Malayan Peninsula and Islands. 47 



to produce numerous, distant, transversal bands. The margins of some 

 or all the shields of the head black. Beneath sulphur-coloured. Iris 

 black with a golden circular ring. 

 tj v13IT> — Malayan Peninsula, Pinang, Singapore. 



Var. E., Dumeril and Bibron. 

 Above uniformly shining bronze ; sides in some sprinkled with blood 

 red ; rest like the preceding. 



II a hit. — Same localities. 



Var. F., Dumeril and Bibron. 

 Above uniformly shining bronze ; the anterior half of the sides with 

 a broad blood-red stripe, which in specimens preserved in spirits of 

 wine changes to whitish, or disappears ; the posterior part of the sides 

 of the body and the anterior of the tail in some with scpiare sky-blue 

 spots in the middle of some of the scales ; rest like the preceding. 



Habit. — Same localities. 



These three varieties are exceedingly numerous in the hills and val- 

 leys of the Malayan countries. They may be seen basking in the sun, 

 in bamboo hedges, or on trees, and they fearlessly enter houses in 

 pursuit of insects, in which they display great agility. The female 

 deposits G to 12 yellow white, oval, cylindrical eggs, half an inch 

 in length. Nearly all have on the lower two-thirds of the tail a series 

 of lar<rc scuta. In one individual observed the last two-thirds of the 

 back of the tail was covered with a single series of very broad scales, of 

 which each of the anterior had 15 to 1G keels. In another the tail 

 had been lost near the root, and reproduced by a pyramidal, soft, naked 

 process, § inch long, with circular folds like those of the body of 

 Ichthyophis. — Var. F. appears to exceed the others in size : the largest 

 was of the following dimensions : 



Length of the head, 0| inch. 



Ditto ditto trunk, '. 3f 



Ditto ditto tail, 4f 



Entire length : 8| inch . 



Euprkpis ernestii, Dumeril and Bibron. 



Syn. — Scineus ernestii, Boie, MSS. 



Psammite de Van Ernest, Coctean. 

 Dasia olivacea, Uray : Catal. 



