INTRODUCTION. 221 



upon nrarly every island in the Caribbean area. They are rare in Mexico and 

 Central America and the species are few. Of their distribution in northern 

 South America we know little or nothing. This, considering the collecting which 

 has been done, indicates that thej" are very rare if not absent.^ The two Trini- 

 dadian species, molei and buergeri, are very scarce. Indeed, zoologically Trini- 

 dad is hardly an island, so recent has been its continental connection. No 

 sphaerodactyls have been fomid in the Leeward group composed of Aruba, Buen 

 Aire, and Curasao; nor on Margarita nor yet on Old Providence, St. Andrews, 

 or the Corn Islands, but many of these locations have hardly been touched 

 herpetologically. 



In the Greater Antilles and in the Bahamas as well as in many of the Lesser 

 Antilles of which we can speak with authority, they fairly swarm. Sphaero-- 

 dactylus argus in Jamaica occurs in every native hut on the Luguanea plain about 

 Kingston, under every stone wall, under fallen leaves, and dry vegetable trash 

 in great numbers and other species elsewhere are very common. In general, the 

 species are confined each to a single island; the exceptions occur mostly in the 

 Bahamas. Here many of the islands are but recentlj' separated from each other 

 or human migration may be playing some part. Sphaerodadylus notatus de- 

 serves special mention. This species, first made known from Key West, occurs 

 on most of the Bahamas and on Cuba, the very shghtlj^ ^'arying Haitian indi- 

 viduals have been given a name (difficilis) which is, I think, probably justified. 

 Whereas it had been usually believed that notatus was of purely fortuitous 

 occurrence in the city of Key West, further investigation shows that the species 

 occurs widespread in the Florida Kej^s and upon the mainland in the extreme 

 southern tip of the peninsula of Florida as well. This beyond doubt, is a definite 

 case of chance transportal, but whether by human agency or by the action of 

 wind and wave cannot how be told. Nor is it surprising, for zoogeographers 

 have been inclined to believe that no weight could be given to evidence based on 

 the existing dispersal of small gekkonids and scincids. There is very clear e\Ti- 

 dence among the islands of the Pacific that small lizards of these famiUes have 

 been carried hither and yon beyond doubt, by the wide-sailing Polynesians. In 

 the Pacific Islands, however, one finds the same species widely scattered upon 

 isolated islands distributed far and wide throughout an immense area. The 



' Boulenger (Cat. lizards Brit. mus. 1885, 1, p. 224) records a specimen of what lie calls S.fantaslicus 

 from Caracas. The locality record has never been verified and although the description is in rather vague 

 terms and there is no indication to show whether Boulenger's description was drawn from this specimen 

 or not, it nevertheless reads like fantasticus from Guadeloupe. Boulenger's other specimen listed is 

 from Antigua and is probably eleganlvlus. 



