sauriaKs. 17 



Lac. nilotica, L.; Monitor du Nil; Ouaran of the Arabs; Mus. 

 Worm. 313; Geoff. St. Hil. great work on Egypt, Rep. pi. 1, 

 f. 1. (The Monitor of the Nile). Strong conical teeth, the poste- 

 rior of which become rounded by age; brown, with pale and deeper 

 coloured dots, forming various compartments, among which we ob- 

 serve transverse rows of large ocelhited spots that become rings on 

 the tail. The latter, round at the base, is transversed above by a carina, 

 which extends almost from root to tip. It attains a length of five 

 and six feet. The Egyptians pretend it is a young Crocodile hatched 

 in a dry place. It was engraved upon the monuments of that coun- 

 try by its antient inhabitants, and, possibly, because it devours the 

 eggs of the Crocodile*. The other species, 



Lac. scincus, Merr. ; Le Monitor terrcstre d'Egypte; Ouaran el 

 hard of the Arabs, Geoff. Egypt. Rept. Ill, f. 2, (The Great 

 Ouran), has compressed, trenchant, and pointed teeth; the tail 

 almost without a keel, and round much farther from the root; its 

 habits are more terrestrial, and it is common in the deserts in the 

 vicinity of Egypt. The jugglers of Cairo, after extracting its teeth, 

 employ it in their exhibitions. It is the Land Crocodile of Hero- 

 dotus, and, as Prosper Albin remarks, the true Scincus of the 

 antients-j-. 



India and Africa produce a great number of Monitors with 

 trenchant teeth like those of the preceding species, but whose tail is 

 more compressed than even that of the Monitor of the Nile. The 

 ojie most common in the Indian Archipelago, is the 



Lac. bivittata, Kuhl. (The Two-banded Monitor), which is white 

 above, black beneath, with five transverse rows of white spots or rings. 

 A white band extends along the neck, and there is an angle formed 

 by the white on the breast, which reaches obliquely over the shoulder. 

 Specimens have been found three feet in length J. 

 The other group of Monitors possesses angular plates on the head, 



* To this species, both by the form of the teeth and the arrangement of the spots, 

 which, by the bye, are similar in almost all the Monitors, must be referred the M. 

 orne (M. ornatus, Daud.), Ann. Mus. II, xlviii, Luc. capensis, Sparm., and the M. al- 

 bogularis, Daud. Rept. Ill, pi. xxxii. 



It is from this subdivision that M. Fitzingerhas made his genus Varanus, under 

 which name Merrem comprised all the Monitors. 



f This species constitutes the genus Psammosaurus of M. Fitzinger. 



X To this species, from the form of the teeth and the distribution of colours, must 

 be attached the T. bigare, Daud. (Lac. varia, Shaw, Nat. Misc. 83, J. White, 253);— 

 a neighbouring species of Manilla (M. marmoratus, C); — the T. elegant and the T. 

 etoile, Daud. Ill, xxxi, and Seb. I, xciv, 1, 2, 3, xcviii, xcix, 2; II, xxx, 2, xc, cv, 1, 

 &c, all of which are but one species, originally from Africa. We must add, the T. cepe- 

 dini, Daud. Ill, xxiv, or Lac. exanthematica, Bosc. Act. Soc. Nat. Par. pi. v, f. 3, 

 ocellated throughout; — the M. dotted with brown of Bengal (M. bengalensis, Daud.); 

 the black M. spotted with green of the Moluccas (A/, indicus, Daud.); — a species of 

 a uniform black from Java (M. nigricans, Cuv.), &c. 



All things considered, I have now reason to believe that the fig. of Seba, I, pi. ci, 

 f. 1, of which Linnaeus made his Lacerta dracana, but which is very different from 

 the Dragonne of Lacep., is the M. bengalensis. Seba's original is in the Museum. 



To these species with a compressed tail, M. Fitzinger applies the generic name of 



TiiJ'INAMBIS. 



