1905.] AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES. 219 



ground, basking on the fallen leaves, between which, and in the 

 soft humus, they wriggle away with perplexing agility. 



Anelytropsid^, an artificial assembly of a few degraded 

 Scincoids in Madagascai^ Tropical Africa, and Anelytrojysis 

 papillosus in Mexico. Of this only the two type specimens, 

 described by Cope, " from near Jalapa," were known, until I found 

 another in the humus of a dense forest near Motzorongo, south of 

 Cordoba. 



XAXTUSiiDiE, — The range of Xantusia extends from the desert 

 tracts of Nevada, California with its impressive Mojave desert, 

 into Lower California. There is little doubt that some species 

 of Xantusia will be found in the desert-like country between 

 Chihuahua and New Mexico, wdiich has all the characteristic 

 features of the home of Xantusia, not the least being the Yucca- 

 trees, the bunches of spiky leaves of which give them shelter. 

 The only other Mexican, Leindo-phyma Jlavomaculatum, ranges 

 from Panama to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The few other 

 members of the family are likewise Central Amei^ican, and one is 

 found in the Antilles. This little strictly American family shows 

 consequently division into a Northern or Sonoran, and a Southern 

 or Centi'al American Antillea,n group. 



Aniellid.^:, with Aniella 2}ulchra in California, and A. texana, 

 of which the only specimen known came from El Paso. 



Amphisb^nid^. — The distribution of numerous Amphisbsenidse 

 throughout Africa and several Mediterranean countries, as well as 

 in South and Central America, Mexico, Lower California, Floiida, 

 and the Greater Antilles, seems to favour a former transatlantic 

 connection. 



Curiously enough, Mexico possesses only one genus, but this is 

 the most interesting of all : — 



Chirotes. — Discovered many years ago somewhere in Mexico, 

 Chirotes s. Bipes canalicidatus remained almost mythical. Then 

 Duges received a single specimen from near Tecpan in Southern 

 Guerrero, which he named Hemichirotes tridactylus. Next, some 

 twenty years ago, the creature was discovered in Lower California 

 in considerable numbers, they are Cope's Euchirotes hijjorus. I 

 myself found Chirotes at last on the banks of the Balsas River, in 

 the centre of Guerrero. It lives there in the fields of alluvial 

 sand, well out of reach of possible floods. Our only chance of 

 getting these pink, worm-like creatures was the offering of rewards 

 to the Indians who were ploughing the fields of young Indian 

 corn in the month of July. They live at a depth of at least one 

 foot, burrowing little tunnels which lead a long way in any 

 direction in the moist sand, but in the drier parts collapse at 

 once behind the digging animal. When kept in a tin with 

 sand, they dug into it with their heads first and then with their 

 mole-like hands. They never appeared on the surface. Like 



