ARTICLE IV. 
NOTICE OF SOME NEW AND RARE SPECIES OF SCINCID IN THE COLLECTION OF 
THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 
BY EDWARD HALLOWELL, M. D. 
[Read, June 20, 1856.] 
The family of Scincidee or Lepido Saurians of Duméril and Bibron occupy a position in 
their arrangement intermediate between the Chalcidians, including the genera Zonurus, 
Gerrhosaurus, Gerrhonotus, Pseudopus, Ophisaurus, Pantodactylus, Ecpleopus, Chame- 
saurus, Heterodactylus, Chalcis, Chirotes, Amphisbeena, Lepidosternon, and the Ophidi- 
ans, or serpents, to which they pass as observed by them through the genera Anguis, and 
Acontias, which most nearly resembles the latter. ; 
The following are the characteristics of the family as laid down by Dum. and Bibron, 
vol. v., p. 515 of their Erpétologie genérale. 
1st. Head covered above with horny slender angular plates, united in a regular manner. 
2nd. Neck of same form and thickness as the chest. 
3rd. The rest of the trunk and members furnished on all sides with imbricated scales, 
having several margins, for the most part broad, and with the free edge slightly rounded, 
disposed in quincunx; back rounded, without crests, or erect spines; belly cylindrical, 
without a lateral groove. 
4th. Tongue free, flattened, without a sheath, slightly notched in front, its surface 
covered in whole or in part with papillee; most usually all in the form of scales; it occa- 
sionally happens that some are squamiform, and others filiform. 
These characters readily distinguish the Scincks from the Lacertians proper, which have 
for the most part quadrangular scales upon the abdomen, placed in longitudinal rows, 
differing from those upon the rest of the body, and of the rest of the other Saurians. 
