NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 495 



Japan. 



No turtles were collected at Japan, and it is to be regretted that we have 

 no specimen of the Megalobatrachus among the Batrachians. For a fine figure 

 of the latter, see the Fauna Japonica, and for the plates of Trionyx and Einys, 

 the Abbildungen of Prof. Schlegel. 



SAURIANS. 



AUTOSACRIANS . 



Sub. Fam. Autosaures coelodontes D. & B. 



Leiodactyles. 



Gen. Tachydeomps Daud. 



Tachydkomus sexlixeatus D. & B. Five specimens. 



The ground color of four of these specimens above, is uniform brown, inter- 

 spersed with small black spots ; in the remaining one, green, the superior 

 lateral vitta bordered inferiorly with black. During life, dark coppery brown ; 

 below white, like white lead. W. S. 



Habitat. Simoda, Japan, Island of Niphon, May, 1855. Common among 

 grass in lowlands. W. S. 



Tachydromds japo> t icus D. & B. Three specimens. 



Erpet. Gen. torn. v. p. 161. 



Habitat. Ousima, Japan. Caught May, 1855, by Mr. Stimpson. 



Scisrcms. 

 Plestiodon D. & R. 



There is, in the collection of Com. Rodgers, but one specimen of five-lined 

 Plestiodon, which, both by Prof. Schlegel and Dumeril & Bibron, have been 

 considered identical with the Plestiodon quinquelineatus of the U. S. 

 Prof. Schlegel states that he had before him two complete suites of the North 

 American and Japanese species, composed each of thirty individuals of all 

 ages, the one collected at Japan, by MM. de Si'ebold and Biirger, the other by 

 Prof. Trout, upon the banks of the Tennessee river. The examination of this 

 large number of specimens proved to him that there existed not the slightest 

 difference between these individuals, brought from points of the globe so distant 

 the one from the other, although situated under nearly the same parallel. 

 (Fauna Japonica, Reptilia, p. 99.) 



Dumeril & Bibron say, that having examined two of the Japanese speci- 

 mens, the North American species exists also in Japan. (Erpet. Gen. torn. v. 

 p. 710.) The most striking difference that we observe in the single speci- 

 men before us, consists in the presence in the one from Japan, of a plate 

 above the anterior frenal, which is wanting in all the others ; this doubling 

 may be, and probably is, an accident, and an abnormal division of the anterior 

 frontal plate. There are, also, but twenty-four rows of scales in the Japanese 

 specimen. The coloration of the specimens from these different localities 

 is very much alike, except that the vertebral line does not bifurcate 

 upon the head in that from Japan. The fronto-nasals are not in contact, 

 but in some of the North American specimens this is the case, in others 

 not. We have always doubted, notwithstanding the high authority of 

 the authors quoted, the absolute identity of species so remote. Since 

 the above was written, another specimen has been placed in our hands, 

 in which there "is no naso-frenal, only two frenals, an anterior and a poste- 

 rior, and there is a difference in the number of rows of scales, there being 

 twenty-seven in the Japanese, and thirty-two in the North American. In a 

 specimen from South Carolina, presented by Dr. Blanding to the Academy, 

 there are thirty-two rows : in one from the Loo-Choo Islands, by Dr. Joseph 



I860.] 



