208 THE AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 



of these lizards than anyone else. Using Lygosoma also has the advantage of 

 showing relationship between the few American and the very many Old World 

 slcinks of this group. Mittleman's proposal (1950) of the generic name 

 Sancella has the merit of bringing all the New World forms under a single 

 head, but his conclusions were based upon a study of only a small segment 

 of the genus Lygosoma as a whole. Until someone undertakes an exhaustive 

 review of this difficult group, the name Scincella may best be employed at the 

 subgeneric level, i.e., Lygosoma {Scincella) laterale. For use of the name 

 laterale instead of unicolor see Harper (1942). 



Hobart Smith (1946, map 25) shows that this lizard ranges well west- 

 ward into Oklahoma and to central Texas. The small inset map appearing 

 on page 27 should be altered accordingly. 



Several brown-backed skinks have been collected in the state during the 

 past decade, and these serve to prove that the species, although seldom seen 

 and possibly uncommon, is quite definitely a part of the fauna of Ohio. Only 

 a single specimen (from Hocking County — see page 26) was available for 

 study in 1938. The new records are: 



Scioto County: Nile Twp. (OSM 866); Roosevelt Game Preserve (OSM 903); 

 Bear Lake, Roosevelt Game Preserve (OSM 548) ; Shawnee State Forest (CSNH— 

 2 spec). In addition, the Cincinnati Museum has a specimen (CSNH 2654) from near 

 Rome (Stout P. O.), Adams County, that, because it had b;en temporarily mislaid, 

 was not available for examination while this revisionary manuscript was being prepared. 



Johnson has encountered four of theze ckirks in the field. At Bear Lake, 

 on September 10, 1942, he found a very small specimen at the edge of the 

 spillway from the dam. The adjacent terrain consisted of an open grassy 

 area with a rather sparse oak-hickory woods near-by. He found two others 

 on April 23, 1949, by overturning .stones that were piled up in a row between 

 two overgrov/n fields in the Shawnee Forest. Young sycamore and elm trees 

 were growing in the line of stones and the adjacent fields were covered with a 

 mixture of blue grass, blackberries, sumac, and goldcnrcd. Second grcwth 

 (oak and hickory) w.is at one end of the stone pile. Johnson also took a 

 hatchling in the Roosevelt Game Preserve on October 16. 1949; it was under 

 a stone in an o'd field at the base of an oak-hickory hillside. 



Goodpaster obtained his two specimens (CSNH) in the Shawnee Forest 

 late in the season — on September 23 and October 15, 1948. One was beneath 

 a pile of stones alongside a spring; just above the spring was a heavy growth 

 of oak and made and just below was a small open field. The other skink was 

 under a board. Ants had been working there, and the lizard was found about 

 six inches below the surface of the ground in one of the insects' burrows. 

 Gooo'paster believes that this reptile was seeking a place to hibernate; the 

 weather was cold. Undergrowth, in the form of weeds and briars, was abun- 

 dant close by, and not far away there was timber. 



According to Duty and Goodpaster, who collaborated in catching it, the 

 skink from. Adams County v/as found during May, 1946, near sandstone cliffs 

 about a mile from the Ohio River. The exact locality was "a very dry south- 

 west hillside along the edge of rather heavy timber, but the hillside itself was 

 covered v/ith bushes and briars, and a rather heavy coating of dead leaves from 



