5() Prof. F. A. tSmitt on the Genus Lycodes. 



VT. — Description of a new Lizard of the Genus Nacras 

 pom Usoffa, British East Africa. By OsCAR NEUMANN. 



Nucras Boulengeri. 



Body elongate ; head not depressed, its length (to ear- 

 opening) contained 4^ to 5 times in the length from snout to 

 vent ; two postnasals ; no granules between the supraoculars 

 and the supraciliaries ; interparietal not so long and narrow 

 as in N. tessellata and N. Delalandii ; occipital very small ; 

 8ubocular bordering the lip between the fourth and fifth upper 

 labials; two supratemporals bordering the parietal; tyrn- 

 ])anum half as large as the ear-opening. Dorsal scales small, 

 pointed behind, larger on the sides of the body ; 45 to 53 

 scales round the body ; ventrals in 6 longitudinal and 27 to 

 80 transverse series. Femoral pores 11 or 12. Foot much 

 shorter than the head. Tail thinner than in N. tessellata and 

 Is'. Delalundii, 1;^ to 1^ as long as head and body. Colour 

 brown above, with small indistinct blackish spots; bluish 

 white beneath. 



This seems to be a much smaller species than the tv\-o 

 previously known ; its principal distinctive characters reside 

 in the ratlier large tympanum, the pointed dorsal scales, and 

 the small foot. 



Two specimens were collected by me at Lubwas (Usoga) 

 in September 1894. 



VII. — On the Genus Lycodes. By Prof. F. A. Smitt. 



1'he genus Lycodes has, in recent times, given very much 

 trouble to the ichthyologist ; and, in the first place, the 

 usual manner of defining the species by the colouring of the 

 body has failed to give any systematic certainty. Thus, 

 ■when writing the * Scandinavian Fishes,' although I had 

 very poor material for comparison, I was struck * by the 

 apparent identity of Lycodes reticulatus, in Giinther's " Deep- 

 sea Fishes of 'Challenger' Expedition," with Lycodes frigidus, 

 Collett, which I knew from one of the author's type specimens, 

 and I expressed my suspicion that the " species " frigidus 

 was a mixture of sterile and more or less deformed specimens 

 of two other species. And as it was impossible to find any 

 constant characteristics, either in nature or in the descriptions 



* Smitt, Scaiid. Fish. p. 610. 



