306 BULLETIN 17 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



1887. Mabuya nitida Garman, Bull. Essex Inst., vol. 19, p. 51 (type locality, 

 Porto Rico and San Domingo). — Schmidt, Scientific Survey of Porto Rico 

 and the Virgin Islands, New York Acad. Sci., vol. 10, pt. 1, p. 122, 1928. — 

 Barbotjr and Loveridge, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 69, No. 10, p. 302, 

 1929. 



1935. Mabuya mabouia Barbotjr, Zoologica, vol. 19, No. 3, p. 129; Bull. Mus. 

 Comp. Zool., vol. 82, No. 2, p. 147, 1937. 



1936. Mabuya mabouya sloanii Dunn, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, vol. 

 87, p. 546. 



The only Hispaniolan specimen of a skink that came to the attention 

 of zoologists in more than a century was M.C.Z. No. 3617, one of the 

 four cotypes of Mabuya nitida Garman, the other three of which came 

 from Puerto Rico. With seven good specimens of Puerto Rican 

 skinks at hand, Schmidt in 1928 took pains to restrict the name nitida 

 to the Puerto Rican form if any separation were ever proved valid. 



Redescription of the cotype of Mabuya nitida. — M.C.Z. No. 3617, 

 an adult female from "Santo Domingo," collected in 1859 by D. F. 

 Weinland. Head depressed, snout moderate; supranasals narrowly 

 in contact behind the rostral, separating the latter from the fronto- 

 nasal, which is broader than long and in contact with the frontal; 

 nasal irregularly trapezoidal, with the large nostril in the posterior 

 half; a small postnasal; two loreals, the posterior about one and one- 

 half times as large as the anterior; prefrontals separated, in contact 

 with both loreals and with the second supraocular; frontal a little 

 shorter than its distance from posterior end of interparietal, in contact 

 with a second supraocular only; four supraoculars, the first small, 

 separated from the frontal, the second largest, narrowly in contact 

 with the prefrontal; four superciliaries, second very long; two fronto- 

 parietals in contact with second, third, and fourth supraoculars; 

 an interparietal, behind which the parietals are in contact; two pairs 

 of enlarged nuchals; a transparent disk on lower eyelid; temporals 

 large; five subequal supralabials preceding the sixth (subocular) 

 which is followed by a seventh supralabial both longer and higher 

 than the sixth; mental followed by an unpaired postmental and three 

 chin shields on each side, the first pair being in contact on the middle 

 line, the posterior two separated by a median scale; ear opening 

 round, small, slightly larger than the disk of the lower eyelid, without 

 projecting scales in front; dorsal scales perfectly smooth; 32 scales 

 around the middle of the body, about 70 on the middle line from 

 chin to vent; limbs overlapping when adpressed along the body; 

 vent bordered anteriorly by six scales, the two middle pairs some- 

 what enlarged. 



Color (in alcohol): Above bronze green, with a pale dorsolateral 

 band extending from the supranasals over the superciliaries to the 

 middle of the body, where it gradually disappears; this band is bor- 

 dered above by a narrow dark stripe and below by a broader dark 



