Mr. A. W. E. O'Shaughnessy on new Lizards. 295 



XXXIII. — Descriptions of new Species of Lizards in the Col- 

 lection of the British Museum. By A. W. E. O'Shaugh- 

 nessy, Assistant in the Natural History Departments. 



The present paper contains descriptions of four new species 

 of Cercosauridae, one of them being the type, apparently, of a 

 new genus. I have also taken this opportunity to publish 

 descriptions of some new species of lizards belonging to the 

 genera Gongylus, Mocoa, and Leiocephalus. 



Neusticurus ecpleopus. Cope. 



Neusticurus ecpleopus, Cope, Journ. Ac. Nat. Sc. Philadelphia (n. s.) 

 viii. 1876, p. 161. 



In the course of recent examinations of lizards in the 

 British-Museum collection I have been able to recognize and 

 separate this species from N. {Casta) bicarinatus, L., having 

 previously labelled it as a new species before seeing Prof. Cope's 

 description. M. F. Bocourt informs me, in reply to a commu- 

 nication which I addressed to him on the subject, that he has 

 found two very small specimens in the Paris Museum, col- 

 lected by MM. Castelnau and Deville (Cat. Method. 1851, 

 p. 112), exhibiting all the characters by which this species is 

 distinguished from the larger one. In the British-Museum 

 collection it is represented by three full-grown examples and 

 one young, while of the N. bicarinatus we possess two adults 

 and one young individual. From this series I am enabled to 

 state that the internasal plate is not always entire in AT". 

 ecpleopus, two of the specimens showing it cleft longitudinally 

 as in N. bicarinatus. The other points of difference, how- 

 ever, are very well marked. The carina? of the dorsal scales 

 are much stronger and more prominent ; the scales on .the 

 nape are granular, with rows of convex ones, much as in 

 Lepidophyma ; moreover the ventral plates are quadrangular 

 and in six longitudinal series, whereas in N. bicarinatus they 

 are always rounded and in eight or ten series. I may further 

 add that in N. bicarinatus there is a small quadrangular pre- 

 frontal plate wedged in between the internasal and the two 

 large fronto-nasals ; in N. ecpleopus this extra plate is absent, 

 even when the internasal is bisected. 



Emphrassotis, gen. nov. (Cercosaurid.). 



Head broad, somewhat flattened above; snout short, rounded. 

 Ear indistinct. Nostril in a single large nasal plate ; no 

 frenal ; no supranasals ; no fronto-parictals ; no fronto-nasals. 



