1904.] ANATOMY OF THE LACERTILIA. 7 



number of Lizards, more particularly with Chamceleon, of which I 

 have had the opportunity of dissecting four specimens belonging 

 to the common species, Ch. vulgaris. The other genera, with which 

 I deal in a less comprehensive way, are Pygopus and the Geckos 

 Phelsuma and Tarentola. Of the genus Pygoptbs we possess, so far 

 as I am aware, no knowledge of the vascular system. Chamceleo7i 

 has lately formed the subject of some investigations on the part 

 of Prof. Hochstetter, to whose memoir due reference will be 

 made in the coui'se of the following pages. Inasmuch as that 

 anatomist was unable, through a deficiency in injection, to give 

 much account of the hepatic portal system, I am able to add 

 something to the existing knowledge of that aberrant lizard, as 

 well as to confirm a good many of the facts elucidated by Prof. 

 Hochstetter with regard to other tracts of the venous system. 



ChamjEleon vulgaris. 

 Of this species I have dissected four individuals, of which one 

 was a male and the rest females. The male specimen was fully 

 injected in both venous and arterial systems : one of the female 

 examples was injected fi-om the anterior abdominal vein, and the 

 renal vessels were successfully filled as well as the intestinal 

 portal system. I am therefore able to ofier some facts concerning 

 both the arterial and venous systems. The latter has been partly 

 described by Hochstetter *, who has specially studied the renal 

 aSerent and efierent veins, with a description of which I shall 

 begin. As that anatomist has pointed out, they difier con- 

 siderably from those of other Lizards ; but I shall have occasion 

 to point out in a subsequent page that Pygopus resembles the 

 Chamseleon in one important particular. I am further able to 

 note those points in which the veins in question show individual 

 variation. With Hochstetter's account I find myself quite in 

 agreement ; there are, however, a few details to which he does 

 not refer. The afferent renal vein, which is formed by division 

 of the caudal into the two afferent renals below the kidney, 

 receives a number of oviducal veins of which I give a full account 

 later. It also receives at least one vein from the dorsal parietes 

 before the ischiadic joins it. The anterior abdominal vein arises 

 from the afferent renal just at the line of division between the 

 anterior wider and the posterior narrower region of the kidn-ey. 

 From it immediately a branch is given off which divides into two, 

 of which the posterior supplies the dorsal parietes. The anterior 

 branch is the one referred to by Hochstetter as joining the pos- 

 terior vertebral in front of the kidney {A in text-fig. 1, p. 8). It 

 appears to me that this vein may be looked upon as the equivalent 

 of the lateral abdominal vein in other Lacertilia, for instance in 

 Iguana t. If this homology be not accepted, then the vein in 

 question is wanting in Chamceleon. 



* "Beitrage zui- Entwickelungsgeschichte des Venensystems, &c., " Morph.Jahrb. 

 xix. p. 462. 

 f " On the Venous System in certain Lacertilia," P. Z. S. 190i, vol. i. p. 439. 



