72 laceetidtE. 



12. OPHIOPS. 



Opluops, Mencfr. Cat. Jiai's. p. G3 ; Dum. ^- Bilr. v. p. 2o7 ; Gray, 



Cat. p. 44 ; G»w/A. j?^;;/. Brit. Ind. p. 72 ; Strauch, Mel. Biol. Ac. 



St. Petersb. vi. 1807, p. 408; Schreib. Herp. Eur. p. 369 j Lataste, 



An7i. Mm. Genov. (2) ii. 188o, p. 126. 

 Amystes, Ehrenberg, ArcJi.f. Nat. IS-if), ii. p. 1. 

 Pseudopliiops, Jerclon, Proc. As. Soc. Beny. 1870, p. 71. 

 Gymnops {7wn Cuv.), Blanf. Jvurn, As. Soc. Beny. xxxix, 1870, 



p. :351. 

 Chondrophiops, Blanf. Journ. As. Soc. Beny. xlii. 1873, p. 144. 



Heacl-shiclcls normal. Nostril pierced between two to fournasals. 

 Eyelids immovable, the lower united with the upper, with a very 

 lar^e transparent disk. Collar absent or very indistinct. Dorsal 

 scales imbricate and strongly keeled. Ventral plates imbricate, 

 smooth. Digits compressed, with sharply keeled scales inferiorly. 

 Femoral pores. Tail cylindrical. 



I^orth Africa, Turkey, South-western Asia, India. 



All preceding authors have described the Lizards of this genus as 

 deprived of eyelids, or as having the eyelids in a rudimentary con- 

 dition. This is erroneous, and it is really surprising that herpeto- 

 logists who have had an 0])portunity of comparing Ophiops with 

 Cabrita, which latter is said to differ by having " well-developed 

 eyelids," should not have seen that the only difference between the 

 two genera is that the slit which separates the lower from the upper 

 eyelid in Cabrita has disappeared in Opliiops. AVhat was supposed 

 to be the exposed eye of Ophiops is the transparent disk of the 

 lower lid, which is neither more nor less developed than in Cabrita. 

 This Avindow, as it may be called, in the eyelid is, for Lizards living 

 in the sand, a useful adaptation ; the larger the transparent disk, 

 the less necessity for the animal of exposing its eye. Hence the 

 lower lid is scarcely movable in Cabrita, although distinct from the 

 upper ; as a step further, Ophiops has the eye protected permanently 

 by the lower eyelid, the border of which is coalesced with the rudi- 

 mentary upper lid. These remarks apply also to the genus Able- 

 p)harus in the following family, which stands in the same relation 

 to the species of Lygosoma with large transparent palpebral disk 

 (i. entrecasteauxii and others) as Ophiops to Cabrita. 



Synopsis of the Species. 



I. Snout moderate, feebly depressed. 



A. Upper head-shields strongly rugose, keeled and striated. 



A single frontonasal 1. jerdonii, p. 73. 



Two or three frontonasals 2. beddomii, p. 74. 



