Vol. XXIV, pp. 219-220 October 31, 1911 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



A NEW RACE OF CHAMELEONS FROM BRITISH 



EAST AFRICA. 



BY THOMAS BARBOUR. 



The receipt of Werner's recent revision of the Chameleons, 

 which has just appeared in Das Tierreich, edited by F. E. 

 Schultze (Lieferung 27, Chamaeleontidae, pages 1-52, August, 

 li'll), was the incentive for a re-examination of the material 

 in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. In a collection made 

 last year by Messrs. Childs Frick and \V. R. Zappey, and 

 kindly presented to the Museum by Mr. Frick, there is a single 

 female which can not be reconciled with any of the published 

 descriptions. It may be known as 



Chamaeleo tenuis excubitor subsp. nov. 



This species agrees in many respects with the characters given by 

 Werner (Zool. Jahrb. syst. 15, 1902, pp. 322 and 385 and 1. c. 1911, pp. 

 7 and 38), for C. tenuis Matschie. Thus it lacks both gular and ventral 

 crests, lias no trace of occipital lobes, has a tail greater in length than 

 that of the body, and lacks knob-like tubercles along the vertebral line. 



Werner records the typical C. tenuis tenuis Matschi from Usambara 

 and Fkami in German East Africa. He remarks that it is a rare species, 

 reaching a maximum size of 168 mm. for the male, and 138 mm. for the 

 female. The type of this new race is a female which is similar to the 

 female of the typical form in lacking the white line along the belly, but 

 distinguished by its larger size and by the different arrangement of its 

 cranial crests, as the following description shows: 



Description. — Casque slightly raised posteriorly with a very indistinct 

 parietal crest; lateral crests, well developed with strong conical tubercles; 

 these lateral creste, instead of extending backwards from the orbit at first 

 in a horizontal direction and then rising directly upward (Werner, 1902, 

 p. 385, pi. 15, middle figure), make a gentle upward curve from the 

 posterior border of the orbit to where they meet at the posterior apex of 

 the well rounded casque. 



41— Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. XXIV, 1911. (219) 



