SYSTEMATIC ACCOUNT OF THE SPECIES. 183 



Since this was wTitten any doubt which may have existed as to the accuracy 

 of the data regarding the locality of the types of tliis species has been removed, 

 for Messrs. Brooks and Warner captured a fine adult at McKinley, Island of 

 Pines, in March, 1917. Later during 1918 the senior author and Mr. W. S. 

 Brooks took a very large series, every one a typical palirostraia; it was also 

 found abundantly in several locaUties in the Island of Pines, namely La 

 Ceiba, Santa Barbara, and McKinley. These were found when the fields 

 were ploughed. The senior author also found several blanoides by following 

 ploughs on the plantation of Mr. Shaler Williams at Caimito del Guayabal, 

 near the town of Guanajay. Thus it is evident that each of these species is 

 peculiar to its original locaUty and some unknown cause has given rise to their 

 surprising differentiation into full species, whereas most of the Island of Pines 

 forms are but iU-defined local races. 



53. Amphisbaena cubana Peters. 



Plate 15, fig. 2. 



Culebrita ciega. 



Diagnosis: — A rather small and slender, blind, legless Uzard with a lateral 

 line on each side separating the dorsal from the ventral scutation. In colour, 

 brown uniform or dotted. 



Description: — Adult M. C. Z. 7,936. Cuba: Soledad near Cienfuegos, 

 February, 1910. Thomas Barbour. 



Rostral small, triangular, barely visible from above; prefrontals long, 

 the suture between them much longer than the one between the frontals; ocular 

 fused with second supralabial (as is invariably the case in oiu- Cuban series), 

 postocular rather large and squarish; a well-developed diamond-shaped tem- 

 poral; eye plainly visible; a pair of occipitals almost square, in contact behind 

 the frontals; three supralabials, first small, the second ehormous since it in- 

 cludes the ocular, third medium sized; three lower labials, the first and third 

 small, the second very large indeed; mental followed by a large median post- 

 mental diminishing in breadth anteroposterior ly ; behind the postmental and 

 between the enormous second sublabials are two large oval shields including 

 three small scales, one ahead and two behind, between them ; these followed by 

 five ventral contom- scales between the malars which are set just inside of the 

 third infralabial, and which are also broadly in contact with the second infra- 



