254 Illinois State Laboratory of Natural Historij. 



as described. Occasional specimens occur in which the dark of 

 the sides is intimately mingled with pale, and the pale stripes 

 of the back may be thickly speckled with black or brown. 

 This form seems to be more common farther south. In young 

 examples the dark and pale stripes of the side are of about equal 

 width. Formerly this was a very common species in dry prairie 

 regions, but its haunts have been destroyed by the cuUiva- 

 tion of the soil, and few can now be found. Many of those 

 now captured have stubbed tails, these organs having been pre- 

 viously broken and partially reproduced. The small boy de- 

 voutly believes this species to possess the power of "coming 

 together" again after being broken into fragments. It should 

 be unnecessary to state here more than that it is only the long 

 tail which breaks, and that this appendage is scarcely more 

 brittle than are the tails of other lizards. An example dis- 

 sected had eaten crickets. 



The rudimentary sternal bones are imbedded in the mus- 

 cles a short distance behind the head. The sternum is a thiu, 

 trausverisely elongate plate of cartilage, and lies behind the 

 other bones of the arch. The scapula is largely, perhaps wholly, 

 bone. The supra-scapula is well developed and is cartilaginous. 

 The coracoid is large, transversely placed, and meets its fellow 

 of the opposite side; it is also cartilaginous. The clavicle is a 

 slender, curved bone, which is attached at its outer extremity 

 to the ventral surface of the supra-scapula. 



The pelvic bones consist of a rather long ilium, attached to 

 the transverse process of the fifty-seventh vertebra, and a flat- 

 tened bone, supposed to represent ischium and pubis combined, 

 at its free extremity. In a small acetabulum in the surface of 

 the latter fits a minute cylindrical femur. The bones are fully 

 ossified. Those of the two sides are separated by a considerable 

 interval. They are imbedded in muscle slightly in front of the 

 vent. The rudiments are probably quite variable. The figures 

 given by Dr. Shufeldt (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1880, p. 399) 

 and those in Bronn's Thier-Heich do not agree, and neither 

 agree with dissections made by the writer. 



