172 THE HERPETOLOGY OF CUBA. 
This is the most common member of the genus in Cuba and the most widely 
distributed. It occurs from Cabo San Antonio to Cabo Maisi but usually in 
the lowlands or in the less elevated limestone ranges. About Guane and the 
Valley of Luis Lazo it is called La Iguana de la Sierra, not because it is really 
confined to the Sierras thereabouts but because the peasants believe that the 
sounds heard by night from the hills and really the tinkling voices of the Ranitas 
(Eleutherodactylus) are made by these lizards which live in or have retired to 
the Sierras to pass the night. About Matanzas the same sounds are attributed 
to the Coronel (Anolis lucius). Generally L. cubensis is most abundant about 
the edges of cane-fields and in the guarda rayas which divide them. They are 
extremely abundant in the Botanical Gardens in Havana and on railway em- 
bankments near Camaguey, where one may find, we believe, the largest speci- 
mens on the island. The tail is very often carried curled, but sometimes only 
for the distal third or fourth as in the other species of the genus and less tightly 
and less constantly than in L. carinatus. 
This species has been widely known as L. vittatus (Hallowell) but as Stejneger 
notes (Proc. U. 8. N. M., 53, p. 273) the name Lezocephalus cubensis Gray is 
applicable to this species and is earlier. 
47. LEIOCEPHALUS RAVICEPS Cope. 
Plate 10, fig. 4. 
Diagnosis: — A small curled-tailed lizard having but two pairs of prefrontals, 
the posterior pair conspicuously enlarged. 
Description: — Adult M. C. Z. 10,928. Eastern Cuba. Charles Wright. 
(A cotype from U.S. N. M. 4,162). 
Upper head-scales large, bi- or tricarinate or rugose; nasal widely in con- 
tact with rostral; supraorbital series broadly in contact; six or seven supra- 
oculars, rather strap-like, separated from the supraorbitals by a series of small 
scales; two pairs of parietals in a row, the outer pair slightly the larger; sides 
of neck plicate covered with rather small, rounded, keeled and imbricate scales; 
dorsal scales small, about twenty-one or twenty-two corresponding to length 
of head, heavily keeled, very slightly mucronate and strongly imbricate, the 
series of keels turning slightly toward the median line; ventrals decidedly 
larger than dorsals, smooth, rounded, broader than long; the adpressed hind 
limb reaches almost to the eye; tail slightly compressed with but a trace of a 
caudal crest. 
