22 MK. G. A. BOULENGER ON LIZAEDS 



ground-colour between the bands may then be reduced to a narrow streak a)ong each 

 side of the back. Sometimes the dark markings are confluent into a vertebral stripe 

 with or without light spots. The whitish eyes of the ocelli or the light dorsal streaks 

 usually persist as central spots or short lines in one, three, or five longitudinal series 

 on the dark vertebral band. The sides bear three or four longitudinal series of 

 black and white ocelli, the upper being the largest and composed of 10 to 15 ocelli 

 from behind the ear to above the hind limb. The ocellar spots are sometimes 

 arranged irregularly or with a tendency to a transverse instead of a longitudinal 

 disposition, but, however irregular they may appear, there are never more than five 

 white eyes in a transverse series on the back (the remains of the five original 

 white streaks) and four on each side — as shown on PI. 1. figs. 4 & 11. In males the 

 lateral ocelli may totally disappear and be replaced by crowded black dots (var. 

 dorsalis Werner). It would be endless to further enumerate the variations in the 

 arrangement of the spots that may be met with in specimens from the same locality. 

 In males and young the upper surface of the head is usually unspotted or with small 

 darker dots, or irregularly arranged spots ; in many females and in a few males there 

 are large symmetrical dark brown or black markings, which may form a curved band 

 on the inner border of the supraocular region, and a darli upper temporal band may 

 be well defined. The dark longitudinal bands or series of spots are continued on 

 the tail, the striation or longitudinal arrangement being, however, absent when it has 

 disappeared from the body *. 



Males, at least in spring and early summer, are yellowish green or grass-green, 

 rarely yellow, on the sides of the head and body, very rarely on tiie whole body with 

 or without the exception of the median dorsal band which, according to Norman 

 Douglass, may be brick-red instead of brown. Females are grey or brown above, 

 with the darker markings varying from reddish brown to dark brown or black ; in 

 rare cases the sides assume the green colour of the males. The lower parts, including 

 the base of the tail, are green or greenish white in males, nearly always dotted with 

 black or with black veriniculations or markings suggestive of Arabic characters!, 

 cream-colour or pale yellow in females, often immaculate, sometimes with black dots 

 all over or restricted to the sides. 



A remarkable variation, which affects male as well as female specimens, occurring 

 promiscuously with the more normal type in France, Germany, and Austria, is that 

 known as var. rubra or erytlironotus. The back is unspotted, reddish brown to 

 brick-red, the red brighter during the breeding-season, the sides being coloured and 



* For the reason that the vertebral light streak is never coiitinueil beyond the base of the tail (see above, 

 p. 14), the median dorsal dark spots, however well they may be developed, are invariably devoid of the 

 white central eye which may accompany each spot on the body. 



t 1 have come across only one case of a male with scarcely any spots on the lower parts. It was obtained 

 at Soutbport by Mr. 0. Grieg (PL I. fig. 2). 



