464 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1898. 



more obtuse muzzle, with larger plates above it. The coloration is the 

 same in some, but in others the head. There is a dusky line along the 

 top of head, and three from behind the eye, a middle one, broadest, 

 passing above the ear, an inferior passing below it, and a short one 

 above the rest. The line on top of the head bifurcates at the occiput 

 and with the others is continued indistinctly along the body. There is 

 also a line from nose to eye. 



SphcBvoda cty I un notatns Baird. 



Catalogue 

 No. 



Number 

 of speci- 

 mens. 



Locality. | From whom received. 



3216 

 5173 



Florida ' 



Cuba C.Wright. 



Nature of specimen. 



Alcoholic, 

 do. 



This species occurs also in the Bahama Islands. Its occurrence in 

 Florida has been so far very seldom observed. 



EUBLEPHARID^. 



Geckonidw, part, of most authors. 



Euhlcpharidce Boulenger, part Arm. ]\Iag. Nat. Hist. (5), XII, 1883, p. 308; (5), 

 XIV, 1884, p. 119. 



Except in the procoelian vertebrie and the single parietal bone, the 

 skeleton is similar to that of the preceding family, to which the Euble- 

 pharid;e are affined. The teguments are also very similar, and of a soft 

 kind, the upper surfaces are covered with small scales or granules, 

 which are usually intermixed with enlarged tubercles, and the lower 

 surface of the body with small cycloid imbricated scales. The skin 

 of the head is free from the skull. The eyes are moderately large, 

 with elliptico-vertical pupil, and are protected by thick, movable, con- 

 nivent lids. The nostril is rather large, directed slightly upward, 

 though lateral, and separated from the rostral and labial ijlates. The 

 tympanum is exposed. The limbs are weak and the digits short and 

 cylindrical; they are all provided with a small, sharp, retractile claw 

 which, in Coleonyx, is entirely concealed iuamuch-developed, compressed 

 sheath; this sheath, which differs only in size according to the genera, 

 is composed of two lateral plates, the superior suture of which is cov- 

 ered by a third narrower one, a structure which we have already met 

 with in the Geckoid geuus ^^luroscvurus. As in the Geckos, the tail is 

 extremely fragile. Males have preanal pores, forming an angular series. 



Three species are natives of Central America, one of the southern 

 parts of the United States, two of southern Asia, and one of West 

 Africa; the genus Euhlepharis occurs in America as well as in Asia. 

 This extraordinary distribution seems to indicate that the few repre- 

 sentatives of this small family are the remnants of some ancient, more 

 generally dispersed group; it nevertheless remains a matter of wonder 

 how forms now so widely separated have retained so great a resem- 

 blance, not only in structure but also in the pattern of coloration. 

 (Bouleuger.) 



