1886.] ON THE SKULL OF THE CHAMELEONS. 543 



6. Remarks on Prof. W. K. Parker's paper on the Skull 

 of the Chameleons. By G. A. Boulenger. 



[Received November 25, 1886.] 



I wish to call attention to what I believe to be a serious error 

 in Prof. Parker's paper on the Skull of the Chameleons, printed 

 in the last volume of the Society's ' Transactions ' (vol. xi. p. 77, 

 1881). The adult skulls of two species are described and figured, 

 viz. that of C/iamaleo vulgaris (pi. xvi.) and that of 0. pumilus 

 (pi. xix.) ; but, through some error, the skull of a newly born C. 

 pumilus is represented (pi. xv.) as that of the common species ; and 

 as the facts derived from this wrongly-identified species are the basis 

 of the author's arguments, his conclusions receive, in some points 

 at least, a severe shock from this discovery. Any one will, I 

 think, on comparing the figures, recognize the mistake now that 

 attention is drawn to it, and it is incomprehensible that, although 

 Prof. Parker's paper has often been quoted during the five years 

 which have elapsed since its publication, it should not have been 

 noticed before. No wonder the author states that he knows " of 

 no skull whatever in which the roof-bones undergo so great a 

 transformation as in this (C vulgaris) " or that he should be struck 

 by the resemblance of the adult C. pumilus to the young 

 C. vulgaris, regarding the one as representing a sort of arrested 

 development of the other. I have besides no doubt that he is 

 wrong in his interpretation of the three bones forming the roof of 

 the casque. As recently suggested by Baur, the critical bone "pa- 

 rietal," Parker, should be regarded as the suprateniporal, and the 

 "interparietal," Parker, as the parietal. That the three bones are 

 perfectly distinct in the young C. pumilus is well shown on pi. xv. 

 fig. 3, and it is not surprising that the sutures should have dis- 

 appeared on a skull in which the ossification is so expanded, roofing 

 over, as it does, the supratempora! fossse, and studded with tubercles, 

 as is the case in the adult C. pumilus. The statement that the skull 

 of the latter species is less aberrant than that of the common one is 

 therefore incorrect. 



Should further proofs be required, bej'ond the inspection of Prof. 

 Parker's own plates, to establish my identification of the species 

 figured, I might add that the separation of the prae- from the post- 

 frontal is a character of C. pumilus, and that the specimen received 

 from Mr. Moore, of Liverpool, was no doubt one of a brood, in the 

 possession of Lady Oust, which was born alive in November 1868, 

 and on which Mr. Moore reported at the time {cf. Proc. Lit. & 

 Phys. Soc. Liverp. xxiii. p. 49). Now, it is well known that 

 C. vulgaris is oviparous, and the fact that C pumilus is ovovivi- 

 parous was recorded as early as 1825 {cf. Kaup, Isis, 1825, 

 p. 592). 



