SYSTEMATIC ACCOUNT OF THE SPECIES. 181 



Amphisbaenidae. 



52. Cadea blanoides Stejneger. 



Plate 15, fig. 1. 



Culebrita ciega. 



Diagnosis: — A thick, rather short, eyeless, legless lizard. In colour ashy 

 gray washed with a rosy pink iridescence and with small darker spots. It is 

 noteworthy in having no lateral Une. 



Description: — Adult M. C. Z. 7,934. Cuba: San Diego de los Banos, 

 March, 1910. Thomas Barbour. 



Snout rather acute, rounded at the tip, projecting very sUghtly beyond 

 lower jaw; rostral medium, rectangular, higher than broad, forming a long 

 suture with prefrontal; prefrontal single, large, longer than broad, roofing the 

 snout; two long narrow frontals, followed by two pairs of small squarish occi- 

 pitals; eye almost invisible; an elongate supraocular reaching forward to the 

 nasal; three upper labials, first veiy small, second very large, third medium; 

 mental squarish, followed by a long postmental, three lower labials, first small, 

 other two very large; annuh, dorsal, 221, annuU, ventral, 182; annuli on tail, 

 dorsal, seventeen; annuh on tail, ventral, fourteen; an annulus about the mid- 

 dle of the body contains thirty-three segments; dorsal segments oval, ventral 

 rectangular, broader than long; no lateral Une; anal segments eight; praeanal 

 pores, eight. 



Colour (in hfe) : — Gray with a flesh colom-ed or peach-blow bloom or 

 iridescence ; most of the dorsal segments with a dark central spot. 



Dimensions: — Total length 224 mm. 



Vent to tip of tail 17 mm. 



This is the species which has figiu-ed for many years in the Uterature as 

 Amphisbaena punctata Bell. Stejneger (Proc. Biol. soc. Wash., 1916, 29, p. 85) 

 has shown that it is, first, not an Amphisbaena and also that Gray was entirely 

 justified in making the genus Cadea to include it. He also points out that 

 Amphisbaena punctata Bell, 1828, is preoccupied by A. punctata Wied, 1825, and he 

 substituted the specific name blanoides, by authority of one of the least justified 

 canons of the International zoological code of nomenclatm-e. Certainly Cadea 

 punctata would not be confused with Amphisbaena punctata if the two names 

 were in present use. 



