220 BULLETIN 58, TJlSriTED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



backward along sides above fore and hind legs to side of tail as a 

 l)road dark-brown band above and below narrowly and indistinctly 

 edged with whitish; on the flanks below tliis edge a paler brown, more 

 indistinct band; underside pale. 



Dimnisions. 



mm. 



Total length (fail reprodurpd) 74 



Snout to vent 44 



Vent to tip of tail (reproduced) : 30 



Snout to ear-opening S. 5 



Greatest width i )f head 5 



Axilla to groin i 25 



Fore leg 10 



Hind leg 15 



In specimens with unbroken tail, the length of the latter greatly 

 exceeds the distance from snout to vent; thus in a North American 

 specimen (U.S.N.M. No. 18012; St. Louis, Mo.) measuring 43 mm. 

 from snout to vent, the distance from vent to tip of tail is 61 mm.; 

 hind leg 14.5 mm. 



Variation. — Considering the extent of the range of this species the 

 amount of variation is small. The number of scales around the body 

 is said to vary between 26 and 32. In the Asiatic specimens 28 seems 

 to be normal, two specimens recorded by Boettger and two examined 

 by myself having this number. Boulenger records one from Fokien 

 having 26. The most usual color variation is the presence of minute 

 dark-brown spots on the back in more or less regular longitudinal 

 rows. 



Habitat. — On the supposition that the American and Asiatic speci- 

 mens really are identical, the present species has a very unique 

 distribution. In North America it is known to inhabit the lower 

 Austral life zone east of the Rocky Mountains, and is not found west 

 of the latter at all. In Asia it occurs over a large area in China 

 along the coast fTom near Ningpo to Canton, in the interior to the 

 province of Szechuen, or (if Anderson's Mocoa exigua,"- from Momien 

 really is the same species, which seems quite likely) to the extreme 

 west end of the province of Yunnan, while northward it extends its 

 range to the neighborhood of Peking, if the locality which attaches 

 to a specimen in the Museum Senckenbergianum, purchased from 

 the late Dr. Otto Herz in St. Petersburg, really be correct, wliich I 

 doubt. 



From the territory covered by the present work it has been 

 recorded by Doctor Boettger as occurring in Tsushima. A single 

 specimen (No. 37) in the Science College Museum, in Tokyo, is from 

 Miyakoshima, southern group of the Riu Kius, and one in the Ham- 



oZool. West. Yunnan, I, 1879, p. 797. 



