NO. 1383. 



NOTES ON HAWAIIAN REPTILES— ilcGREGOR. 



117 



ABLEPHARUS BONTONII PCECILOPLEURUS (Wiegmann). 



Ablepharus bontomi pocc'dopleuriis 8te.ineger, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mu^., XXI, 1899, 

 p. 811. 



Thi.s .skink was abundant near Kahului in a pit cattle guard of the 

 ]\Iaui railroad and among- the sand hills a little back from the beach. 

 It is confined to the lowlands, nev^er being seen near the other species 

 here listed. In the sand hills I found it an easy matter to capture 

 plent}" of specimens. Among the rocks it was useless to bother with 

 them. Among my specimens there is considerable variation in the 

 head shields, and these are given in tabular form. 



Normal. I have designated as normal those specimens in which the 

 prefontals meet in a suture between the frontal and front nasal. This 

 is the commonest condition, although the suture may vary in length. 



Variation 1. The four above-mentioned shields meet at their corners, 

 the sutures forming a Hattened X. 



Variation ^. A small, triangular shield in front of frontal, the apex 

 pointing forward. 



Variation 3. A small truncated triangular shield in front of frontal, 

 the smaller end pointing backward. 



Variation 1. Among the adults there is one specimen which is normal 

 as to the shields under consideration, but some of the small post ocular 

 shields of the left side are united, forming a long shield which over- 

 laps the frontoparietal to its middle and covers part of the left parietal. 

 This specimen is listed under normal and variation 4. Among the 

 young are two with variation 3 and the frontonasal divided bisymmet- 

 rically. These are listed under variations 3 and 4. 



The following table gives the variations among 32 adults and 24 

 young recentl}^ from the ^g^. 



While collecting specimens of this lizard in the cattle guard men- 

 tioned above, large quantities of its eggs were found deposited in 

 damp earth. In some instances they were stuck together in bunches 

 of four or live. One "set " consisted of over seventy eggs in all stages 

 of incubation. From some the 3"oung escaped as I held the eggs in 

 my hand. Dozens of eu^pty shells were found among the good eggs. 

 The shell is dull, dirty white, soft and leathery. In shape the eggs 

 resemble those of hummingbirds, but may be much rounder, and 

 others are noticeably pointed at one or both ends. One example is 



