AGAMA PALLIDA. 
101 
and broad, rapidly contracting and nearly round, longer than the body and head, shorter 
in some than in others. Upper surface of the head covered with moderately large 
polygonal scales, flat and nearly smooth, sometimes slightly rugose ; some enlarged 
scales occasionally with feeble keels on the temporal and on the supratemporal regions ; 
usually two spines on the post-aural region. Body covered with flat, irregular, slightly 
imbricate or juxtaposed, smooth or keeled, small scales, with larger keeled scales 
scattered among them, and generally more or less mucronate ; the scales decrease in 
size towards the sides, where they equal the size of the ventrals. Ventrals smooth and 
not much smaller than the largest of the ordinary scales on the middle of the back. 
Upper surface of the limbs covered with smooth, or more or less keeled, imbricate 
scales, with enlarged keeled scales among them. Caudal scales nearly smooth or feebly 
keeled; generally enlarged keeled scales present on the base of the tail. 
No gular pouch. Males with praeanal pores arranged in from 2 to 4 series, some- 
times as many as 36 pores, and rarely present, in a single line, in females. 
The general colour of this species varies considerably, as it is occasionally deep 
bluish grey, pale yellowish, or pale brownish. The body is occasionally marked by 
Fig. 6. 
Agama pallida, Eeuss. 
transverse dark-coloured bars — one between the eyes superiorly, one across the neck, 
one on the shoulder, another across the middle of the body, a fifth across the loins, 
and about 14 similar bars on the tail; a large white spot generally occurs in the mesial 
line of each dorsal bar ; the bar between the eyes, the central bar of the back, and also 
the shoulder-bar are frequently absent, and likewise the white spots ; the upper surface 
of the limbs is also more or less barred with dark brown or nearly black. 
Measurements of an adult male and female. 
<$ . Snout to vent 75 mm., tail 89 mm. 
81 
89 
This lizard is very common in the desert, either on its margin or on the extensive 
