J896.] A. Alcock & F. Finn — Afghan-Baluch Eeptilia. 557 



2. The pectoral and ventral scales are much more fiharply 



mucronate. 



3. The digits are very much more strongly fringed. 



4. The colouration is strikingly different. 



[All six were caught in April, near Darband, elevation 3000 feet. 



Darband is a small hollow in the sandy desert, with a couple of wells 



the only water for 80 miles. 



The lizards were caught on reddish sand, into which, on being 

 approached, they wriggled with such rapidity that they were with 

 difficulty followed. Before burrowing into the sand one would some- 

 times sit and look at you, gently waving its tail in the air, like a cat 

 before making a spring. The colours have much faded in spirit. In life 

 the back was rich golden brown with the jet-black spots standing oufc 

 like velvet : the throat in one was lavender, in others salmon pink : the 

 belly was a beautiful silvery white. The upper surface of the limbs 

 presented a lovely golden sheen ; the top of the head was metallic 

 green ; the distal half of the tail was black.] 



13. Flirynocejplialus luteo-guttatus^ Boulenger. 



Phrynocephalus luteo-guttatus, Boulenger, Brit. Mus. Cat. Lizards, III. 497 : 

 Trans. Linn. Soc. ZooL (iij V. 1889, p, 98, pi. viii. figs. 4, 4a-c ; Faun, Brit. Ind., 

 Kept., p. 155. F. Werner, Verh. zool. bot. Ges. Wien, XLV. 1895, p. 16. 



Twenty-eight specimens. 



14. TJromastix asmussii, (Strauch). 



Uroinastix asmussii, Boulenger, Brit. Mus. Cat. Lizards, I. 409. 

 Centrotrachelus asmussii, Blanfo'rd, Zool. E. Persia, II. 337, pi. xxi. 



Two specimens were brought down alive, but they did not thi-ive. 

 The largest measures just over twenty inches. 



[Three others were caught but got away. When caught they were 

 very fat, and the colour of the back was buff with some of the enlarged 

 tubercles orange-colour. When kept in a closed box they turned to an 

 iron-grey colour and the orange faded entirely, but if removed into sun- 

 shine the original colour returned — at first rapidly, but after some weeks 

 captivity only after some hours' exposure to light. The head and limbs 

 at all times were of a dull grey colour. 



These lizards live in large wide-mouthed holes in stony ground, at 

 the foot of the Kacha Koh. The burrows, which are altogether about 

 three or four feet long, run obliquely for the first foot or eighteen inches, 

 and then bend sharply at a right angle. The tail of this lizard is a 

 formidable weapon : it is lashed out in defence, and it is probably used 

 to clear the ground while burrowing. 



