Annals of the Teansvaal Museum. 
61 
Chirindia is a monotypic genus known only from south-east Mashona- 
land. So far as I know Amphisbsenidae are not recorded from Cape 
Colony and the South African representatives are best regarded as outlying 
members of a tropical group. 
Lcicertidae. 
Five genera occur in South Africa, and one of them, the monotypic 
Tropidosaura, is peculiar to the region being known only from the coastal 
strip of south Cape Colony. The genus Eremias has nine species in South 
Africa, of which seven are western forms (< capensis , undata , lugubris , 
suborbitaUs , namaquensis, pulchella and inornata ), all of them being found 
in Namaqualand, and several extending into the Karroo region of Cape 
Colony, whilst lugubris and namaquensis also occur in Angola. E. burchelli 
appears to be confined to Cape Colony and lineocellata occurs in the 
Transvaal and Orange River Colony. The genus is not known to occur in 
Natal and Zululand. 
Eremias is a large genus, well developed in Africa, and occurring also 
in Asia. The South African species, for the most part, do not form a 
structurally distinct association, but their relationships are with the other 
African species ; a small more or less distinct natural group is constituted 
by the four species : pulchella , lineocellata , burchelli and capensis. The 
genus Nucras has only two species : N. delalandii occurs in the Eastern 
portion of the sub-continent, extending southward along the coastal strip 
of Cape Colony, and northwards perhaps as far as German East Africa, 
whilst N. tessellata is widely distributed over tropical Africa and South 
Africa, with the exception of southern Cape Colony. 
The genus Scapteira has five representatives in South Africa, one in 
Mossamedes and three in Central Asia. The South African species are all 
western forms with the exception of S. knoxii , which belongs to Cape 
Colony, extending eastwards at any rate as far as Kingwilliamstown, and 
is recorded (B. M. Cat.) from the Island of Johanna. The species knoxii , 
depressa , serripes , and the Angola species, form a distinct natural group, 
and the two remaining South African species, ctenodactyla and cuneirostris , 
constitute another distinct group. The disconnected distribution of the 
genus Scapteira is somewhat remarkable in view of the fact that both the 
Asiatic and the South African habitats are deserticolous, and that like 
conditions prevail in a great part of the intervening area ; and the 
presence of S. knoxii in Johanna Island seems to be inexplicable, 
especially as Madagascar has no Lacertidae. 
The genus Ichnotropis is confined to Africa south of the equator. 
I. squamulosd is a tropical species extending southwards about as far as 
the northern border of Cape Colony, whilst I. capensis occupies a wide 
strip of country from Natal in the east to Angola in the west ; longipes , 
which is very closely allied to capensis , is described from Mashonaland. 
The lacertid fauna of the sub-continent as a whole is not very 
distinct, though there is one peculiar genus, the monotypic Tropidosaura, 
which is closely related to the other African genera ; the South African 
representatives are, indeed, a part of the general Ethiopian lacertid fauna, 
and this family furnishes very little positive evidence in favour of the 
maintenance of the South African area as an absolutely distinct zoological 
region, 
