80 BULLETIN 151, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



It was of considerable interest to me to examine this series from the 

 type locaUty of massaiensis and find in them confirmation of the con- 

 clusions reached last year. The whole series has the normal number 

 of three supraocidars, so that it is still more obvious that the monotype 

 of massaiensis was aberrant in possessing two; the mid-body scale 

 rows range from 24 to 28, with an average of 26. It would be interest- 

 ing if some one would examine a really adequate series of South African 

 specimens and ascertain whether the average in the southern part of 

 the continent is 26 or 24 ; if the latter it might be possible to recognise 

 massaiensis as an eastern race, based oiily upon a higher average 

 number of mid-body scale rows. No. 43000 is the only skink with 

 28 rows in the above series. 



Genus CRYPTOBLEPHARUS Wiegmann 



CRYPTOBLEPHARUS BOUTONn PERONH (Cocleau) 



Crijploblepharus peronii Cocteau, 1836, Etudes sur le Scincoides, Paris, sec. 2, 



p. 1, plate, figs, la-f (Van Diemen's Land). 

 Ablepharus boutonii var. peronii Boulenger, 1887, Cat. Lizards Brit. Mus., 



vol. 3, p. 347.— LovERiDGE, 1920, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 157; 1925, 



Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 74. 



2 (U.S.N. M. 628S1-2) Mombasa, K. C. (Loveridge) 1918. 



Besides the foregoing I have made use of the following material 

 which is listed geographically from north to south: 



3 (M.C.Z. 7994) Mombasa, K. C. (Allen) 1909. 



1 (M.C.Z. 19132) Vitongozi, Pemba Id. (Loveridge) 1923. 



2 (M.C.Z. 13546-7) Dar es Salaam, T. T. (Loveridge) 1918. 

 30 (M.C.Z. 18701-6) Liimbo, Mozambique. (Loveridge) 1918. 



In employing the name peronii for East African specimens I do so 

 tentatively and without being definitely convinced that Sternfeld's 

 name africanus should not be used. This name,^^ proposed by Stern- 

 feld in 1920,^* escaped the Zoological Record, owing to the reprehen- 

 sible manner in which its author presented it under the heading of 

 A. peroni peroni Coct. (sic) in the form of a key. In Sections II and III 

 of the key new names were also proposed for specimens from Mada- 

 gascar, Aldabra, and Juan de Nova, while Boettger's A. b. ater and 

 A. h. hitaeniatus are recognised for the Grand Comoro and Europa 

 Island respective^. 



More recently Mertens ^^ has added to this list of East Coast races 

 C. h. aldi from Mozambique Island and says that C. h. africanus 

 occurs on the adjacent mainland. In 1918 I collected 50 examples 

 of this common species on the beach at Lumbo, which is on the main- 

 land about 3 miles from Mozambique Island. The 30 specimens of 



" A. b. africanus, new subspecies (sic). 



'< Sternfcld, 1920, Abhaiui. Senck. Naturf. Gesell., vol. 3e, p. 423. 



M Meiteus, 192S, Zool. Anz., vol. 78, p. 85. 



