526 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1898. 



The geueral aspect of this form i.s strikingly (lift'eieut from all the other Califor- 

 uian Cerrhonoti, and this difference is equally well marked in tbe youngest specimen 

 and in the oldest. I have l)efore me a nearly unbroken series of ten specimens, from 

 a very young one, with a body only 40""" long, up to the dark old males, and none 

 of them can for an instant be mistaken for the typical G. scincicauda from the lower 

 valleys. The whole figure is shorter and more thick set, and the broad and rather 

 distant cross bands on the back are conspicuously abrupt, the coloration being 

 either uniform dark or else an ill-defined, often obscure, 'pepper-and-salt' mixture. 

 Only in one specimen (No. 18612) is there a more definite arrangement of the light 

 and dark spots, but these ill-defined cross bands are much more numerous than in 

 G. scincicauda, being about fifteen on the back (between anterior and posterior 

 limbs) as against nine to teu in the latter. A similar pattern may also be traced in 

 the youngest specimen referred to (No. 18613), with a similar result. 



Most of the Gerrkonoti brought home by the Death Valley expedition belong to 

 this form, of which there is no specimen in the Museum collection from any definite 

 and undoubted locality before, and all the specimens of the exi)editiou were col- 

 lected in a comparatively small area near the headwaters of the Kern, Kings, and 

 Kaweah rivers, at an altitude of from about 7,000 to 9,000 feet above the sea. 



It might seem strange that there should be no name available among the many 

 defunct synonyms of Californian Gerrkonoti by which to distinguish this form, but 

 the fact seems to be that most of the specimens so far brought to the notice of 

 herpetologists have been collected in the lower altitudes, while the present form 

 seems to be restricted to the higher altitudes of the Sierra. 



Habitat. — High elevations of western slope of southern [only?] Siena 

 Nevada. 



Type.— Cat. No. 18G06, U.S.N.M., male adult. South Fork Kings 

 Eiver, California, T. S. Palmer collector. 



Gerrhonotua multicarinatus palmerii Stejneger. 



TJ.S. 



N.M. 



No. 



18606 

 18607 

 18608 

 18609 

 18610 



186U 

 18612 

 18613 



18614 



18615 



Sex and 



Male . . 

 Female 

 Female' 

 Male'^.. 

 Male . . . 



Female 

 Female 

 Male-' . 



Female 



Female . 



Locality. 



South Fork Kings River, California... 

 East Fork Kaweah Kiver, California.. 



do 



do 



Soda Springs, North Fork Kern lliver, 

 California. 

 ...do 



North Fork Kern River, California 



Soda Springs, North Fork Kern River, 



California. 

 Sequoia National Park, California 



Mineral King, California. 



Alti- 

 tude. 



Feet. 



1 8, 800 

 '8,800 



'8,500 

 7, 20U 



7,200 



' 7, 000 



' 8, OOU 



"When 

 collected. 



Auo;. 8 



do . . . 



Aug. I 

 Sept. 6 



...do... 

 Sept. 15 

 Aug. 15 



Aug. 2 



Aug. 6 



From whom 

 received. 



Palmer 

 Bailey 

 ....do. 

 ....do . 

 Nelson. 



....do - 

 do . 



Bailey . 



Fisher . 



Bailey 



Nature of 

 specimen. 



Type. 



Near Ka- 

 weah saw- 

 mill. 



About. 



2Toun« 



GERRHONOTUS BURNETTII Gray. 



Gerrhonoius htirnettii Gray, GrifiSth's Cuvier's Animal Kingdom, IX, Syn., 1839, 

 p. 64; Beechey'sVoy., Kept., 1839, p. 96; Cat. Liz. Brit. Mus., Isted., 1845, p. 

 54. — O'SiiAUGHNEssY, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 1873, p. 45.— Stejneger, N. Amer. 

 Fauna, No. 7, Pt. 2, 1893, p. 197. 



Elgaria formosa Baird and Girard, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., VI, October, 1852, 

 p. 175; California. — Girard, Ilerpt. U. S. Expl. Exp., 1858, p. 206, pi. .\xiir, 

 figs. 10-17.— O'Shaughnessy, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (4), XII, 1873, p. 47. 



Dorsal rows of scales about sixteen longitudinal and forty-eight 

 oblique. The lowest lateral row as wide as that above it. Interfron- 



