BAYLOR UNIVERSITY BULLETIN 



trickle down its damp walls, from under matted masses of many varieties of 

 fern. At one place, near the top of the left hand wall of the canyon, a colony 

 of Cliff Swallows have located their little city of retort-shaped nests. The 

 creek is evidently fed entirely by springs and in some places it is a difficult 

 matter to follow its windings, on account of the narrowness of the canyon and 

 the slipperiness of the moist, fern-covered rocks. A magnificent natural grotto 

 is located about three miles above the mouth. 



Another locality famed for its beauty is Mormon Mills, midway between 

 Burnet and Marble Falls. Here the canyon, falls, and deep pool, together 

 with the old water wheel made by the Mormons who settled the county in 

 early days, form a scenic combination worthy of an artist's best efforts. I did 

 not visit Mormon Mills during my second visit but I understand that the old 

 water-wheel is still in existence. 



The town of Burnet is located in the central portion of the county and has 

 an elevation of 1,300 feet. Most of the surrounding hills are merely great 

 masses of stone or granite, either covered with a growth of cedar or utterly 

 bare of vegetation. Some of these attain a height of over 1,800 feet. Post 

 Mountain near Burnet is 1,556 feet high. 



The reptilian fauna of Burnet County is largely Sonoran, Chihuahuan forms 

 predominating. A careful study of the present list, together with that of the 

 writer's former paper* on the species inhabiting the more eastern county of 

 McLennan, will prove beyond a doubt the correctness of Dr. Arthur Erwin 

 Brown's view** that the boundary between the Austroriparian and Sonoran 

 reptilian faunas lies approximately between the ninety-sixth and the ninety- 

 eighth meridians in Texas. 



Taking into consideration the fact that the writer has been collecting reptiles 

 in his home county (McLennan) for more than fourteen years and that his 

 work in Burnet was accomplished in less than three months, it can readily be 

 seen that while the number of Chihuahuan, Basin, and Central species found 

 in both localities is about the same, the typical Austroriparian forms found at 

 Waco out-number those of Burnet three to one. 



About one-half of the Sonoran forms recorded from Waco are not known 

 to occur east of that place and several Austroriparian species found at Burnet 

 are not known from, west of the granite country. Burnet County marks the 

 eastern boundary to the range of Uta ornata B. and G., Eumeces brevil- 

 ineatus Cope and (probably) Crotalus confluentus Say and Zamenis taeniatus 

 Hallowell. Several of the reptiles and amphibians show the characters of 

 more western forms of the same species. For instance, the chain-snakes {Lam- 

 propeltis getula holbrookii) are an approach to the variety splendidus Cope, 

 and the common toads {Bufo I. americanus) are much larger and darker than 

 eastern Texas examples and have noticeably shorter heads. My single Tham- 

 nophis eques is much like examples from Trans-Pecos Texas (Alpine) and 

 very different from obscurely marked Waco specimens. Only about four out 

 of each half-dozen examples of Crotaphytus collaris have a single row of in- 

 terorbitals. 



* Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. XXI, 1908, pp. 69-84. ** Proo. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. 1903, p. 5S1 



