INTRODUCTION. 223 
over smooth surfaces both perpendicular and overhanging. In country houses 
in Cuba they often come to one’s reading table creeping daintily to within the 
sphere of lamplight to catch little moths and flying ants. In the British Islands 
the name Wood-slave is generally applied; while in Spanish it is Santa Lucia 
. upon Porto Rico; and in Cuba, Salamandra, Salamanquita, or Salamanquesa, 
all obviously based upon the assumption that there is some relationship with the 
Salamander. The tiny elegans is called Salamanquita dela Virgen. It has been 
suggested that this name is due to the habit of hiding behind pictures on the wall, 
and in the country in Cuba the only picture is often of the Virgin. The name 
Sabandija is used in the mountains of Oriente and Central Cuba applied to 
various species. 
Sphaerodactyls seem in general to lay but a single white egg. Round or 
slightly oval, it is covered with a hard, brittle chalky shell. The habit of many 
species of laying in the old termite galleries of rotten logs as well as in other dark 
moist situations would again seem to enhance the ease with which fortuitous 
means of transport might act upon the genus. Nevertheless, possibly because 
the eggs are delicate and sensitive to salt water or any other disturbance, they 
certainly seem most fragile, there is no evidence to be gathered from the dis- 
tribution which sets them off from the regular typical West Indian forms. Their 
dispersal seems to conform to certain more ow less known rules — whether the 
reason for this homogeneous dispersal be found in the even action of flotsam and 
jetsam bringing all the same immigrants to all the islands as some postulate or in 
previous changes in the geographic form and relations of the islands as seems 
much more plausible. | 
A word as to the methods pursued in the body of this revision. Great stress 
is laid on the number of dorsal scales which counted along one single row, equal 
the distance from the tip of snout to the centre of eye. The best method in 
making identifications is to verify the count given in the diagnosis by comparing 
and counting the scales in the figure of the dorsal scalation of each species. Thus 
the method of making the count can be checked and then applied to an examina- 
tion of the particular specimen in hand. 
Where there is no occasion to revise or to change the allocations to synonymy 
made by Boulenger in the Catalogue of lizards in the British museum (1885, 1) 
no allusion is made to them and they are accepted as proposed. Differences of 
opinion and synonyms subsequent to 1885 are given in full. 
It has been found extremely difficult to find stable characters, many of 
those given in the specific descriptions, although their inclusion is sanctioned by 
