INTRODUCTION. XV 
majority there are four. The eyelids are connivent. Transparent lower 
lids occur in species of Kumeces. The tongue ts slender, exsertile, and pro- 
vided with a pair of poited extremities. In habits the Scines are terres- 
trial. They secrete themselves under logs, bark, rocks, leaves, or in 
shallow burrows in loose earth or sand. Their eggs number ten or a 
dozen, and are laid in these situations. East of the Mississippi Limeces 
fasciatus, the “ Blue-tail,” is the most common; it is found as far North 
as Illinois and New York. Specimens ten inches in length are very large. 
A second species, 2. anthracinus, is found in the mountains of Pennsyl- 
vania and Southward. Two others have been described from Florida. 
Westward to Mexico the number is much increased. £. leptogrammus is 
taken in Dakota. A species of another genus, Oligosoma laterale, las a 
distribution somewhat similar to that of /. fasciatus, probably not extend- 
ing quite so far North. The family is found in all tropical and subtrop- 
ical countries. Trachydosaurus, the “Stump-tail,” and Cyclodus, Australian 
genera, are of the largest. 
A Californian genus, Aniella, furnishes a foundation for the family Aniel- 
lide. This lizard has a long snake-like body and tail, and is without limbs. 
The Acontias, Acontiade, are from the Eastern Hemisphere. Acontias 
has no limbs, and the upper eyelid is rudimentary. ves/a has short limbs, 
and the toes are not separate. Vessia has only three toes to the foot. 
One of the common lizards of Southern California and Mexico, Ger- 
rhonotus, belongs to the Zonuridw, a family of which the greater portion 
belongs to the old world, and which is specially marked by a distinct longi- 
tudinal fold or groove along each flank. Another member of this family is 
the footless snake-lizard, Ophisaurus. The latter has a long, slender tail, 
which is easily broken, and being longer than the body, more than half the 
total length can be carried away without disabling the animal, which, by 
a second growth, soon replaces the portion lost. It is to this peculiar genus 
that we owe the fiction of the ‘“Glass-snake.”’ Pseudopus, an allied genus of 
‘Europe and Southern Asia, resembles the preceding, but has on each side 
of the vent a small limb, on which the toes are not separated. 
The AMPHISBANIA form a very distinct suborder of the Sauria. In the 
typical forms the body is long and subeylindrical, and the tail short and 
thick. The bones of the skull are firmly articulated, and the symphysis of 
the lower jaw is nonelastic. The tongue is flat, thick, and notched at the 
end; the eyes are small and covered by the skin; the ears are hidden; and 
