94 REPTILES. 



Skin quite smooth (olive in spirits), generally a whitish rounded 

 spot on each shoulder (spcelded with pnrphsh red in life). 



a-c. Adult and young. Feejee Islands. Presented by the Lords of 

 the Admiralty. 



d. Adult female : skeleton. Feejee Islands. Presented by the 



Lords of the Admii-alty. 



e. Adult. Feejee Islands. From the Museum of Economic Geology. 

 /. Adult. Sine patria. Voyage of the Herald. 



g, h. Adult. Sine patria. Voyage of the Herald. 

 i. Adult. Sine patria. Voyage of the Herald. 

 h-m. Adult and half-grown. Sine patria. Voyage of the Herald. 

 n. Half-grown. Sine patria. Voyage of the Herald. 

 0. Half-gi'own. Sine patria. Voyage of the Herald. Disks very 

 large : perhaps diiferent. 



Descnption. — In habit like Polypeclates macidatus. Head mode- 

 rate, with flat forehead, high muzzle, and rather angidar canthus ros- 

 tralis ; nostril elliptical, just below the canthus rostralis near the end 

 of snout. Eye large, prominent ; tympanum circular, nearly half the 

 width of eye ; extremities moderate, with rather small disks and 

 well-developed subai-ticidar tubercles. Fingers and toes quite free ; 

 third finger longest, fu-st and foiurth equal, second shortest ; carpus 

 ■R^ith three blunt tubercles. Toes fringed with a hardly conspicuous 

 cutaneous fold ; fourth toe longest by far, third longer than fifth ; 

 first with a smaU blunt tubercle at the base. Skin smooth, hinder 

 side of thighs rather granular ; a small fold above the tympanum. 

 Cleft of mouth broad; tongue large, tapering in front, free and 

 deeply forked beliind ; palate veiy narrow ; inner nostrils and eusta- 

 chian tubes moderate. Vomerine teeth in two rather short, widely 

 interrupted obUque series, each beginning near the hinder interior 

 angle of the nostril, and convergent towards behind. In the single 

 male individual in our Collection, neither a vocal sac nor a slit on 

 the side of the tongue is to be found. Above (in spirits) more or 

 less uniform blackish ash, lighter (in two specimens purplish red) 

 dotted and marbled ; generally on each shoulder a white spot ; be- 

 neath dull yellowish, throat marbled with brown. Length of body 

 3i" ; length of front extremity 21" ; length of hinder extremity 5^". 



"The slceJeton is disting-uishcd by the fimmess of its stracture, joined 

 ■nath a proportional slendemess of all the parts. Several portions of 

 the skull arc not ossified : there is one fonticidus between the parietal 

 and frontal bones, whilst at the same place in Cystignathus, an ossi- 

 fied part of the capsula cerebri interior forms a large os intercalare, 

 separating widely the parietal bones from the frontals, and the latter 

 from one another. The sides of the cranium exhibit a large ossified 

 plate in the anterior half, but arc fibre- cartilaginous in the posterior. 

 The determination of the single bones between the petrosal and max- 

 illary joint is rather chfficult, the os tympanicum being separated into a 

 superior and inferior part : the superior part emits the processus 

 mastoideus, curved, but not reaching the upper maxillary bone, and 

 another process directed towards the joint, and united by sutures with 



