1905. | AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES. 203 
Spelerpes.—This large genus, composed of about 20 species, 
ranges from Massachusetts into North-western South America. 
At least 10 species live in Mexico, 9 of them south of a line drawn 
from Guadalajara to Tuxpan on the Atlantic; some of them 
extend into Guatemala and Costa Rica. S. yucatanicus in Yucatan. 
A few occur as far south as Peru; one, S. infwscatus, inhabits 
Hayti, and S. fuscus lives in Sardinia and Northern Italy. 
The distribution of the Mexican species is important. The 
Aztec name is “ Tlaconéte ” = little land creature. 
S. cephalicus, described by Cope from ‘“ North-eastern Mexico.” 
No Spelerpes seem to occur in Texas ; the nearest American species, 
S. multiplicatus, lives in Arkansas; S. orizabensis and S. lineolus, 
the latter with tiny, reduced limbs, are known only from the 
mountain of Orizaba, S. orizabensis ranging between 8000 to 12,000 
feet. 
S. leprosus, of which gibbicaudus Blatchley is a not unfrequent 
individual variation, is common in the mixed and pine forests of 
the mountain of Orizaba, up to 12,000 feet. It has also been 
recorded from the north slope of Popocatepetl, 9000 feet, and from 
the mountains of Jalapa. 
S. morio from “ Jalapa,” and from Tlalpam, which lies between 
Mexico City and Lake Xochimilco, in flat, sandy, moist terrain, 
with meadows and willows. It appears again far in the south, in 
Guatemala and Costa Rica. 
S, chiropterus. Mountain of Orizaba, from the town, 4000 feet 
up to near 10,000 feet; ‘ Jalapa,” and Cuernavaca which has an 
elevation of 5000 feet. ‘ Vera Cruz” must be left as a doubtful 
locality. 
S. rufescens is recorded from ‘“ Orizaba,” Cordoba, Vera Cruz, 
Tehuantepec, Chiapas, and Tabasco; all in the Tierra Caliente, 
except the first locality. 
S. variegatus ranges from the Valley of Mexico, Orizaba (from 
9000 feet downwards), Jalapa, Cordoba, right through the forest of 
the Tierra Caliente and through the whole of Central America tc 
Costa Rica. I found it on Orizaba mountain, as well as at San Juan 
Evangelista, which lies scarcely higher than 100 feet above the 
sea, in the same ground with Dermophis. 
S. untformis, with reduced limbs like S. lineolus, described from 
Costa Rica, elevation of 5000 feet, is said also to have come from 
“ Vera Cruz.” 
Lastly, S. belli: mountains of Jalapa, Orizaba, Mexico, 
Zacualtipan, Guanajuato, Guadalajara, Sierra de Nayarit; and 
at Omilteme, west of Chilpancingo. This species alone has found 
its way across the plateau, following the belt of alluvial deposits 
described elsewhere (p. 237). With the exception of this transverse 
belt, the distribution of Mexican Newts coincides closely with the 
broad band of Cretaceous limestone which extends from Nuevo 
Leon to the Isthmus, with intricate but almost continuous 
patches verging from Cordoba and Orizaba south-westwards to 
Chilpancingo. This limestone terrain was the only one available 
