SYSTEMATIC ACCOUNT OF THE SPECIES. 175 
ANGUIDAE. 
49. CELESTUS DE LA SAGRA (Cocteau). 
Plate 14, fig. 13. 
Culebrita de cuatro patas. 
Diagnosis: — A smooth cylindrical shiny burrowing lizard with short, 
degenerated limbs and small weak toes. 
Description: — Adult M. C. Z. 7,924. Cuba: near Havana, Spring of 
1910. Jestis Valdivia. 
Rostral oblong, rectangular, almost invisible from above, followed by a 
pair of supranasals well in contact; a pair of frontonasals larger than the supra- 
nasals, also broadly in contact; prefrontal large, undivided, with an obtuse 
projecting angle in front and a straight border behind forming a suture with 
the entire anterior border of the frontal; frontal squarish, longer than broad, 
longer than the distance between the supraoculars; a postfrontal, or fronto- 
parietal, plus another small shield separating the supraoculars from the parietals 
on each side; parietals large, separated from each other by a nearly triangular 
interparietal and a rather large diamond-shaped occipital; five supraoculars; 
a single nasal in contact with the rostral, the nostril being pieced in the posterior 
half; three loreals in a row between nasal and preocular, first in contact with 
frontonasal only, second with frontonasal and prefrontal, third in contact with 
prefrontal, first supraocular and a superciliary as well as preocular; a long 
angular subocular wedged between and separating widely the fifth and sixth 
supralabials; eight supralabials; three large temporals in the first row forming 
a semicircle behind the eye; mental very small, narrower than rostral, followed 
by a large median postmental; four large chin-shields, the first two in contact 
with the infralabials; ear opening small, round, about the size of the first supra- 
labial, body elongate, the distance between the tips of the adpressed fore and 
hind limbs being far greater than the distance from tip of snout to arm; thirty- 
four scales around the body, dorsals finely striated, laterals smooth; fore leg 
shorter than distance of tip of snout from ear opening; five fingers, all short, 
third longest; hind leg short; five short toes, fourth longest; tail long, cylindric, 
(ending in a point), covered with scales like those of body, the two median rows 
beneath very slightly enlarged. 
Colour (fresh in alcohol): — Above grayish brown; a dark lateral longi- 
tudinal band, consisting of a distinct dark line along the upper part of the side 
