NABORE: 
49 
THURSDAY, MAY 21, 1885 
THE BRITISH MUSEUM CATALOGUE OF 
LIZARDS 
Catalogue of the Lizards in the British Museum (Natural 
History). By George Albert Boulenger. Vol. I. 
Geckonide, Eublepharide, Uroplatide, Pygopodide, 
Agamide. Second Edition. (1885.) 
T would be difficult to name any order of vertebrates 
more urgently in need of cataloguing than the lizards. 
The last general work on the group published in any 
country was Dr. J. E. Gray’s Catalogue, which appeared 
forty years ago, only six years after the completion of the 
volumes devoted to lizards in Dumeril and Bibron’s great 
work on Reptiles. The additions made in Dr. Gray’s 
Catalogue were considerable, but many of them were of 
doubtful value. Thus of fourteen new genera therein 
added by him to the family of Geckoes alone, but three 
survive in the present edition, the remainder swell the 
synonymy. 
Mr. Boulenger’s Catalogue is a boon to herpetologists 
and to biologists generally, not only because it places 
within their reach in a few handy volumes descriptions 
that have hitherto been widely scattered, but also because 
the classification proposed, whether it be generally 
accepted or not, is a distinct advance upon the artificial 
system hitherto in vogue. It is to be hoped that lizards 
so closely resembling each other as do, for instance, 
Gongylus, Ablepharus, and Euprepes, will no longer be 
classed in three distinct families solely because of trivial 
differences in the form of the nasal shield and in the 
development of the lower eyelid. At the same time, as 
naturalists have but rarely access to a collection of lacer- 
tilian skeletons, it is to be regretted that a few diagrams 
have not been added to the present catalogue, to show 
the cranial characters and the forms of the vertebre, 
clavicles, &c., upon which Mr. Boulenger’s families are 
founded. 
A considerable change in some well-known reptilian 
genera is proposed in the present work, and it is probable 
that the union, for instance, of Sted/zo and Trafelus with 
Agama and of Bronchacela with Calotes will not be uni- 
versally acceptable. But no change appears to have been 
proposed without valid reasons, and the tendency to 
excessive multiplication of genera on insufficient grounds 
has become so serious a nuisance in zoology that a 
diminution in the number is welcome. It is satisfactory 
to find, on comparison with the catalogue of 1845, that 
whilst the species attributed to the Geckonid@ have in- 
creased from 97 to 270, the genera have only augmented 
in number from 40 (or if Ezdb/epharis and Uroplates, now 
placed in other families, be excluded, 38) to 49, whilst the 
Agamide which, in the earlier list, comprised 79 species, 
distributed amongst no less than 34 genera (35, including 
flatteria) now contain 202 species, but only 30 genera. 
But six new-generic names are proposed by Mr. Boulenger 
in the present work, and only three of these are used for 
generic groups not previously recognised, the others 
_ being intended to replace terms that are inadmissible. 
It is almost impossible to form an adequate opinion of 
the descriptions and synopses in a catalogue of this kind 
VOL. XXXII.—NO. 812 
without testing them extensively, and the only thorough 
testis to try, by means of them, to identify unknown 
forms without having a series of specimens of allied 
species at hand. Most museum publications are deficient 
in this respect, because the writers do not make sufficient 
allowance for the difficulties under which those who have 
occasion to identify animals find themselves. An example 
or two may be taken from the present work, In the 
synopsis (p. 114) of Hemzdactylus, one of the largest and 
most difficult genera of Geckoes, two groups of species 
are distinguished, the one by having the “free distal 
joints of all the digits remarxably short,” the other by 
having them long. In a museum, with other species for 
comparison, this is a good distinction, but away from any 
specimens except the one that he is endeavouring to 
identify it is difficult for a naturalist to tell whether the 
joints of the lizard he is examining are remarkably short 
compared with those of other forms. Again, in Draco 
(p. 254) several species are distinguished by having the 
snout longer or shorter than the diameter of the orbit, but 
it is not stated how the snout is measured. It is but right 
to say that such instances appear exceptional in the 
present catalogue, and that it is very rare to find a work 
in zoology from which similar examples might not be 
taken. 
One of the chief desiderata in books like the present is 
accuracy as to localities. The museum catalogues of a 
past age left much to be desired in this respect, and their 
shortcomings have had a pernicious influence on the pro- 
gress of a study of wide biological and geological interest, 
that of the geographical distribution of animals. It will 
probably be a long time before all the erroneous localities 
are weeded out, but it is satisfactory to note the great 
improvement that has taken place in British Museum 
catalogues of late years. Where so much care has been 
expended on the subject as is shown in the present work, 
it appears almost ungracious to point to such trifling 
shortcomings as appear, though a few mistakes have 
naturally crept in. Thus the locality for Acanthosaura 
(Oriocalotes) Kakhienensis is not in the Khasia hills as 
stated at p. 305, but Ponsee, in the Kakhyen hills, on 
the borders of Yunan. Again, considering the extensive 
collections that have been made of late years throughout 
Bengal, it is very extraordinary, if Hoplodactylus duvan- 
celit and Gonyocephalus belli? really occur in the province 
that neither of them has been rediscovered, and the 
locality should not be recorded without doubt. 
Altogether the present volume quite maintains the level 
that the best recent museum catalogues have led natur- 
alists to expect. Why it should be called a “second 
edition ” is not clear. A comparison of the two editions 
resembles an antiquarian research. It is necessary to 
recall a state of zoological knowledge as extinct as the 
dodo before the conditions under which the so-called first 
edition was produced can be understood. When the 
head of the zoological department in the British Museum 
could propose to divide reptiles into two sections, one 
called Sgvamata, comprising the orders of lizards and 
snakes, and the other, called Cataphracta, consisting of 
tortoises, crocodiles, and amphisbzenians, on the ground 
that the former were clad with scales and the latter with 
plates, the knowledge of the animals classified was evi- 
dently in a rudimentary stage. As if the classification 
D 
