204 BULLETIN 58, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



of the body, those on the sides apparently smaller than those on back 

 and abdomen; a pair of large preanal plates; length of hind leg con- 

 tained nearly two and a half times in the distance from snout to vent; 

 the adpressed limbs overlap by the length of the fuigers; soles of hind 

 foot granular with a single larger tubercle and several others at the 

 heel; a small keeled scale behind the vent at each corner; tail 

 cylindric, tapering, with a series of wide transverse plates under- 

 neath. Color (in alcohol) above dark olive brown on the middle of 

 the back, dark brown on the sides, becoming slaty toward the ter- 

 minal half of the tail, with five pale greenish, longitudinal stripes, 

 viz., one median, somewhat broader than the others; one on each 

 side proceeding from the outer edge of the supraoculars down the 

 sides of the back two scale widths from the median stripe; finally, 

 a lateral stripe on each side originating on the upper lip proceeding 

 backward through the ear-opening and above both fore and hind 

 legs, all continued on the tail, where they gradually disappear; the 

 median stripe bifurcates on the interparietal, each branch following 

 the outer edge of the frontal to the snout which is pale buff; underside 

 pale, suffused with buff on throat, lower neck, limbs, and tail, but 

 with pale bluish on abdomen and flanks. 



Dimensions. 



mm. 



Total length. 179 



Snout to vent 68 



Vent to tip of tail Ill 



Snout to ear-opening 13. 5 



Greatest width of head 10 



Axilla to groin 35 



Fore leg 19 



Hind leg 28 



Variation. — In younger specimens the ground color is darker, 

 brownish black, and the median dorsal stripe narrower; otherwise as 

 the specimen described above. In older specimens the back becomes 

 more olive and the median stripe disappears altogether, the head 

 swells greatly in the temporal region and becomes red. A male from 

 the Pescadores Islands, collected by Mr. Tada in January, 1897, has 

 this coloration of the fully adult specimens, the brown longitudinal 

 band on the flanks even being quite pale, notwithstanding the fact 

 that it is of the same size (snout to vent, 68 mm.) as the adolescent 

 specimen described above. 



The scutellation of the head in these specimens is fairly constant. 

 Thus all foin- have the parietals widely separated by the interparietal. 

 In three the frontal is in contact with the fronto-nasal, but in the 

 fourth, the largest specimen, the prefrontals are in contact behind the 

 fronto-nasal, thus separating it from the frontal. The number of 

 scale rows seems to be ver}^ variable, as two have 26, one 24, and one 28. 



