680 



SOME CASES OF CAUDAL ABNORMALITY IN MABUIA 



CABIN ATA AND OTHER LIZARDS. 



By H. H, Brindley, m.a., St, John's College, Lecturer on 



Biology at Clare College, Cambridge. 



(With a Plate.) 



(Head before the Bombay Natural History Society on June 14^, 1898.) 



Since the publication of a description of a case of duplicity in a 

 reproduced tail of a Hemidactylus* the Honorary Secretary of the 

 Bombay Natural History Society has kindly sent to me two further 

 examples of abnormal tails in lizards obtained in the Bombay Presi- 

 dency. The present paper describes these, together with certain other 

 cases'presenting resemblances to them. 



External Appearance, — Both of Mr. Phipson's specimens belong 

 to the common species Mabuia carinata, Boulenger (Scincidce).^ In 

 both the bifid portion of the tail commences some distance posterior to 

 a point where regrowth had arisen after a rupture. The abnormal 

 reo-ion is therefore altogether a new structure, as was the case with the 

 already described tail of Hemldactylus. The two specimens of Mabuia 

 will, for brevit}', be referred to as A and B. 



In A the forking is iu the horizontal plane, i.e., the two branches of 

 the bifid growth are right and left. The right branch was slightly 

 the longer when examined by me, but the actual tip of the left branch 

 appears to have been broken off. 



In B the forking is almost in the vertical plane, the ventral and 

 slightly left-hand branch being about one-third longer than the dorsal 

 and slightly right-hand branch. This specimen was only the tail, but 

 there was sufficient of the proximal part to show the commencement 

 of the regrowth from the normal stump. 



Chief Dimensions. — These are given in centimetres 



Snout to cloaca 



Cloaca to commencement of reproduced region 

 Break to commencement of reproduced region 

 Commencement of reproduced region to forking 

 Fork to tip of right branch 



Do. left do\ 



Do. dorsal do, 



Do. ventral do. 



* " On a Specimen of Hemldactylus gleadovu with a Bifid Renewed Tail."— J 'ourn., Bombay 

 Nat. Hist. Soc, 189-i, IX (No. 1), p. 30. 

 t Fauna of British Iniia (Reptilia and Batrachia)— 1890, pp. 188-189. 



