HERPETOLOGY OF PORTO RICO. 609 



1881. Ewprepes spUonotus Gunhlactt, Anal. Soe. Espan. Hist. Nat., X, 1881, 

 p. 311 (Porto Rico) (not of Wiegmann 1837). — Euprepes (Mabuia) 

 spilonotw Peters, Mon. Ber. Berlin Akad. Wiss., 1876, p. 708 (Porto 

 Rico).— Stahl, Fauna Puerto-Rico, 1882, p. 159 (Porto Rico). 



1887. Mabuia nitida Gasman, Bull. Essex Inst., XIX, 188Z, p. 51; extr. p. 27 

 (type localities, Porto Rico and Santo Domingo; types in Mus. Comp. 

 Zool. Cambr. ). 



A direct comparison between the six typical .specimens of M. ful- 

 gida from Jamaica (U.S.N.M., No. 5759) and the specimen from 

 Porto Rico here figured and described, for the loan of which I am 

 greatly indebted to Prof. S. Garman, convinces me that Bocourt and 

 Garman are correct in regarding them as distinct forms. I can not 

 agree, however, with Professor Garman in the nomenclature he pro- 

 poses, following" Boulanger, as he does, in ascribing the name M. sloanii 

 (Daudin) to the Jamaican form. True, Daudin referred Sloane's 

 Lacertus minor hvnls, from Jamaica, to his Scincus sloanii under the 

 impression that it was the same species as the specimen he described 

 as being in the "Museum d'histoire naturelle de Paris," without giving 

 the locality of the latter, but we have Dumeril and Bibron's express 

 statement to the effect that his type was collected in St. Thomas by 

 Richard pere, a and according to modern rules of nomenclature the 

 name follows the type. It is consequently the Jamaican form which 

 requires a different name, Wiegmann's 2L spilonotus being apparently 

 available for this form. 



I have been unable to find any character by which the Porto Rico 

 specimen can be separated from typical J/, sloanii. The type of the 

 latter has a somewhat abnormal arrangement of the frontonasal and 

 the prefrontals, the former being very short and the latter broadly in 

 contrast, but on the whole the St. Thomas form seems to be the same 

 as the Porto Rican. 



Professor Garman has pointed out the characters separating the 

 two forms from Jamaica and Porto Rico, though I must add that one 

 of the characters, namely, the alleged lower number of scales from 

 chin to vent in the Jamaican species does not seem to hold, as in our 

 series the number varies from 48 to GO. On the other hand, there is 

 a strong tendency in the Jamaican form towards three pairs of nuchals. 

 Of the six specimens before me there is only one specimen with two 

 pairs of nuchals; two have 3 on one side and 2 on the other; while 

 three specimens have three pairs of enlarged nuchals. 



It must be admitted that no one sino-le character seems to be abso- 

 lutely constant, but it is believed that it will always b*e possible to 

 refer a specimen to its proper category by a combination of the domi- 

 nant characters. Thus, separated supranasals and three pairs of 



"Plustard, Daudin en publia une description d'apres l'individu meine que nous 

 venons d'ecrire ici. * * Nous p< issedons un seul exemplaire qui a ete recueilli 



dans Pile de Saint-Thomas, Tune des Antilles, par Richard pere. 



NAT MUS 1902 39 



