HERPETOLOGY OF JAPAN. 185 



A single adult female specimen (Sci. Coll. Mus. No. 22) said to 

 have been collected by Mr. Tada at Taipa, Formosa, during July, 

 1896, has been recorded by me as JajKihtra swinhonis"' with the 

 statement that "it agrees well with the published description." At 

 that time I had no other Formosan specimens for comparison, and 

 only three from Okinawa. The fine series of typical J. swinhonis 

 from Formosa, and of J. 'polygonata from Ishigaki shima, now at 

 hand, make the specimen in question appear in a somewhat different 

 light. In fact, it presents so many peculiarities differing from all 

 the three forms known from our territory that I do not know whether 

 to regard it as an individual freak or a new species, in which case one 

 might be tempted to question the correctness of the alleged habitat. 



It has the dark dorsal cross-bars of the Formosan J. swinhonis as 

 well as the white lateral longitudinal band, only the latter is unusually 

 wide, but the throat is entirely uniform white, showing none of the 

 characteristic pattern found in all our adult specimens of the latter. 

 In addition it has the uninterrupted white longitudinal streak found in 

 the J. polygonata of the Yaeyama group. 



The proportions are very different from those of the normal For- 

 mosan specimens, and would even be considered extreme among the 

 J. polygonata. The hind legs are exceedingl}^ short, particularly the 

 tibia, which is not longer than the distance from tip of snout to the 

 posterior edge of the orbit, consequently very much shorter than 

 the skull. The third toe, without claw, equals only three-fourths of 

 the width between the outer superciliary edges. The distance from 

 center of eye to tip of snout is much greater than the fourth toe 

 measured from the base of the third. If the hind leg be carried for- 

 ward along the side, the tip of the longest toe does not reach farther 

 than the posterior edge of the (concealed) tympanum. It has seven 

 supralabials. In addition to the above characters it has a row of 

 enlarged scales from under the eye to the nasal, separated from the 

 labials by a row of very narrow ones. Some of these enlarged scales 

 are as large as some of the supralabials and three times as large as 

 the other scales below and in front of the eye. Finally there is a very 

 distinct row of enlarged submalar scales along the entire length of the 

 lower edge of the mandible. In the other specimens, especially those 

 from Formosa, only the two or three scales on each side of the 

 mental are thus enlarged. In some of the Ishigaki shima specimens, 

 however, a tendency to such a submalar series may be traced, but 

 the full development as shown in the Taipa specimen seems to be 

 unique. 



It does not seem probable that the above deviations from the 

 typical Formosan form can be due to individual variation of the 



ojourn. Sci. Coll. Tokyo, XII, Ft. 2, 1898, p. 218. 



