ON NEW AUSTRALIAN LIZARDS. 



By C, W. De Vis. 



Since the date of Dr. Gunther's List of Australian Lizards 

 (Zoology, Erebus and Terror) additions to that record have been 

 made by himself in the Annals of Nat. Hist., and Journal of the 

 Goddefroy Museum, by Professor Cope in the Proceedings of 

 the Philadelphia Academy of Science, but in far greater number 

 by Professor Peters and other German naturalists in periodicals 

 of that country. Much, however, remains to be discovered about 

 the specific forms of our saurians and it is unfortunate for Queens- 

 land observers that so much of what is known in detail is nearly 

 inaccessible. The descriptions of the newer species are in works 

 obtained with difficulty. The types of the older ones are in 

 Europe, and the descriptions of them by Dr. Gray are in most 

 cases utterly useless. One day doubtless all these will be re- 

 described, and the scattered notices of the others will be brought 

 together for the behoof of the Australian student, who will, then 

 at least, be no longer beholden to extraneous naturalists for the 

 determination of new forms. The time indeed will come, in or 

 before the next generation let us hope, when the practice of sending 

 collections to be studied in Europe will be considered disgraceful. 

 In this respect the mother colony is setting a good example to 

 her offspring and her sisters, and that it should not be followed 

 by all is even now not altogether satisfactory. 



During a recent examination of the lizards in the Queensland 

 Museum there have occurred several species which are evidently 

 undescribed — of these three are now submitted to the notice of 

 the Society. 



SiLUBosAURUS Zellingi. — Habit short, broad, depressed, 

 especially on the tail which is less than half as long as the body. 

 The head forms an isosceles triangle with its apex truncated, its 

 sides flat, cuneiform. Head shields thick, rugose. The narial 

 portion of the nasal is entirely separated from the posterior part 

 by the nasal groove. Ear orifice fringed anteriorly with three 



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bifid free scales. Labials Interparietal large, larger than fronto- 

 parietals, not enclosed behind. Scales of the trunk in 38 rows — 

 those of the lower surface smooth, sub-equal ; the preanals 

 larger. The central subcaudals but little larger than the laterals. 



