410 



LOWER VERTEBRATES. 



animal, which habit is also indicated by its ordinary scaly toes. The bodv, as well as 

 the head and limbs, are covered with tubercles of varying size, while the lower parts 

 are protected by small imbricate scales. The tail is thick and cylindrical, and covered 

 with rings of small sub-quadrangular scales, which on its dorsum appear as flat 

 tubercles. 



The American genus Coleonyx is represented in Texas, California, and the Colo- 

 rado desert by a rare animal, C. variegatus, or the variegated gecko. In coloring, it 

 is, above, of a brownish yellow, ornamented with irregular blotches of reddish brown, 

 which sometimes are arranged as transverse bands. Along the edges of the eye-lid, 

 as well as the entire under surface, a pure white color obtains. The toes bear claws. 

 Psilodactylus is an allied form inhabiting West Africa. 



The family IJEOPLATiDyE is the first of a large number of families which resemble 

 each other in having the tongue either smooth or covered with villose papillae, never 



Fig. 237. — Pygopus lepidopus. 



with scale-like papillas, and in having the proximal portion of the clavicle dilated. It 

 has the vertebrae concave on both faces, and several peculiarities in the arrangement of 

 the bones of the head. But a single genus, Vroplates, is known, of which U.fitnbri- 

 atiis, the famocanti-ata, inhabits Madagascar, and was first mentioned in an early his- 

 tory of that island in 1658. It is a peculiar animal with webbed toes, and with a 

 series of fringes passing down the sides of the head, body, and tail, which latter is 

 described as being much shoi-ter than the body, and oar shaped. The natives, from 

 the animal's habit of running at them with open mouth, jiarticularly dislike this harm- 

 less form, even considering it to be of a poisonous nature, and pretending that, by its 

 membranes, it so adheres to the breast, the portion of the body which they claim it 

 always attacks, that a i-azor is necessary to free it from the skin. 



The family Pygopodid^ is represented by the genus Pygopus, which is found in 

 Australia, and has the body cylindrical and elongate, the eyelid rudimentary, im- 



