266 Lacertida?. 



Var. BALFOURI. 



Eremias (Mesalina) halfouri, Blauf. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1881, p. 467, 

 fig. 



Eremias guttiilafa, part., Bouleng. Cat. Liz. iii, p. 87 (1887) ; 

 Anders. Zool. Egypt, Kept. p. 174 (1898) ; Bouleng. in Forbes & 

 Grant, Kep. Sokotra Exped. p. 84 (1903). 



Eremias cjutlulata, var. halfouri, Bouleng. Journ. Zool. lies, iii, 

 1918, p. 10. 



The specimens from Socotra have the narrow and pointed snout of 

 the most extreme specimens of the typical form and the much divided 

 and semitransparent palpebral disc of var. olivieri. The number of 

 scales across the middle of the body (36 to 42) is intermediate 

 between those of the typical form and of the var. martini, and the 

 coloration is sometimes identical with that of the latter. The size is 

 a little larger than that of the typical form or of any of the other 

 varieties.* 



Head l.V to l-j times as long as broad. Nasals not very strongly 

 swollen. The hind limb reaches the collar or between the collar and 

 the ear in males, the elbow, the axil, or the shoulder in females. 

 Frontonasal as long as broad or a little broader than long; frontal 

 shorter than its distance from the end of the snout and nearly always 

 in contact with the first supraocular ; interparietal longer than the 

 frontoparietals ; occipital small or very small. 



Collar free, composed of 7 to 9 plates. Ventral plates in 26 to 28 

 transverse sei-ies in males, 28 to 31 in females. Preanal plate large 

 in males, smaller in females, bordered by two semicircles of small 

 plates. 11 to 15 femoral pores on each side. 



Grey or brown above, usually with two white streaks on each side, 

 a dorsolateral and a lateral, the latter from below the eye to the groin, 

 passing through the tympanum, and black-edged beneatli ; the space 

 between these two streaks dark brown with one or two series of white, 

 black edgeil ocelli, or black with two or three series of white spots ; a 

 series of more or less confluent black spots, or of black and white ocelli, 

 along each side of the back, on the inner side of the light streak ; 

 these markings, as well as the light streaks, sometimes obsolete. 



* Blaiiford's statement, " General form ratlier stouter tlian that of E. pardnlis 

 (= guttulata), tail shorter, limbs stouter and shorter," is not confirmed by 

 measurements of the type specimens, in all four of which the tail is imperfect, 

 as correctly mentioned in the original description. 



