and after completing its hearty meal disappeared in the 

 direction whence it had come." 



A specimen in the collection of the University of California is pre- 

 served in the act of swallowing a rattlesnake about 2 feet long. 



So far as known, therefore, hoylii, in disposition, food, and habitat 

 preferences, is very much like getulus, the only other member of the 

 group that is at all well knov/n. 



Range. — This form is knov/n from Cape San Quintin and San Pedro 

 Martir Mountain in Lower California, north in California to the 

 forty-first parallel, and thence southeastward across western and 

 southern Nevada and southwestern Utah to the latitude of Phoenix 

 in Arizona. It appears to be generally distributed throughout the 

 range, except for the driest deserts and the mountains above 5,000 

 feet. Altitudes at which specimens have been taken are frequently 

 recorded on the accompanying labels and in the literature. The 

 highest records are for 4,500 feet; one specimen was taken by !Mr. 

 Frank Stephens in the Providence Mountains, California, and another, 



