3-46 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



Catalogues of the REPTILES obtained during the Explorations of the Parana, 

 Paraguay, Vermejo and TJraguay Rivers, by Capt. Thos. J. Page, U. S. N. ; 

 and of those procured by Lieut. N, Michler, TJ. S. Top. Eng., Commander of 

 the Expedition conducting the Survey of the Atrato River. 



BY E. D. COPE. 



I. The Paraguay Collection. 



The expedition commanded by Captain Page, was sent out by the United 

 States Government, during tbe administration of President Fillmore, in the 

 year 1853. It ascended the Parana river, to the mouth of the Paraguay; 

 which stream it explored as far north as Curumba, in Brazil, lat. 19 S. 

 Among the most important points at which observations and collections were 

 made, were La Paz, Corrientes, Abulquerque, and Fort Coimbra, in the Ar- 

 gentine Confederation, and Assuncion and Salvador, in Paraguay. On the 

 return voyage, an expedition ascended the Vermejo River, one hundred and 

 twenty miles. A land expedition across the Paraguayan territory was also 

 made, which reached the banks of the Parana near the island of Iquibe. 



Capt. Page subsequently left Buenos Ayres for Santiago and Tucuman, by 

 an overland route ; from which point he descended the Salado, to Monte de 

 la Cueva de Lobo. Previous to this, he had ascended the Uraguay River to 

 the Salto Grande, lat. 31 lb' S. In 1858, another and less extensive expe- 

 dition left the United States for the La Plata and confluent waters. On this 

 occasion, the vessel commanded by Capt. Page, was the Argentina, vice the 

 Water Witch, which had conveyed the first expeditions. 



The zoological collections made by the naturalists accompanying the expe- 

 ditions, are extensive and valuable. Partial investigations among them have 

 been made, and recorded in appendices to Capt. Page's narrative and statis- 

 tical work, " La Plata, the Argentine Confederation and Paraguay," New 

 York, 1859. Attention is called to some remarks by Dr. Girard, of Washing- 

 ton, on the fish and reptiles, at p. 602. 



Fifty-nine species of reptiles were obtained ; with these and others, we 

 know about seventy species, a sufficient number from which to deduce 

 most of the distinctive features of the reptile fauna of the Paraguay and Par- 

 ana basins : as yet we can obtain but little clue to the extent of its zoological 

 limits. 



Of the seventy species, eighteen (marked (Braz.) in the catalogue) are iden- 

 tical with thoseof the regions drained by the tributaries of the Amazon, and 

 by the eastern Brazilian coast streams. But three are found in the Chilian dis- 

 trict. At least forty have not been discovered out of the region in question. Of 

 these, nineteen are represented by nearly allied species in the Brazilian dis- 

 trict; five, find their closest representatives west of the Andes. The follow- 

 ing genera, so far as is known, are peculiar: Phyllosira, Pbimophis ; Teius, 

 Scartiscus ; Lysapsus, Pyxicephalus, Phryniscus, Scytopis. Heterodon does not 

 occur in any other section of the regio neotropica. We miss the more {Equatorial 

 types Catostoma, Rhinostoma, Tantilla, Spilotes, Herpetodryas, Dryophis, 

 Dipsas, Olisthenes, Brachyrhytum, etc. 



Of the species brought home by the expedition, twenty- five had not been 

 previously known to zoologists. Four of these represent types of genera new 

 to the system, viz. : one ophidian, one lacertilian and two batrachian. 



The preservation of the specimens composing the collections, was under tbe 

 immediate care of Mr. Christopher Wood of Philadelphia. 



Testudinata. 

 Hydraspis hilairii Gray. Dum. Bibr., Erp. Gen., ii. 429. (Braz.) 



[Sept, 



