80 THE HERPETOLOGY OF CUBA. 



ramsdeni, while they are related to each other, have no close affinity with any 

 Bufo anywhere. The single Hyla is decidedly similar to H. dominicensis of Haiti 

 or H. brunnea of Jamaica. Upon Jamaica, however, another very peculiar 

 Hyla, H.lichenata, is found with a possible ally, H. vasta, in Haiti; and there, 

 still a third species, H. pulchrilineata, occurs mth affinities to H. eximia of 

 Mexico, H. andersonii of the white cedar swamps of the eastern United States 

 and so to H. arborea of Europe. The beautiful little Phyllobates is the only 

 species of its genus which is not found upon the mainland, except for P. trini- 

 tatis which is probably not congeneric. The Eleutherodactyh, six in number, 

 embrace four which are peculiar to the island. These four might be said per- 

 haps to be rather more like mamland than Antillean t jqjes ; E. ricordii, however, 

 is fomid in the Bahamas and Florida, having appeared there recently, and E. 

 auriculatus is more conamon in Haiti and Porto Rico than it is in Cuba, its type- 

 locaUty. 



Among the reptiles Deiroptyx and ChamaeleoUs are modifications of an 

 Anolis-like stock, probably Anolis itself. Monotypic and confined to Cuba, 

 they suggest that they have evolved rather recently, in spite of their great 

 divergence from AnoUs; for they have never spread elsewhere. Cricolepis, 

 also monotypic, tells a different tale, for, although it too is peculiar to Cuba, it 

 belongs to an archaic group which persists with but few species, ahnost all of 

 which are rare and confined to extremely restricted habitats. The Norops is 

 very like the continental species, and no other of the genus is found among the 

 Antilles. The Celestus, the Cyclura, the four LeiocephaU, and many of the 

 species of AnoUs are truly West Indian; that is, they belong to groups which 

 appear to have evolved themselves upon the greater Antillean land area of 

 which the West Indies are now the disrupted remnants. To this category 

 belong several of the SphaerodactyU, S. notatus, picturaius, elegans, cinereus, 

 nigropundatus, which are alUed to corticolus of the Bahamas, leaving only S. 

 torrei of the Cuban species without close relations outside of Cuba or occm-ring 

 elsewhere among the islands. As a matter of fact, S. torrei is very possibly 

 derived from some elegansAike ancestor, perhaps from elegans itself, and since 

 elegans does not appear in eastern Cuba, although it is found in Haiti, it is possi- 

 ble that it really represents elegans thus modified in Oriente; for torrei seems to 

 be found in Oriente only, the one province of Cuba from which elegans is wanting. 

 It is perhaps more probably related to decor atus of the Bahamas. The Taren- 

 tola is an enigma; supposedly entirely confined to Cuba, it has been found 

 recently in the Bahamas, upon Exuma, and being retiring and hard to find it 



