200 THE KEPTILES OF EGYPT. 
SCINCOPUS. 
Scincopus, Peters, Mon. Berl. Ak. 1864, p. 45. 
Limbs well developed, but rather short ; digits 5 — 5, subcylindrical, slightly laterally 
compressed, with transverse lamellae below, not serrated laterally. Tail short, conical. 
Nostril lateral, between an anterior and posterior nasal ; eyelids well developed, scaly ; 
ear-orifice covered by two large scutes in the form of opercula ; postnasals, supranasals, 
praefrontals, frontoparietals, and interparietals present. Dorsal scales large, grooved, 
finely striated, enlarged in the middle line of the back. Palatine bones not in contact 
in the middle line of the palate; pterygoids toothed ; lateral teeth conical. 
I have examined the type of this genus and species preserved in the Berlin Museum. 
It was presented by Strauch, and in addition to the name Scincopus fasciatus, Peters, 
it bears the name Otolepis brandtii, Strauch. The locality whence it was obtained 
was Geryville, on the confines of the Algerian Sahara. I have also been privileged 
to see the specimen in the Paris Museum from Tunisia. 
The lizard preserved in the Berlin Museum, to which Peters gave the name 
Scincopus fasciatus, agrees in all its essential characters with the Suakin specimens, 
and, like some of them, it has 24 rows of scales round the body. The Paris individual, 
on the other hand, presents some differences which are due, however, not to any 
specific diversity between it and the Suakin lizards, but to abnormal division of some 
of the head-shields. Thus there is an azygos prsefrontal separating the prtefrontals 
proper, and there are three loreals instead of two, the third loreal being produced by 
longitudinal division of the anterior loreal, so that two loreals instead of one lie behind 
the nostril. The second, third, and fourth supraoculars are in contact with the frontal, 
and on one side the first as well. 
The form of the head of this lizard resembles that of the members of the genus 
Eumeces and not that of Scincus. The moderately pointed snout arches gently 
upwards to the vertex and is quite distinct from the flattened digging snout of the 
latter genus. Its digits, moreover, are structurally different from those of Scincus, in 
which both the fingers and toes are much flattened from above downwards, so that 
their cross-section is an elongated oval, transverse in position, while the digits of 
Scincopus are slightly laterally compressed, and thus in transverse section present a 
vertical oval. In Scincus, the digits are covered below by a series of transverse 
lamellae acutely bent round their inner edges, so that the lamella? appear more or 
less on the upper surface of the digits ; and their dorsal aspects are clad with a 
series of transverse scales, the external edges of which form a lateral fringe 
more developed in the pes than in the manus l . In Scincopus, on the other 
1 See p. 204 for a description of the digits of Scincus. 
