Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Found this at my parents house. My dad bought it for me at Camp Curry in the Yosemte Valley circa 1966.

I wish I still had mt old Stebbins Feild guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians. It were stolen out of storage about 15 years ago in California. Lost a lot of cool reptile related pics and books. If I only knew how valuable those would have been to me I would have kept them with me instead of putting them in storage.

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TomsSnakes.com

I had that one too. I made my first snake noose copying the one in that book. How exciting it was being a kid and pouring over that book again and again hoping to see many of those herps someday.

rainer
my first field guide was conant's, when i was in third grade. i still have it somewhere. it made me laugh to see that you noted the gila on the back cover as "venomous"...i used to make notes like that in my field guide... what snakes i had found, which ones i'd been bitten by, on and on. lots of good memories there.
daveb

I had notes on what snakes were feeding on what items... I specifically remember jotting down the first time one of my s. ringnecks took anole eggs...it hadn't been noted before..
Jeesh! I was allowed to have indigos back then! Talk about feeling old! Now hatching those great animals when you're like 10 yrs. old is a great feeling.
I also copied that cage the Cal king is in many times. Some of my first cages were like that.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

all we would find were garters, northern browns and water snakes. we would keep the garters and browns, and let the water snakes go (meanmeanmean). as long as we could find worms to feed the snakes we'd keep them. once the worms ran out we let them go. once i found a ringneck and a smooth green, but they were so small i just let them go.
the best times were when we would catch an eastern milk, the holy grail in our area and era. someone would get us to the mall pet shop to buy a mouse. everyone in the neighborhood would come to see the milk do its thing. there's only so many times back in the day that we could get a ride to get a mouse so after a short bit the easterns were released, too.
those were some good days. too short, too few, but as good as it gets.
daveb

Haha, I was born in 1984 and I remember taking that book out of the public library when I was a kid...repeatedly...

LOL! Yes!! That is the exact same one I had and my first field guide as well!! For years, I have been looking for it, and I know I misplaced it somewhere around here.
Very cool.
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Genesis 1:1

I think I had that same one too! If it describes the Indigo as a “shiny, midnight-blue fast racer” or something like that, then that’s the one. I think it showed a bullsnake constricting two things at once in a burrow? It would have been since about 1968, so memory is a bit sketchy, but I literally memorized the entire thing and wore it out. I know I lost the cover at some point, which is why it is hard to remember exactly, but just seeing that thing really jogged my memory. $1.25- but I say PRICELESS!!!

OMG!- I just realized there was more to your post than the cover! Yes that’s the one for sure. I swear it might bring a tear to my eye to flip the pages on that thing! I forgot about the range maps for each. Wow. Thanks for the post.

No one else in my elementary school ever saw that book because I had it checked out (from the library there) from day one.
Gotta love those cheesy drawings.. Snakes almost look like they have smiles..
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

that was my first feild guide too! tho mine was a more recent edition (1987)

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1.1 cal kings
1.0 rat snake

Wow!!!!.........you guys won't believe this,.....but I'm "thumbing" through those very same pages in my "vintage" field guide from yesteryear RIGHT NOW!!!!......anybody remember the old "Ross Allen" books from the 60's and 70's????......what about the book that had the dad showing his boy "Timmy" how a milksnake suckled on cow udders!!!, and the "whoopsnake" rolling down-hill!!!.........this is great stuff!!!...............Doug
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Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!

I'll trade ya an "Adventures with Reptiles" for a "Cobra's In His Garden"...

Here's a real vintage, with the nice cover too. It's from 1969, list price was $3.19!!!

I bought my first tongs from him (and the "Don't kill snakes" bumper sticker, I wish I still had that too!)

What an old "classic"!!, so which elementary school did you steal that from!!!!(LOL).............I've got some "super old" slides from "Ross Allen's Reptile Institute".....I will NEVER forget when I saw a closeup picture of his hand after being bitten by a huge "Diamondback"!!!!......It was wrinkled, and "bluish/gray",......it looked like it was taken from a "corpse" that had been dead for a couple weeks!!!!!!..I can picture that like it was yesterday, and it must have been back around 1969 or so......what fun memories!!(LOL)..........Doug
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Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!

Ha ha very funny. How dare you suggest such a thing (Freedom High School) Am I the ONLY one with a couple of snake books with 598.1 written on the spine? Hey we're getting off the subject here. Very nice of you to start this thread bluerosy!