The Lizards indigenous to Victoria. 25 



GECKONID^. 



Characters of the Family. 



External Form. 



Head and body more or less depressed, sometimes bordered by 

 cutaneous expansions. Tongue fleshy, moderately elongate, very 

 feebly incised anteriorly, capable of protrusion out of the mouth. 



Tail presenting almost every possible shape, sometimes prehen- 

 sile, almost always extremely fragile and rapidly reproduced. 

 If reproduced it generally assumes an abnormal form and scaling. 



Limbs, both pairs well developed, pentadactyle. The digits 

 vary considerably and furnish the characters upon which the 

 systematic arrangement is based. 



Eye and Ear. — The eye generally large, with vertical pupil, 

 covered as in Snakes, by a transparent lid under which it moves 

 freely, the valvular lids being in most cases rudimentary. The 

 tympanum usually more or less exposed. 



Tegtanenis. 

 Skin nearly always soft, with numerous tubercles or granules 

 on the dorsal surface, and small, imbricated, cycloid or hexagonal 

 scales on the ventral surface. Plate-like scales of the head only 

 around the margin of the gape. The skin of the head usually 

 free from the skull-bones. 



Endo-skeleton. 



Skull generally much depressed, with thin bones. Distinct 

 nasals. Jugal rudimentary, the orbit not being bounded poster- 

 iorly by a long arch. No postfronto-squamosal arch. Pterygoids 

 widely separated, without teeth. A columella cranii. Mandible 

 of five bones, the angular and articular having coalesced. 



Teeth pleurodont, small, numerous, closely set, with long, 

 slender, cylindrical shaft and obtuse point. The new teeth 

 hollow out the base of the old ones. 



VertebrcB amphicoelous. Ribs long, and so prolonged as to form 

 more or less ossified hoops across the whole abdominal region. 



Linib-arches. — Clavicle dilated, perforated proximally. Inter- 

 clavicle subrhomboidal to cruciform. Bones of the limbs, including 

 those of the digits, well developed. 



