222 SPHAERODACTYLUS. 



exact reverse is the case in the West Indies and while we are not constrained to 

 lay any very great stress upon the evidence of Sphaerodactylus as bearing a 

 relation to the past geographic changes in the region, it is only fair to point out 

 that the distribution is not at aU haphazard. The species are generally well 

 defined by long isolation and bear evidence that no frequent interbreeding by 

 the arrival of fresh stock through flotsam and jetsam has taken place. This is as 

 evident on little Navassa, for example, where the species population must be 

 very small, as upon Cuba where it is numberless. It is, therefore, reasonable 

 and conservative to state that with the exception of notatus (which has obviously 

 been carried about and by the condition in the Bahamas as yet very incompletely 

 known), the distribution of the Antillean sphaerodactyls bears no evidence within 

 itself of being the result of fortuitous dispersal. While sphaerodactyls are not 

 recorded from certain islands, e.g. Saba, Redonda, Nevis, the Turks and Caicos 

 Archipelagos, it should be strongly emphasized that these islands are as yet very 

 imperfectly known and there is no reason to suppose that the genus will not be 

 found to occur, especially in the northeastern Lesser Antilles. 



The majority of the species are found more abundantly upon the coastal 

 plain of the various islands than in the interior highlands. Dense forest appears 

 to offer a less suitable environment than open, cultivated, and inhabited lands. 

 Nevertheless, while collectmg Peripatus near the Cuna Cuna Pass in the Blue 

 Mountains of Jamaica, I found Sphaerodactylus goniorhynchus abundantly under 

 rotten logs to the very summit, but neither argus nor richardsonii was ever seen. 

 Some species have found that human habitations offer so safe and favorable an 

 environment that now they are rarely seen in other situations. Thus elegans and 

 cinereus occur in great abundance behind pictures on the wall, behind and in 

 furniture, in chinks and crannies of walls and wpinscoting and in similar places 

 far more often, certainly probably in the ratio of one hundred to one as compared 

 with the number of individuals now living out of doors. The fact that so many 

 species prefer lowland to highland habitat and some indeed even frequent the 

 windrows of pebbles and seaweed at high-tide mark, makes it the more remark- 

 able that all the species are so definitely fixed in their distribution. 



Little of interest can be written regarding the habits of creatures which live 

 such colourless hves. They are, of course, harmless though one cannot persuade 

 many West Indian natives that this is so. Their beauty of form, of skin, and of 

 movement is very great. The integument of many species has a peculiar and 

 beautifully silky quality in life and the eyes of these little creatures gUsten like 

 tiny jewels. They move about with funny little gliding jerks and pass readily 



