184 



LIZARDS OF GENUS BARISSIA STEJNEGER. 



rows, in propoitioos and coloration there seems to be no essential dis- 

 agreement, in proof of which I have appended below a table of some of 

 the characters which can be expressed in a statement of tuat kind. 



The alleged locality of the types can hardly be accepted as an objec- 

 tion to this identification. In Yarrow's catalogue of the specimen's in 

 the U. S. National Museum (Bull. Ko. 24, p, 4f>) the locality is given as 

 "San Diego, Cal.," and Cope {II. cc.) also attributes B. oUvacea to south- 

 ern California. I doubt very much the correctness of this for various 

 reasons. In the first place the locality given in the original description 

 is only "near San Diego," and this is also the way it is written in the 

 Museum record-book, and I think it is impossible to say with certainty 

 now whether this San Diego is the city located in southern California 

 or one of the several other places of the same name in the neighborhood 

 of which the gentlemen connected with the U. S. and Mexican Bound- 

 ary Commission collected specimens for the Smithsonian Institution. 

 It is true that " Cal." is interpolated after San Diego in the report of 

 the Boundary Survey, but that may have been nothing more than an 

 "editorial" correction made without consulting the records. Even if 

 " San Diego, Cal." had been intended originally, it does not follow that 

 the specimens were collected very " near" that place. The locality of 

 G. ivebhii described only a few lines above G. oUvaceus is also given as 

 "near San Diego, Cal.," but if we turn to the original record in the 

 Museum register we will find that No. 3078 was collected "From San 

 Diego to El Paso," a distance of more than six hundred miles, as the crow 

 flies. 



Specimens examined. 



Barissia levicoUis, sp. nov. 



Diagnosis. — No azygos prefrontal ; three pairs of shields between the 

 frontal and the rostral ; prefrontals not in contact with loreal ; no pro- 

 jecting scales above the earj one large upper postorbital and two mi- 

 nute lower ones ; forty-six transverse rows of dorsal scales between the 

 head and the base of the tail, and sixteen longitudinal rows; head 

 shields swollen. 



Hab. — " Mexican boundary," 



Type.— JJ. S. Nat. .Mus., No. 9362. 



