VIVIPAROUS LIZARD. 39 



nearly similar. The feet are more slender, and the toes 

 longer in proportion. The femoral pores, which vary less 

 in number than in the other, being generally nine or ten, 

 are placed in scales which are very different from the 

 corresponding ones in L. agilis. Instead of being broad, 

 flat, and triangular, and much larger than the orifice of 

 the pores, as in that species, they are small, rounded, and 

 so little larger than the pores, as to appear merely as the 

 sides of a tube. This is a very tangible character, though, 

 I believe, not before observed. " The following," says 

 Mr. Jenyns, " are sexual distinctions : In the male, the 

 tail and legs are longer in proportion to the body; the 

 former is nearly (in some specimens quite) two-thirds of 

 the entire length : the hind-leg applied to the side of the 

 abdomen reaches to, or passes beyond, the carpus of the 

 fore-foot ; the ante-anal lamella is shorter, and broader, or 

 more transverse; the under side of the base of the tail is 

 flattened with a slight longitudinal depression of the 

 middle just behind the vent ; during the season of sexual 

 excitement, the base of the tail is much dilated at the 

 sides, appearing swollen.* In the female, the abdomen is 

 longer and the tail shorter, the latter being often not more 

 than half the entire length : the hind-leg barely reaches to 

 the tips of the claws of the fore-foot ; the ante-anal lamella 

 is longer in proportion to its breadth, and of a more de- 

 cided hexagonal or pentagonal form ; the base of the tail 

 is rounded, and never dilated at the sides." f 



The colours and markings of this species vary greatly. 

 The general ground colour of the upper parts is a greenish 



* It is in this state undoubtedly the Lacerta oedura described by Mr. Shep- 

 pard in the seventh volume of the Linnean Transactions, as having the tail 

 bulging out a little below the base, as if it had been cut off and set on again. 

 This was first detected by Mr. Gray, and published in the Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society for 1834. t Jenyns, Brit. Vert. p. 293. 



