156 DR. R. W. SHUFELDT ON [Apr. 1, 



of a lens and carefully going over the region immediately over the 

 parietal foramen, I failed to discover any external traces whatever 

 of a " parietal eye,'" described by Spencer as existing in 

 Sphenodon punctatum, and which has been found in so many 

 Saurians since by other observers. Indeed, the tubercles are placed 

 so close together on the top of the head in Heloderma, that a 

 depression of any kind would be recognized at once. It is possible 

 we may find something of the kind when we come to examine the 

 brain in these specimens of mine. 



Passing to the ventral border of the thigh, on either side, careful 

 scrutiny failed to reveal to me any evidences of the pori femorales, 

 that series of apertures which are the external openings of certain 

 cutaneous glands in same Reptiles. Nor from an external examination 

 do 1 find any evidences of the large anal glands, such as were found 

 by Giinther to exist in Sphenodon. From an outer survey alone I 

 would say that both of these specimens were females, but of course 

 more extensive dissection will prove that point. Ossifications exist 

 in the cutis of Heloderma, but the squamo-tuberculated skin of this 

 reptile nowhere develops any special spines or similar appendages ^ 



So far as I have been able to discover from the literature of the 

 subject, little or nothing is as yet known of the reproduction of this 

 lizard, beyond the fact that Captain Bendire, of the U. S. Army, 

 found a number of eggs in a specimen of Heloderma suspectum that 

 he opened (60). Indeed, there still remains much that it is very 

 desirable to know in so far as the habits of this reptile are concerned ; 

 we may refer especially to the means it employs to secure its food, 

 as well as the various kinds that go to make up its diet-list. 



We find here and there authors referring to the nauseous odour 

 emitted on the part of the Heloderma, and, although I have had 

 them in captivity for a year or more together, I have never noticed 

 any such characteristic as pertaining to them, and I have studied 

 them under a great variety of circumstances. Professor Garman 

 has remarked that, " As if better protected from below, the Heloderma 

 is said to turn himself on his back when attacked." It never has been 

 my fortune to have observed this habit in the case of Heloderma 

 suspectum, and I am of the opinion that such is not the case with it. 



^ Just hei-e I would say that a year has passed by since this monograph was 

 completed up to the above point, or where the index reference to this footnote 

 occurs ; during that time ray large specimen of the Heloderma has died and 

 duly been placed in alcohol, while the writer's residence is no longer at Fort 

 Wiugate, N. Mexico, but at his home a few moment's ride from Washington, 

 D.C., where all the libraries and collections are open to him and easy of access. 

 Through the kindness of Professor G. B. Goods, the director of the U. S. 

 National Museum, I have also had jjlaced at my disposal another fine, large 

 alcoholic specimen of the Heloderma suspectum from Arizona, as well as the loan 

 of a handsomely mounted skeleton of the same reptile, from the collections of 

 of that Institution. In view of these facts, I will not, in future pages of this 

 memoir, refer to any particular specimen used in my work; for it is sufficiently 

 extensive now to obviate the necessity of that course ; with increased 

 material comes a broadening of the field, permitting our passage from the 

 description of a couple of specimens to more general observations in the 

 premises. 



