524 University of California Publications in Zoology [Vol. 12 



Phrynosoma, Sauromalus can be made to assume a rigid hypnotic 

 posture by gentle rubbing on the belly. In this condition an individual 

 may remain half an hour without moving. 



The half-eaten body of a large female was picked up near a nest con- 

 taining two young prairie falcons. When attacked in its retreats, the 

 chuckwalla inflates itself and lashes the heavy stub-tail about vigor- 

 ously. Aside from this it appears to be utterly innocuous, and the 

 writer has never known one to attempt to bite even when handled 

 roughly. Mr. Dane Coolidge states that the desert Indians, to whom 

 the chuckwallas are a delicacy, puncture the lizards' sides with sharp- 

 ened wire in order to deflate them and then draw them from their 

 retreats among the rocks. 



Old chuckwallas often have scars on the back caused perhaps by 

 crawling about in crevices. One individual secured had lost the front 

 foot on one side and the hind foot on the other, and in spite of its mis- 

 fortune was lively and had a stomach full of food. One chuckwalla 

 was seen up in a small creosote bush from which most of the leaves 

 had been stripped. The three stomachs examined contained plant re- 

 mains. In two cases the leaves were swallowed entire and belonged to 

 a composite (Franseria dumosa) and a spurge {Euphorbia pohj- 

 carpa) ; the other stomach contained many chewed leaves and stems. 



Uta stansburiana elegans Yarrow 

 Desert Brown-shouldered Lizard 



The present writer follows Richardson (1915, p. 473) in the use of 

 the above name. The characters ascribed to elegans are exemplified 

 fairly well in the nine specimens (nos. 1099-1100, 5526-5532) from the 

 vicinity of the Turtle Mountains. The dorsal horizontal scale rows 

 number 76 in two specimens, 82 in two, 84 in one, 85 in two, 86 in one, 

 and 100 in one. The average number of rows is 84, and the error of 

 numbering, as ascertained by repeated counts, is certainly not greater 

 than 7 per cent. The average number of dorsal scale rows in six 

 specimens of hesperis at hand is 100.6. These averages agree quite 

 well with determinations by Richardson of 86.5 and 102 for the two 

 subspecies elegans and hesperis respectively. Individuals of the two 

 subspecies cannot always be separated by the number of dorsal scale 

 rows alone. The present series of elegans is much bluer in dorsal col- 

 oration and smaller in size than in the large series of hesperis at hand. 

 The femoral pores number 13 in three thighs, 14 in ten, and 15 in 



