OCR Text |
Show 1871.] DR. J. ANDERSON ON INDIAN REPTILES. 157 with the tail perfect, which is a rare circumstance in this reptile. The largest specimen, with the tail imperfect, has the body 5" 3'" in length ; and the measurements of the perfect specimen are, body 4 3', tail 9" 3'". The dorsal scales are in sixteen rows from fold to fold, of which the dorsal ten or twelve are very strongly keeled. The youngest specimen has only a few obscure dull brown spots on the back; but the larger one is marked by irregular bright blue wavy cross bands margined anteriorly with black. It occurs at Darjeeling at 3500 feet. EUPREPES MACULARIUS, Blyth; Gthr. I.e. p. 81. * Supranasals separated from each other by the single praefrontal, which forms a small suture with the vertical. The fifth upper labial is below the orbit, and much longer than high. Opening of the ear of moderate size, with a tubercle in front. Scales with from five to seven keels ; twenty-eight to thirty longitudinal rows round the body, and thirty transverse series between the axils. Fore limb when laid forward reaches to the middle of the eye ; and the hind limb covers more than two thirds of the interval between the axils. Dark brown above, with eight narrow longitudinal broken black lines produced by linear black spots, or with eight lines of dark brown spots beginning over the shoulder, sometimes restricted to lower region of back, at other times entirely absent. A broad black band, spotted with white, begins behind the eye, and is continued to the thigh, where it is resolved into dark brown lines, which are prolonged on to the side of the tail. Outside of limbs white-spotted ; upper labials white, margined with brown. In the month of August below and behind the shoulders suffused with orange. Length, adult 2f, tail 3f>,.=5£ inches. Specimens from the Central Provinces of India have no traces of black lines, but are sometimes spotted on the posterior half, but in others they are without spots. Five is the prevailing number of keels, although a few can be detected with seven. The brown line of the side is not well marked, and is nearly broken up into black spots, among which a few white ones are interspersed. Specimens from Raipur have much the same character as the foregoing; and, indeed, the southern specimens have the brown band along the side much more feebly marked than in specimens from Assam, which was in all likelihood the locality from which Blyth obtained his type. Specimens from Sirgooja, which lies as it were halfway between Upper Assam and the southern Indian localities, have nearly all the coloration of the Assam ones, although the black spots do not unite to form continuous dorsal lines. The further south we proceed the more uniform do the colours appear to become. This species does not appear to attain the size of E. rufescens, with which it could never be confounded; and my largest specimen out of twenty-seven is 5 | inches in length. It appears to be a widely spread form ; and I have it from Goalpara, Assam, Cachar, Sirgooja, Bilaspur district, and S.E. Berar and Bhandara, Central Provinces. |