VARANUS OCELLATUS. 139 
This is a terrestrial lizard with the habits of V. griseas, and, according to Heyden, it 
burrows and lives on other lizards and beetles. 
Mr. Blanford obtained his specimen under a rock, in rather open ground, in the 
Anseba valley. 
It is known only from Kordofan and Abyssinia. 
Heyden founded the species on a specimen obtained by Ruppell at Kordofan, and, 
according to Prof. Boettger, it was presented to the Frankfort Museum in 1827. In 
the following year a Varanus from Abyssinia was also presented by Dr. Ruppell. 
Dr. J. E. Gray, in his Synopsis of Reptiles in Griffith's 'Animal Kingdom,' gave a list of 
the species of Varanidce he had noted in the different museums of Europe, and among 
them he enumerates Monitor ocellatus, Heyden, as existing in the Frankfort Museum ; 
but, strange to say, he does not mention Kordofan as the locality of the species, but 
adds to his short diagnosis of it " Dongola, Senegal. Mus. Ruppell." No specimen 
from Dongola, on the Nile, appears either in Ruppell's or in Prof. Boettger's Catalogues 
of the Reptilia in the Frankfort Museum. Is it possible that the Abyssinian Varanus 
presented, in 1828, by Ruppell may have come from the Dongola in Abyssinia, 
mentioned by Mr. Blanford, and that the specimen may have once borne a label to 
that effect \ What is certain is that V. ocellatus was from Kordofan, and that no 
specimen of the species has ever been recorded from Senegal. 
Gray, in 1838, referred V. ocellatus to his genus Empagusia, which he characterized 
as follows : — "Nostrils oblong, rather in the front of the muzzle. Tail (shorter than 
the body and head) tapering, roundish, with a double-edged keel above ; toes short, 
strong, subequal ; teeth rounded ; scales larger." When he wrote, V. albigularis, 
Daud., and V. exanthematicus, Bosc, were unrepresented in the Frankfort Museum, as 
neither of them appeared in Riippell's Catalogue, and, moreover, Professor Boettger 
states that the only specimen of the former in the Museum was received in 1893, and 
that of the latter in 1881. The position of the nostril assigned to E?npagusia is in no 
way applicable to the nostril of V. ocellatus, but applies to that of V. exanthematicus ; 
and it is probable that this may account for Gray having given Senegal as a locality 
for his V. ocellatus, which was not the species described under that name by Heyden. 
Ruppell, when he catalogued the specimens in the Frankfort Museum, regarded the 
Abyssinian Varanus as distinct from V. ocellatus, and named it V. microstictus, but 
did not describe it. 
On a visit to the Frankfort Museum some years ago, I wrote out the following 
description of the specimen: — " Scales on the upper surface of the neck much larger 
than on any other part of the body, the largest measuring fully 3 millim. in transverse 
diameter, and even 4 millim. in length. They are much larger than the scales on the 
occiput, the scales on the head generally being even less than half the size of the 
nuchal scales, but the flat tessellated scales on the middle of the head between the eyes 
are large. The scales on the middle of the back are somewhat smaller than those 
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