REPTILES 85 



grasshopper, beetle or other insect. The seed capsules and berries 

 are eaten for the fleshy part surrounding the seeds, which is the only 

 part digested, the seeds passing unchanged through the alimentary 

 canal. The same is true of all species of Tropidurus which eat 

 seed capsules and berries. 



Genus Conolophus Fitzinger. 

 Conolophus FITZINGER, Syst. Kept., p. 55, 1843. 

 Range. Galapagos Archipelago. 



CONOLOPHUS SUBCRISTATUS (Gray). 



Trachycephalus subcristatus GRAY, Cat., p. 188. 



Amblyrhynchus subcristatus GRAY, Zool. Misc., p. 6, 1831 and Zool. Bee- 



chey's Voyage, Kept., p. 93. DARWIN, Journ. Beagle, p. 469. 

 Amblyrhynchus demarlii DUM. & BIBR., iv, p. 197. BELL, Zool. Beagle, 



Kept., p. 22, pi. xn. 



Hypsilophus (Conolophus) demarlii FITZINGER Syst. Kept., p. 55, 1843. 

 Conolophus subcristatus STEINDACHNER, Festschr. Zool.-Bot. Ges. Wien, 



p. 322, pis. iv-vn, 1876. GUNTHER, Proc. Zool. Soc., p. 67, 1877. 



BOUL., Cat., n, p. 187, 1885. CARMAN, Bull. Essex Inst., xxiv, p. 5, 



1892 (part). 

 Conolophus subcristatus pictus ROTH & HART, Novit. Zool., vi, p. 102, 1899. 



Range. Galapagos Archipelago; Albemarle Island (Darwin, 

 Hassler, Petrel) James Island (Darwin) ; South Seymour Islands 

 (Hopkins Stanford Expedition) ; Narboro Island (Rothschild Expedi- 

 tion, Hopkins Stanford Expedition). 



Formerly abundant on Albemarle, James, Indefatigable, Seymour 

 and Narboro but now extinct on all except Seymour and Narboro, 

 where they are still fairly common. Extinction due chiefly to the 

 introduction of dogs which have destroyed both eggs and adults. 



This species inhabits the brushy and wooded portions of the islands 

 from sea-level to the rims of the highest craters. 



Conolopus is an omnivorous vegetable feeder devouring almost any 

 kind of vegetation. Grass, the foliage, flowers and berries of various 

 bushes, and cacti ( Opuntia and the fruit of the giant Cereus) are eaten 

 with little or no preference. The reptiles when feeding climb into 

 the bushes and strip the foliage from the branches, deftly crawling to 

 the tips of slender branches for that purpose. 



They live in burrows dug obliquely into the soil in open country or 

 on rocky hillsides often beneath or between the lava rocks. All the 

 individuals we observed were somewhat shy and would scamper to 

 their burrows as soon as alarmed. This is undoubtedly an acquired 

 habit due to their persecution by dogs. 



