CRYPTOBLEPHARUS. 219 



clusively terrestrial in their habits, feeding on insects and small 

 animals generally. 



SUBFAM. OPHIOPHTHALMI. 



The eyes are naked; the eyelids being rudimentary, circular, ring- 

 like, and immovable. Auricular aperture exteriorly visible. The 

 maxillary teeth are simple and conical ; the palate being toothless. 

 The tongue is scaly, nicked at the tip, which is bifid. Body fusiform 

 or subfusiform; the scales being smooth, keeled, or striated. There 

 are four limbs, weak and unequal. The fingers and toes varying" in 

 number. Femoral pores wanting. Preanal pores in a few genera. 



SYN. Ophiophthalm.es, COCT. Etud. Scincoid. 1836; &, Tabul. synopt. Seine, in 

 Compt. Rend. Acad. des Sc. IV, 1837, 17. BUM. & BIBR. Erpet. gen. V, 1839, 805. 

 Ophiophthalmi, FJT'Z. Syst. Kept. 1843, 23. 

 Gymnophthalmidae, GRAY, Catal. Lizz. Brit. Mus. 1845, 62. 



OBSERV. The representatives of this group are comparatively few 

 in number, yet there are amongst them, genera having the ordinary 

 aspect of the typical Saurians, others whose body elongates, and in 

 which the limbs are so much reduced in their external development 

 as to assume an ophidian or serpent-like appearance. 



GENUS CRYPTOBLEPHARUS, WIEGM. 



GEN. CHAR. Body subfusiform, subdepressed, covered with smooth 

 scales, else very finely or indistinctly grooved. , Head depressed, sub- 

 pyramidal. Nostrils lateral, in a single plate. No internasal. An 

 odd prefrontal. One pair of postfrontals ; sometimes combined. A 

 vertex plate. Parietals and middle occipital combined into one large 

 plate. Tongue flat, scaly. Palate toothless. Eyelid rudimentary, 

 circular. Auricular aperture moderate. Limbs four ; five fingers 

 and five toes, unequal, depressed. Subdigital plates smooth. Tail 

 roundish, tapering into a point. 



Cryptollepharus, WIEQM. in Nov. Act. Nat. Cur. XVII, 1, 1834, 204; &, Herp. 

 Mex. I, 1834, 12. COCT. Etud. Seine. 1836. GRAY, in Ann. Nat. Hist. II, 1839, 

 335 ; Catal. Lizz. Brit. Mus. 1845, 64 ; &, Zool. Voy. Ereb. & Terr, vi, 1845, 3. 

 Petia, GRAY, MSS. 



