TAEENTOLA ANNULARIS. 91 
with dark markings like the trunk, but usually reduced to spots, and sometimes more 
or less margined with white. 
Snout to vent 130 millim., tail 78 millim. 
Generally found on rocks and ruins, but it also frequents houses. On the black 
rocks along the banks of the Nile, above the First Cataract, it is nearly black. Major 
E. H. Brown, R.E., sent me two specimens from Minia so white that I wrote and 
asked him if he could explain the pale colour, and he replied that they had been 
captured on a white-washed house — so much is the colour of these geckos influenced 
by their surroundings. 
It is very common throughout the Nile valley, but I have not observed it in the 
northern part of the delta. It occurs in Abyssinia and in some of the islands off that 
coast (Lefebvre and Boulenger), and has been recorded from Eritrea (Ghinda) {Boulenger) 
and from Sennaar (Peters), also from the Sinaitic Peninsula. 
Mr. Boulenger, in a synopsis of the genus, published in 1893 l , recognized in all 
nine species, two of which, T. americana, Gray, and T. cubana, Gundl. & Peters, 
are from the New World (West-India Islands), the other four, besides the three 
here described, being from the Western and North-western portions of Africa. 
The Arabic name of this gecko is jp| {J o%(J\)=(abu) bors aswad— the black bors. 
It is known to the Hadendowahs as the Dhdn. 
1 Ann. & Mag. N. H. (6 ser.) xii. Sept. 1893, p. 204. 
N2 
