136 



SCINCID^. 



three large temporals ; one or two pairs of nuchals. Ear-opening 

 nearly as large as the eye-opening, with three or four obtuse lobules 

 anteriorly. Scales smooth, laterals a little smaller than dorsals and 

 ventruls, '62 to 40 round the middle of the body. The adpressed 

 limbs overlap. Digits moderately elongate. Tail more or less dis- 

 tinctly compressed, once and two fifths to once and two thirds the 

 length of head and body ; caudal scales smooth. Upper surfaces 

 usually brown or olive-brown, with two dorsal black bands, each 

 bearing a series of small yellowish-white or pale-brown spots ; sides 

 with similar black-edged spots or ocelli ; lower si;rfaces pale olive, 

 throat sometimes with black markings. The elegant markings of 

 the upper surfaces may be almost or quite absent. Edge of the 

 eyelids and ear-lobules constantly white. 



3. Egernia dorsalis. 

 Tropidolepisma dorsale, Peters, Mon. Berl. Ac. 1873, p. 743. 



Head short. A curved groove behind the nostril ; frontonasal in 

 contact with the rostral ; praefrontals forming a median suture ; 

 frontal narrow, twice as long as broad, not longer than the fronto- 

 parietal ; five supraoculars, second largest ; six supraciliaries ; a 

 complete series of infraoculars, the median wedged in between the 

 fifth and sixth apper labials. Ear-opening larger than the eye- 

 opening, partly concealed under three very large triangular lobules. 

 26 (to 28) scales round the middle of the body ; dorsals and laterals 

 quinquc- or quadricarinate, the scales of the two median nuchal and 

 dorsal scries much broader than the others ; laterals and vcntrals 



