Notes on a Scink with an Accessory Tail. 



By 

 S. Hirola. 



OVith Plate M'.J 



DiiL'inff oar sojonni on the Boniii Islands, last yeai', Ml*. Sekip;uchi 

 and myself observed and collected nuineuoiis sp.^ciniens of a scink which 

 seemed to be of common and wide-spread occurrence there. They tally 

 completely with Boulenger's description of Ahlepharns Boutonii, (Desjard.) 

 as given in the British Museum Catalogue of Lizards (vol. Ill), so that 

 I have no doubt of the correctness of their specific identity. Of the 

 several known varieties of that species, our specimens come nearest to 

 var. metaJlica, for which, however, the metallic lustre of the dermal 

 surface seems to Ije markedly deficient. 



The majority of specimens that came under our observation in 

 nature, Viad their tail broken off for a greater ol- less extent of its length ; 

 and of those sp3cimens that had an apparently quite or almost normally 

 shaped tail, several were found to bear unmistakeable signs of regenera- 

 tion on that extremely fragile structure. As is well-known, the repro- 

 duced portion of such a tail is easily recognizible externally from the 

 preexisting portion by the absence of pigmented dermal markings or 

 by the difference in general coloration, often combined with a change in 

 the arrangement or shape of scales. Sucli distinctive features persist 

 for a certain period even after the entire tail had resumed a perfectly 

 normal shape. The boundary-line between the two portions is usually 

 a tolerably even ring round the tail, in agreement with the fact that the 

 breaking off of the tail generally occurs so abruptly that a more or less 

 entire whorl of uninjured scales is left at the edge of the wound. Among 

 the lot of specimens with signs of regeneration on the tail, there was 

 OHP that attracted my particular attention on account of the presence of 



