INTRODUCTION. 



This work contains descriptions of all the reptiles that have 

 been recorded from the islands of the Indo-Australian Archi- 

 pelago, generally known as the Dutch East-Indies, a region, 

 containing all the islands between Sumatra westwards and 

 New Guinea eastwards and including the whole of Borneo, 

 Timor and New Guinea, part of which islands politically belong 

 to other states. Besides, I added a few species from some of 

 the smaller islands eastwards of New Guinea. These species are 

 up till now not yet known from the mainland of this large 

 island, but it is allowed to suppose that they may be found 

 there in a near future, as some other species have already 

 proved to do. 



As a rule the classification used by G. A. BOULENGER in 

 his Catalogues of the Reptiles in the British Museum has been 

 followed here. This author gives complete lists of synonyms, 

 so that it seemed sufficient to me to quote the name of every 

 species, by which it has first been described, followed by the 

 one, used by BoULENGER and which has been accepted by 

 the greater part of the herpetologists. 



At the end of each diagnosis follows the largest known 

 length in millimeters of the species; length of head and body 

 means the distance between the tip of the snout and the vent. 

 A species examined by myself has been indicated by a! behind 

 the name of the locality where it was found. 



A great deal of the described reptiles were examined and 

 compared by me with the existing descriptions in the Amster- 

 dam Museum, which possesses collections from all the different 

 parts of the Indo-Australian Archipelago. The most interesting 

 of these have been named separately here with the names of 

 the collectors: 



from Simaliir, by Mr. E. JACOBSON; 



from Nias, by Dr. J. P. Kleiweg de ZwaaN; 



from Simiatra, by Prof. Max Weber, Dr. L. P. de Bussy, 



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