AND BATEACHIANS OF BARBAET. 123 



1. Lacerta, Linnaeus, 1766. 



Nostril bordered by two or three nasals and the first labial. Eyelids movable. 

 Collar well marked. Dorsal scales much smaller than caudals, not or but feebly 

 imbricate ; ventral shields tetragonal, feebly imbricate. Digits with smooth or tuber- 

 cular lamellae, not denticulated laterally. Femoral pores. 



Three species in Barbary : — 



Rostral entering the nostril ; collar-edge serrated 1. ocellata. 



Usually a single postnasal 2. nmralis. 



Lower eyelid with a transparent disk 3. perspicillata. 



1. Lacekta ocellata, Daudin, 1802. (Plate XV.) 



Lower eyelid scaly. Rostral shield entering the nostril ; two superposed postnasals ; 

 occipital shield large ; temple covered with irregular, rather large scales. Collar with 

 serrated edge. Dorsal scales small, roundish-rhomboidal, feebly keeled, 60 or more 

 across the middle of the body. Ventral plates broader than long, in 6 to 10 longitudinal 

 series. Green above, with or without blue or white ocelli, or reticulated black and 

 yellow. Size large (grows to 3 feet). 



The typical form of this, the largest species of the genus Lacerta, inhabits the south 

 of France, Liguria, and the Pyrenean Peninsula, but is not found in Barbary, where it 

 is represented by the two following races or subspecies. 



Var. PATER, Lataste, 1880. 

 L. viridissima, Rozet. — L. ocellata, Schlegel, Strauch. — L. viridis, Gervaisi 



The large Algerian green Lizard was long confounded with both the typical L. ocellata 

 and L. viridis, until M. Lataste showed that it formed a distinct race or subspecies, 

 which, though much nearer the former, presents some points of affinity to the latter. 

 The form has since even been raised to the rank of a species (Bedriaga), but I hold 

 that M. Lataste was well advised in treating it as subordinate to L. ocellata. Exami- 

 nation of a good number of specimens from the Spanish Peninsula has even convinced 

 me that the distinctive characters between the two forms are by far not so well marked 

 as M. Lataste thought. But on the whole, taking the ensemble of the characters of the 

 Algero-Tunisian form, a separation from the European L. ocellata is justified, and the 

 name proposed by Lataste is well chosen, as L. pater may be looked upon as most 

 nearly allied to, if not the actual survivor of, the ancestral stock from which the allied 

 L. ocellata and L. viridis are descended. The afiinity to L. viridis is shown in the 

 usually more distinctly keeled dorsal scales : the smaller occipital shield, which is as 

 broad as or a little narrower than the frontal ; the ventrals in 8 longitudinal rows 

 (8-10 in L. ocellata, 6-8 in L. viridis) ; and, m some specimens, the absence of ocellar 

 spots. Not one of these characterSj taken by itself, isj however, absolutely distinctive,- 



