Reptiles of Massachusetts. 19 
ORDER II. 
SAURIA. 
a 
FAMILY. 
SCINCOIDEA. 
Scincus. Daudin. 
Generic characters. Head oblong, pointed, covered 
with plates; jaws furnished with closely set teeth ; 
two rows of teeth on the palate; tongue fleshy, 
slightly extensible, emarginate ; tympanum appa- 
rent ; neck as large as the head ; body elongated ; 
tail conical; the whole body and tail covered with 
small imbricated scales; extremities with free and 
unginculated toes. zs 
S. fasciatus. Lin. The blue-tailed Lizard. 
Shaw’s Gen. Zoology, vol. iii. pt. 1. p. 241. 
Harlan’s Med. and Physic Res. p. 138. 
N. A. Herpet. vol. iii. p. 45, et fig. 
The only specimen of this beautiful species I have 
known to be found in New England, was captured 
in Barre, by Dr. Joseph N. Bates of that place, and 
kindly loaned me to identify and describe. He took 
it, he writes me, “in a mud hole ; it evaded my 
attempts to capture it for some time on account of 
its agility and cunning, and when captured made 
much resistance with jaws, claws, &c.” 
Length of the specimen five inches; elongated, 
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