676 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1902. 



AMPHISBiENA CJECA<i Cuvier. 



1829. Amphisbaena caeca Cuvier, Regne Anim., 2 ed., II, p. 73 (type locality said 

 to be Martinique, but probably erroneously). — Dumeril and Bibron, 

 Erpet. Gen., V, 1839, p. 492 (Martinique). -.-Dumeril, Cat. Meth. Rept. 

 Mus., Paris, I, 1851, p. 148 (Martinique).— Peters, Mon. Ber. Berlin 

 Akad. Wiss., 1876, p. 708 (Porto Rico); 1878, p. 781, pi. fig. 4 (Mar- 

 tinique).— Gundlach, Anal. Soc. Espan. Hist. Nat., X, 1881, p. 312 

 (Porto Rico).— Stahl, Fauna Puerto-Rico, 1882, pp. 70,160 (Porto 

 Rico).— Strauch, Mel. Biol. Acad. Sci. St. Petersb., XI, 1883, p. 405 

 (Martinique). — Boulenger, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1890, p. 79 

 (Porto Rico). 



A number of names cluster around the original Aviphisbsena cseca, 

 described from a specimen said to have come from Martinique. 

 Specimens have been mentioned and described from various localities 

 in the West Indies or even in South America, 6 namely, from the 

 alleged type locality as given above, the Virgin Islands, Porto Rico, 

 Haiti, and Cuba. Some of these have received separate names, such 

 as A. fenestrata from the Virgin Islands, A. innocens from Haiti, and 

 A. cubana from Cuba. The characters assigned to the first and last 

 of these are such that they have been recognized by most writers as 

 distinct species, though it should be mentioned that Boulenger has 

 expressed the opinion that the fusion of the ocular with the second 

 supralabial in both type specimens of A. cubana (the only ones known 

 at the time he wrote) may be an individual anomaly. This is not 

 likely, however, as the U. S. National Museum has recently received 

 two specimens from Matanzas, Cuba (Nos. 26363 and 26364), 

 which in the relation of oculars and second supralabial agree 

 minutely with the types. More specimens of ^i. fenestrata than of 

 all the other West Indian species have reached the museums, and 

 it seems that all those recorded from the Virgin Islands, with one 

 exception, to be mentioned further on, agree in having the rostral 

 produced so far backward as to completely separate the nasals from 

 each other, a peculiarity thus far not observed in any specimen of 

 this group from any other locality. The exception alluded to above 

 is a specimen in the Paris Museum, mentioned by Strauch ( ' and alleged 

 to be from St. Thomas, having been obtained from the Copenhagen 

 Museum. It is possible that there is a mistake about the locality, for 

 it is not likely that Reinhardt and Luetken, in describing A. antillen- 

 sis (= fenestrata), should have overlooked this specimen. On the 

 other hand, the Copenhagen Museum may have received it since the 



« Latin = blind. 



''Thus Boulenger' s Amphisbaena cseca (Cat. Liz. Brit. Mus., II, 1885, p. 445), from 

 Porto Bello, probably in Brazil, has later on been recognized by himself as not 

 belonging to Cuvier' s species, and is stated to be the same as Boulenger' s Amphisbaena 

 ridleyi, from Fernando Noronha. 



cMel. Biol., XI, 1883, p. 406. 



