264 SPHAERODACTYLUS. 



Diagnosis: — Large having rather large but very bluntly keeled dorsals, a 

 middorsal granular zone, about nine dorsals equal to distance of tip of snout 

 from centre of eye; spotted. 



Description: — Taken from the largest Cotype. Snout rounded; ej'e about 

 midway between ear and tip of snout; rostral very wide but shallow with the 

 usual median groove; nostril between rostral, first supralabial, a medium sized 

 supranasal and two small scales; two fairly large scales border the rostral be- 

 tween the two supranasals; third supralabial, a very long one, reaches to below 

 the centre of the eye; superciliary spine well developed; head above and on sides 

 covered with small slightly elongate scales, somewhat enlarged and flattened on 

 the snout; scales of back large, bluntlj^ keeled, showing a slight tendency to 

 imbricate about nine scales in the distance equal to that between tip of snout and 

 middle of eye ; a middorsal zone of small granular scales which is very narrow 

 and best developed posteriorly; mental large, deeper than rostral; one very large 

 and several smaller infralabials ; no well distinguished chin-shields; scales of 

 chest and belly smooth; tail long slender with enlarged plates below. 



Colour: — Light tan-brown with spots and spots joined into streaks of 

 darker brown; throat nearly white, belly pale gray-brown. 



Remarks: — Garman collected the types and it was beyond doubt the 

 opportunity to observe Antillean reptiles in life which the Blake Expeditions 

 gave him that resulted in his learning that the fauna of each island is generally 

 distinct through isolation. Earlier writers down to Giinther and even Boulenger 

 in his earlier years had believed that species had a wide and more or less hap- 

 hazard range throughout the Island chain. Garman first showed that most 

 species were confined to single islands or groups of islands closely related geo- 

 logically. 



30. Sphaerodactylus becki Schmidt. 

 Plate 23, fig. 5-8. 

 Sphaerodaclylus becki Schmidt, Bull. Amer. mus. nat. liist., 1919, 41, p. 520. 



Type-locality: — Navassa. 



