1895.] BATBACHIASS FROM ADES. 649 



The accompanying table (p. 648) gives the relations of some of the 

 more important head-shields and other details connected with the 

 external features of the species. The number of scales round the 

 body varies from 3i» to 34. The smallest number is in the 

 Abyssinian specimen in the British Museum, but whether it is 

 distinctive of the Abyssinian individuals generally is not known, as 

 Wiegmann did not record the number of scales round the bod}'. 

 Mr. Matscbie's highest number is 34, but Colonel Terbury's only 

 reach 32. 



The females are olive-brown or olive-grey, with a varying number 

 (generally 6, occasionally 5) of dark bi'own longitudinal lines 

 marked at regular intervals with enlarged dark brown spots, each 

 generally having a white spot associated with it. Some of these 

 lines are prolonged on to the tail. The intervals between two hnes 

 generally contain two scales, rarely three. The shields of the head 

 are margined "nith dark brown , and there are some obscure dusky 

 lines on the throat. The underparts are Avhite. The males are 

 generally brown above, with obscure indications of darker bro-nn 

 bands, sometimes entirely absent, and each scale is margined with 

 brown. The back is frequently white-spotted and also the sides 

 of the head and neck, but these spots are variable, and in some they 

 are all but absent. There is generally a dark black band behind the 

 eye passing over the ear and becoming dusky along the sides. In 

 some the top of the head is reddish brown, the sides of the head 

 from behind the ear forwards to the snout, and invading the lower 

 labial margin, bright brick-red spotted with white. In others these 

 parts are all inky black, including the chin and throat, but white- 

 spotted. In some black and white prevail on the sides of the head. 



This lizard is viviparous. The female from Shaikh Othman was 

 gravid with five foetuses, the measurements of three of which are 

 given in the table. 



" The greater number of these lizards were caught in the traps 

 set for rats and other small mammals in fields, gardens, and else- 

 where, but a few were dug out of the ground. They seem to be 

 vegetable feeders, the great attraction as a bait being an onion." 



"With reference to the food of this species, I have opened the 

 stomachs of a number of them and have found the contents to be 

 chiefly the remains of insects. The little vegetable matter that 

 occurred in their stomachs was in all likelihood swallowed by the 

 lizard in seizing its insect prey, just as Chalcides sejaoides swallows 

 quantities of sand. 



13. Mabxha tessellata, n. sp. (Plate XXXVI. fig. 2.) 



1 adult $ . 



Head moderately long, snout obtusely rounded. Nostril behind 

 the suture of the rostral and first labial, pierced in the hinder part 

 of a small nasal; a small postnasal resting wholly on the first labial. 

 Supranasals hnear, in contact behind the rostral. Frontonasal 

 considerably broader than long. Praefrontals form a narrow suture 



