192 NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA. [No.7. 



G. Brown Goode, the Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion. It belongs to the same group which embraces Ph. cornutum, 

 m'callii, and platy rhinos, but is hardly more closely allied to one than to 

 the others. It may easily be distinguished by the diagnosis given in 

 the footnote, and for conrparison with Ph. platyrhinos I add figures of 

 both on plate II. 



Ph. platyrhinos appears to be distinctively a desert species, as it was 

 collected nearly everywhere, outside of the interior valley of California 

 and the Pacific slope, where members of the expedition went, and judg- 

 ing from the great number of specimens brought back it must be very 

 common. The range of the species covers that of Callisaurus ventralis 

 within the territory of the United States, but extends considerably 

 further east and north. 



As with the other species of this- genus the ground color of the living 

 animal is subject to great variation, more or less dependent upon the 

 coloration of the surroundings. The specimens collected by the expe- 

 dition vary from a very pale, in some nearly whitish, drab gray to a 

 vivid brick-red. 



[Horned toads abound throughout the desert regions of the West. 

 Phrynosoma platyrhinos inhabits the Lower Sonoran deserts of the 

 Great Basin from California to Utah and ranges up a short distance into 

 the Upper Sonoran. In California it was found in greater or less abun- 

 dance in the Mohave Desert, in Owens, Coso, Panamint, Death, Mes- 

 quite, and Deep Spring valleys, and in the Argus, Funeral, and 

 Panamint mountains (up to 1,740 meters or 5,700 feet on west slope 

 northwest of Wild Bose Spring). In Nevada it was abundant in Sar- 

 cobatus Flat, the Amargosa Desert, Ash Meadows, Indian Spring, 

 Pahrump, Vegas, Pahranagat, and Meadow Creek valleys, and the 

 Valley of the Virgin and Muddy. In the northwestern corner of 

 Arizona it was very abundant about the mouth of Beaverdam Creek 

 and thence up on the west slope of the Beaverdam Mountains. In 

 Utah it was common in the Santa Clara Valley ranging up through 

 the sage brush to Diamond Valley and Mountain Meadows. 



At Ash Meadows in the Amargosa Desert a very white form, was 

 found living on the white alkali soil. 



The horned toads of the San Joaquin Valley and west slope of the 

 Sierra Nevada in California belong to another species, Phrynosoma 

 blainvillii—C. H. M.] 



