IV INTRODUCTION. 



Those specimens which have been presented to the Museum 

 have the name of the donor marked immediately after the ha- 

 bitat. When there is no such indication, the specimens have 

 been either purchased or procured in exchange ; and in this 

 case, whenever the place or person from whom they have been 

 received gives authenticity to the specimen, or adds anything 

 of moment to their history, they are noted as being from such 

 or such a collection or person. 



Great care has been taken to use the generic and specific 

 names first given to the gToup or species, and a reference has 

 been made to the works in which the genera and species have 

 been described and figured, and in most instances the dates of 

 publication of the works referred to have been added. 



I may here remark that the names quoted from the * Schema 

 Systematis,' attached to Fitzingers ' Sy sterna Reptilium,' 

 1843, 8vo, where the name and the type of each genus is 

 given, are without characters, as the genera of lizards are 

 alone characterized in that work. I have nevertheless used 

 his name when I have considered it requisite to form a group 

 of any of the types mentioned, rather than overburthen the 

 science with other names. A list of the families and genera, 

 but without the types and the subgenera and their types, 

 which alone renders the list of any avail, is printed in Dume- 

 ril and Bibrons Erp. Generate, vi. 61, 1844, as extracted 

 from a MSS. work which they entitle ' Conspectus Systematis 

 Ophidiorum.' 



I was not aware of Filzinger's publication when the other 

 part of this Catalogue was published, or I should have re- 

 ferred to it and used his names instead of the new ones I 

 introduced. 



