416 Mr. T. C. Jerdon on Dj\ Guniher's 



species, the individuals of which live together in myriads, the 

 young males closely resemble the females. But the last moult 

 gives origin to two very distinct forms of males. Some of them 

 are furnished with enormous, elongated and very mobile nippers, 

 and with anterior antennae having as many as twelve or even 

 seventeen olfactory filaments, of which the antennse of the 

 females do not exhibit one. The others retain short and heavy 

 pincers, very similar to those of the females ; but their antennse 

 have incomparably more numerous filaments than those of the 

 first form of males. 



The fact of this singular dimorphism does not appear to Dr. 

 M iiller to be inexplicable by the Darwinia hypothesis. Natural 

 selection must have tended to favour the varieties in which the 

 males could most readily make sure of the possession of the 

 females. Hence, on the one hand, those males which were 

 furnished with vigorous and mobile nippers fitted to seize the 

 females, and, on the other, those furnished with olfactory organs 

 adapted to guide them in the search after the females, have 

 prevailed in the struggle for existence. 



XLV. — Remarks on Observations contained in Dr. GUnther's 

 Work on the Reptiles of British India. By T. C. Jerdon, 

 Surgeon-Major. 



To the Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 



Gentlemen, 



Dr. Giinther, in his elaborate work on the Reptiles of British 

 India, in a note at page 99, writes as follows : — " Mr. Jerdon 

 describes a Scaled Gecko [Homonota fasciata, Journ. Asiat. Soc. 

 xxii. 408) ; but the descriptions given by that gentleman are so 

 obscure (partly because he rarely hit upon the proper generic 

 name, and partly because the few words serving for a description 

 generally contain the most trivial characters) that in this case 

 we are at a loss to imagine what sort of Lizard is the type of 

 Homonota fasciata." 



Now, Gentlemen, this paragraph is based upon an error, is 

 unjust, not to say untrue, in part of its censure, and is ofi^ensive 

 and illiberal in its tone, as are several other allusions to my 

 brief Catalogue of Reptiles, compiled in 1849-1850; but these 

 I share with others. 



It is based upon error ; for it so happens that the name and 

 description of Homonota fasciata (as might have been seen by 

 the manner of its interpolation) were given by Mr. Blyth at my 



