der ' Murali3-F/-ar;e.' " 43 



— ClariaJlahes — Gymnallabes — Channallahes, in whicli we 

 witness the gradual disappearance of the plates which roof 

 over the sides of the skull, concurrently with the eel-like 

 elongation of the body, tlie reduction of the caulal fin, and 

 the reduction and ultimate suppression of the paired fitis — a 

 most suggestive series, the direction of which is unmistakable. 

 Again, in the Characinid fishes, as pointed out by Sagemehl, 

 the more primitive types, with large toothed maxillary bone, 

 have a massive skull, the fontanelles appearing together with 

 the reduction of the maxillary bone. The same story is told, 

 in a somewhat different way, by Chelonians (Chelydra — 

 Staurotypus, Emys — Cistudo^ &c.). In Lizards, also, when 

 we have to deal with an unmistakable orthogenetic series, 

 the drift of which is open to no question, as in Chalcides, for 

 instance, the more generalized type has a more convex skull, 

 better protected by osteodermal plates. But there is another 

 point which is of great importance, and which Prof. v. 

 Mehely does not appear to have considered. The Lacerhe 

 with massive skulls, from which I would assume the platy- 

 cephalous lizards to have been derived, have teeth on the 

 palate (pterygoid bones). These teeth are nearly constantly 

 present in Lacerta taurica and constantly absent in the forms 

 of L. muralis with supraocular fontanelles mentioned by 

 Prof. V. Mehely. Now, the only cases in which I have found 

 teeth on the palate in L. muralis have been in examples of 

 the pyramidocephalous vars. campestris and serpa *, a fact 

 which, in my opinion, goes a long way to support the view 

 of Eimer as to the general drift of evolution in this group of 

 lizards. 



Much as I value the careful investigation of neglected 

 points of structure, whether external or osteological, to whicli 

 Prof. Mehely is devoting himself, I cannot help regretting 

 the too frequent appeals he makes to pliylogeny in order to 

 give importance to characters which, from a strictly syste- 

 matic point of view, must be regarded as trivial and had 

 better be omitted from specific diagnoses. I have pointed out 

 on various occasions f that some of the lepidosis characters on 



* I have looked for these teeth in a large number of examples of the 

 typical form without ever succeeding in finding any. Siebenrock (Sitzb. 

 Akad. Wien, ciii. i. 1894, p. 2-j4) must therefore, in all probability, have 

 had skulls of some other form before him when he wrote that six or 

 seven pterygoid teeth are present in L. muralis. As his specimens are 

 stated to be from Dalmatia, it is most likely that they belong to one of 

 those pyramidocephalous forms which were grouped by Bedriaga under 

 L. viurcdis neapolitana. 



t Proc. Zool. Soc. 1904, ii. p. 333 ; Nov. Zool. xii. 1905, p. 7o ; Trans. 

 Zuol. Soc. xvii. 190-5, p. 351. 



