der ' Mural is-i^m^e.' " 45 



occasionally in many other species of lizards, he was led to 

 regard it as " ein ausgesprocheness Merkraal der Art \_L.prati- 

 cola\, das mit der Zeit wolil eine voUkommene Bestandigkeit 

 erlangen wird^ besonders da drei Schildchen hiiufiger bei den 

 Weibchen, zweie aber bei den Mannchen auftreten und bei 

 Lacertiden bekanntermaassen die weiblichen Cliaractere viel 

 allgemeiner auf die Naclikommenschaft vererbt werden " *. 

 Now the case of the L. praticola from the valley near 

 Herkulesbad is analogous with that of the L. muralis near 

 Vienna, for in other parts of the habitat of the former species 

 the intercalated shield is only exceptional, as pointed out by 

 Kessler and by Bedriaga f, not being found in any of the 

 fifteen specimens from Caucasia examined by them ; it is 

 absent in the three specimens from Sukum Kaleh, Caucasia, 

 and in six out of the nine from the Gomana Forest^ Roumania \y 

 preserved in the British Museum. And yet Prof. v. Mehely 

 included this character of the three azygous shields between 

 the parietals among the points which, in his opinion, militate 

 in favour of regarding L. praticola as more nearly related to 

 L. muralis (" besonders die auch bei L. muralis haufige 

 Querteilung des Interparietale ") than to L. vivipara^. 



Needless to say, the intercalation of a shield between the 

 interparietal and tlie occipital (or division of the interparietal) 

 occurs occasionally also in L. vivipara. I have before me 

 specimens presenting such an anomaly from Falmouth, 

 Brussels, Talomitza Valley and Brosteni, Roumania, and 

 Moscow, It should also be mentioned that a few (two to 

 four) granules may be present between the supraoculars and 

 the supraciliaries in L. vivipara, whilst, on the other hand, 

 these granules may be reduced to three or four in L.praticola. 



(jreat is no doubt the interest attaching to the record of 

 such individual deviations from the normal condition, great is 

 also the danger of introducing them in the diagnosis of species. 



I seize this opportunity to point out that the genus 

 Apathya, recently proposed by Meliely || for Lacerta cappa- 

 docica, Werner, does not seem separable from Latastia, 

 Bedriaga. I am indebted to Dr. Werner for a specimen of 

 Latastia cappadocica, and Dr. J. Roux has shown me another 

 (labelled as from Mesopotamia). The structure of the digits 



* I am uot aware of any evidence in support of this statement. 



t Zool. Anz. 1895, p. 201. 



X I am here at variance with Kiritezcu, Bull. Soc. Sc. Bucarest, x. 

 1901, p. 813, but he does not state how many examples he has examined. 



§ A view which has since been abandoned (cf. Ann. Miis. Hung. ii. 

 1904, pp. 375 & 377). 



II Termesz. Kiislon., Budapest, Ixxxv. 1907, p. 2 



