^''^mo ^°] BARBOUR AND DUNN — CHINESE JAPALURAS 17 



reaches the posterior border of the eye; scales of fore and hind limbs all 

 strongly keeled and somewhat irregular in size. 



Throat and sides of head dirty yellowish; top of head dusky browai; 

 a brilliant j'ellow band along each side of the back, enclosing a series of 

 about seven irregular dark brown rhombs with yellow centers; the yellow 

 lateral band bordered below by a dark streak; lower sides, limbs, belly, 

 and tail, dark yellowish brown; tail with irregular dusky cross-bars. 



Dimensions. — Tip of snout to vent, 80; length of head, 27; width of 

 head, 15; fore limb, 35; hind hmb, 56 mm. 



Females and younger males are less brilliantly colored. The 

 head is more unifonnly dusky, and the lateral stripes are but 

 feebly defined, although the mid-dorsal series of rhombs with 

 hght centers is distinct in most cases. 



Tliis form may readily be distinguished from yunnanensis, in 

 coloration especially; in lacking the strongly miarked stripe 

 from eye to the angle of the mouth; in the different dorsal 

 scutellation; and in having the head not distinctly flat, or even 

 concave, and covered with much more homogeneous small 

 scales; the scales about the nostril also are differently arranged. 



This probably is the form erroneously referred to by 

 Swinhoe (P. Z. S., 1870, p. 411) when he wrote " lapalura 

 smnhoii. . . . This comb-backed Tree-lizard was before only 

 known from the woods of South Formosa. On my late expedi- 

 tion up the Yangstze I found it on the rocks among woods near 

 Chungkingfoo." The Chinese forms, from the meagre field 

 notes available, seem to be terrestrial types, as their habit would 

 indicate, while those of the Riu Kiu Islands and Formosa surely 

 have the strong appearance of being truly ' tree hzards.' Yun- 

 nanensis has a far more southern and more nearly tropical 

 habitat. 



The specimens which Boulenger used in drawing the descrip- 

 tion of yunnanensis were collected by Swinhoe in ' Szechuan,' 

 no definite locality being mentioned. They were the only ones 

 in the British Museum up to 1885, and are probably the same 

 specimens which Swinhoe mentions (1. c). Dr. Boulenger 

 wrote me a very short time ago (18, September, 1919) that no 

 further specimens had come to the British Museum. 



