172 THE HERPETOLOGY OF CUBA. 



This is the most common member of the genus in Cuba and the most widely 

 distributed. It occurs from Cabo San Antonio to Cabo Maisi but usually in 

 the lowlands or in the less elevated limestone ranges. About Guane and the 

 Valley of Luis Lazo it is called La Iguana de la Sierra, not because it is really 

 confined to the Sierras thereabouts but because the peasants beUeve that the 

 sounds heard by night from the hills and really the tinkling voices of the Ranitas 

 (Eleutherodactylus) are made by these hzards which live in or have retired to 

 the Sierras to pass the night. About Matanzas the same sounds are attributed 

 to the Coronel {Anolis lucius). Generally L. cubensis is most abundant about 

 the edges of cane-fields and in the guarda rayas which divide them. They are 

 extremely abundant in the Botanical Gardens in Havana and on railway em- 

 bankments near Camaguey, where one may find, we beUeve, the largest speci- 

 mens on the island. The tail is very often carried curled, but sometimes only 

 for the distal third or fourth as in the other species of the genus and less tightly 

 and less constantly than in L. carinatus. 



This species has been widely known as L. vittatus (Hallowell) but as Stejneger 

 notes (Proc. U. S. N. M., 53, p. 273) the name Leiocephalus cubensis Gray is 

 applicable to this species and is ear her. 



47. Leiocephalus raviceps Cope. 

 Plate 10, fig. 4. 



Diagnosis: — A small curled-tailed hzard having but two pairs of prefrontals, 

 the posterior pair conspicuously enlarged. 



Description: — Adult M. C. Z. 10,928. Eastern Cuba. Charles Wright. 

 (A cotype from U. S. N. M. 4,162). 



Upper head-scales large, bi- or tricarinate or rugose; nasal widely in con- 

 tact with rostral; supraorbital series broadly in contact; six or seven supra- 

 oculars, rather strap-like, separated from the supraorbitals by a series of small 

 scales; two pairs of parietals in a row, the outer pair slightly the larger; sides 

 of neck pUcate covered with rather small, rounded, keeled and imbricate scales; 

 dorsal scales small, about twenty-one or twenty-two corresponding to length 

 of head, heavily keeled, very sUghtly mucronate and strongly imbricate, the 

 series of keels turning slightly toward the median Une; ventrals decidedly 

 larger than dorsals, smooth, rounded, broader than long; the adpressed hind 

 limb reaches almost to the eye; tail slightly compressed with but a trace of a 

 caudal crest. 



