234 SPHAERODACTYLUS. 
regions; again the vermiculations may appear to be dark upon a light ground- 
colour; there is considerable variation. Never, however, has any tendency to 
cross-banding been observed, the striping is invariably longitudinal. 
Dimensions:— Total length 76 mm. 
Tip of snout to vent 35 mm. 
Vent to tip of tail 41 mm. 
Greatest width of head 6 mm. 
Tip of snout to ear 9 mm. 
Fore limb 10 mm. 
Hind limb 11 mm. 
Remarks:— A common, perhaps the commonest of the house-inhabiting 
members of the genus. It becomes quite tame and fearless and its smooth 
satin-like skin make it extremely attractive to observe. It is the only one of the 
large members of the genus which does not have much enlarged, imbricating 
scales. The flat depressed snout and forehead are quite characteristic, as is the 
beautiful dove-gray colouration, either finely punctate or with short vermiculate 
longitudinal markings. 
For years I have searched in vain for the young of this species. I have 
never found the freshly emerged. Therefore, and not without reason, I felt that 
possibly elegans might represent the young of cinereus; until finally in the woods 
of the high Sierra Maestra at a tiny mountain hamlet called Pozo Prieto de los 
Negros en Jiguanf, I found a half-grown individual. This, with two adults 
found in the dark high forest near by, was coloured very differently from the 
great store of adults I had found in houses in many places. They were darker 
and the scattered white spots had distinct dark borders so that all three were 
speckled with many fine ocelli. They may represent a local race. Anyway the 
type of colouring is one often assumed by forest-living forms, as witness Lepi- 
dophyma. I once thought that nigropunctatus was the species which Gundlach 
confused with the Jamaican argus but I am now convinced it was this eastern 
forest-loving cinereus which he had. 
The name cinereus has commonly been ascribed to MacLeay, P. Z. S., 1834 
p. 12. This, however, is not correct. Dr. Stejneger calls my attention to the 
fact that Wagler recognized that Lacépéde’s sputateur was a composite species 
and he leaves the “Gecko sputateur 4 bandes” as S. sputator Sparrmann (now 
S. copet) while Wagler names the plain coloured specimen figured by Lacépéde, 
Quad. Ovip., 1788, 1, pl. 28, fig. 1, Sphaerodactylus cinereus. 
