84 ■ BARBOUR: ZOOGEOGRAPHY. 



the result of an inherited tendency to vary in a definite direction, coupled with 

 what Cope has called superabundant growth force. We see incipient lateral 

 flap-hke outgrowths of skin in other genera of Gekkonidae; in this one the 

 growth process has carried the development far beyond the conditions seen among 

 the other forms. Such growth is comparable to that which shows itself in the 

 curling tusks of the Babu-usa, which are perfectly useless; in the enormous 

 curved tusks which may have been a vital hindrance to the persistence of the 

 Mammoth; or in any other one of the hundreds of examples which may be drawn 

 from among both vertebrates and invertebrates, to show that nature often seizes 

 hold of some one feature or character and complicates it or increases its develop- 

 ment beyond all usefulness. 



When the tail is lost, instead of the regenerated portion showing the crenu- 

 lated or lobate outline which extends almost to the tip in P. kuhlii, and quite to 

 the tip in P. horsfeldii, it grows out with a single unemarginate wide fringe of 

 skin. Thus specimens with reproduced tails from localities where both species 

 occur could not be separated. This is an excellent example of the more simple 

 condition always visible in a reproduced tail. Squamation here invariably 

 consists of small pavement-like scales, quite uniform in size, where the original 

 may have shown ornamentation either with whorls of enlarged tubercles, or in 

 other ways. In this tail, the squamation and margin both show far less compli- 

 cation in the new growth than in the original. This may or may not be a rever- 

 sion to a more primitive or ancestral condition. There is no proof one way or 

 the other. 



For some strange reason this lizard bears, in Java, a form of native name 

 usually confined to snakes. It is called Ular-pa'atek or Ular-papatek. The 

 word Ular is invariably used with some qualifying word for a snake-name, as 

 Burung is invariably used for birds. I know of no such generic term for lizards 

 or mammals which is used in the same way. 



The material preserved consisted of fifty-two examples of all ages from Bui- 

 tenzorg. , Bryant had several also from the same locality. 



Kuhl's Fringed lizard has been found in Java, Sumatra, Engafio, Penang, 

 and the Malay Peninsula to southern Burma. 



Horsfield's Fringed lizard occurs on the Malay Peninsula and in Borneo 

 and the Natuna Islands. It is recorded from the Riu Kiu Islands, but Stejneger 

 naturally doubts the accuracy of so improbable a record (Bull. 58, U. S. nat. 

 mus., 1907, p. 170). 



