504 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NA TURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV III. 



A' 



^ 



* .r In the slow worm the tooth 



/wT7w\. i'.'lw * n P r °fi^ e i s seen to project 



/ Sjt/ U wA. H more than in the snake. It 



**" T also has a very decided in- 



f\g j r-v>~, clination downwards, where- 



Y y' A as in the snake there is little 



p- 3 or no such inclination. The 



shape of the tooth is very 

 different in the two crea. 

 £ a tures. In the slow worm 



the cutting edge is chisel- 

 Fig. 1. Roof of anterior part of the mouth of Ophi- ,., , , . ,, , , , 

 ... , . ,_ „ _ ,, ... iiKe.DutiintnesnaKea oroaci 

 saurus gracilis showing the foetal tooth as a white 



speck in the median Une. (Enlarged!. R=rostral. L= shallow deficiency in the 



labials. T=the tooth shown still more enlarged. median line bisects the edge, 



Fig. 2. Aspect of the foetal tooth in profile in Ophisavr an( J renders it bidentate. 



™ gracilis _ The two are shown side by 



Fig. 3. Roof of mouth of Trwpidonotus pisccttor enlarg- 

 ed showing foetal tooth in situ. R=ro s tral. M= side in the accompanying 

 maxilla. T = foetal tooth enlarged. figures. 



I find that the oviparous habit of this lizard is not a new observation, but was 

 elicited by Major G. H. Evans, and reported in this Journal (Vol. XVI, p. 171). 



Ophisaurus gracilis is an extremely common lizard about Shillong, and 

 frequently dislodged, as I understand from my snake collector, when overturning 

 stones. It is a perfectly harmless creature making no attempt to defend 

 itself when grasped, though it strives to evade capture, and often cleverly 

 succeeds where broken ground favours its slippery tactics. 



Like its European ally, its only means of defence appears to lie in the tail, 

 which it very readily detaches, and leaves wriggling in a most uncanny fashion 

 in the grasp of its would-be captor. The length of this appendage is consider- 

 ably greater than the rest of the creature when perfect, but a very large 

 number of specimens are brought in an imperfect condition with stunted tails 

 in various stages of regeneration, or just recently detached. 



It is eminently a denizen of hilly tracts though I notice Boulenger* records 

 it from Eastern Bengal and Rangoon. Evans,f with a very long experience of 

 Burma, and of Rangoon particularly, has never secured a specimen except at 

 altitudes from 2,500 to 5,000 feet. Similarly though it is so common in the 

 Khasi Hills I have not seen or heard of a specimen in the plains of Assam 

 (about Dibrugarh). It is noteworthy too that the Chinese species Ophisanrus 

 hard dessribed and figured by Boulenger in 1899 % was obtained at altitudes 

 varying from 3,000 to 4,000 feet. 



F. WALL, Major, i.m.s., c.m.z.s. 

 Dibrugarh, Assam, October 1907. 



* Fauna, Brit. Ind. Rept. and Batrach., 1890, p. 151. 



t Loc. cit. 



J P. Z. B., p. 160. 



