SAURIA. 



tals and the supraciliary ridge. A pair of elliptically polygonal pre- 

 frontal plates, the largest amongst the cephalic ones, may be seen 

 immediately behind the fronto-nasals, inclosing, upon the posterior- 

 half of their commissure, a small and odd cordiform plate. A post- 

 frontal pair fills up the area between the prefrontals, the supraoculars, 

 and the vertex plate. The latter is elongated, subhexagonal, and 

 rather broader anteriorly than posteriorly. Four pairs of subequal 

 and quadrangular parietals form, on each side of the occipitals, a 

 curved series, concave towards the supraocular region : the plates of 

 the anterior pair are contiguous upon their inner edge; the others 

 are inclosed, on one side by the occipitals, and on the other, by the 

 supraoculars. The middle occipital is rather small, subpentagonal, 

 posteriorly acuminated, and engaging between the rather more deve- 

 loped contiguous postoccipitals. Two exiguous pairs of latero-occipi- 

 tals, situated side by side, exteriorly to the postorbitals, close that long 

 series of cephalic plates. 



We have yet to allude to the supraoculars : three, somewhat more 

 developed than the rest, though unequal, occupy the posterior and 

 middle space of that region ; while a semicircular series, of rather 

 small and irregular ones, separates them from the parietals, the vertex, 

 and the frontal plates, and a longitudinal series of similarly irregular 

 and small plates isolates them from the supraciliary series. The ante- 

 rior remaining portion of the supraocular region, inclosed by the two 

 series just alluded to, is covered with small, irregular plates. The 

 supraciliary series is composed of five or six, unequal, thin, tiled 

 laminae, occupying the region immediately above the orbits. Its con- 

 tinuation forwards along the line of the canthus rostralis, exhibits but 

 two more plates, the foremost of which being the smallest. In advance 

 of that ridge is situated the nasal plate, perforated by the nostril, con- 

 tiguous anteriorly to the rostral, inferiorly to the anterior supralabial, 

 superiorly to an exiguous supranasal, and posteriorly to three unequal 

 postnasals : the middle one being very small ; the uppermost exiguous 

 and curved ; the lowermost subtriangular and moderate. A second 

 and small upper postnasal may be observed, between the lateral naso- 

 frontals, the uppermost postnasal, the naso-frontal, and the anterior of 

 the supraciliary ridge. The loral region is occupied by three plates : 

 a small one may be seen under the anterior extremity of the supra- 

 ciliary ridge, and immediately behind the inferior postnasal; the other 

 two are larger, angular, subequal, placed one in advance of the other, 



