216 NOTE ON A VIVIPAROUS LIZARD, 



The lizards and snakes mentioned in the preceding paragraphs 

 are European, but some of our Australian forms exhibit the same 

 peculiarity of being viviparous ; though I am able to find but few 

 remarks on the subject. Dr. Giinther in his Catalogue of 

 Colubrine Snakes, says that Hoplocephalus pallid iceps and H. 

 coronoides are viviparous, and that he took two perfectly developed 

 embryos from the oviduct of a specimen of the former, and four 

 embryos from a specimen of the latter, 



The late Mr. Krefft in his "Notes on Australian Verteb.," says 

 of Trachydosaurus, that "the female produces a pair of young ones 

 of considerable size, about the end of January. This is the only 

 recorded instance of a viviparous lizard that I have so far been 

 able to meet with.* 



At Burrawang, N.S.W., in January last I captured a lizard 

 having a much swollen abdomen, and when this was squeezed, two 

 almost fully developed young ones, each of which was still attached 

 to a portion of unabsorbed yolk, and enclosed in a thin transparent 

 chorion so-called, made their exit from the cloacal aperture. As 

 this seemed interesting, more specimens were sought, and two 

 were subsequently obtained and more carefully examined. In one 

 of them the posterior portion of each oviduct, lodged a young one 

 about 2 in. long, which had its limbs and tail completely formed, 

 and was coiled round upon the remaining portion of the yolk. In 

 the other, there were two slightly more advanced embryos in each 

 oviduct ; the two anterior embryos reached as far forward as the 

 stomach, and when seen from the ventral aspect, were overlaid by 

 the liver to a small extent. The gut was displaced and the abdominal 

 cavity enormously distended, When uncoiled, the young ones 

 measured 2 J in. from the snout to the tip of the tail, as compared 

 with about 7 in. in the mother, in each case the tail being a little 

 more than half the whole length, As is usual in the viviparous 

 species, the chorion in each instance was thin and transparent, and 

 quite devoid of the calcareous matter, with which in oviparous 



* Mr. Krefft in his monograph on the " Snakes of Australia," mentions 

 other viviparous species. 



