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Show 2 1 8 DR. H. GADOW ON MEXICAN [June 6, stated by Giintlier to have probably a wide distribution in Mexico. The fact is that it has hitherto been recorded only from the following localities :-near Tehuantepec, and near Presidio by Forrer; and in the museum at Mexico is a specimen from Apatzingan in Michoacan. It is very local. In Guerrero and Oaxaca, Colima and Jalisco everybody speaks of the " Escorpion." " He is unkillable unless you crush him with a big stone. When at last secured in a cleft stick, his poison dropping to the ground causes all vegetation to wither for yards around. There are two kinds in Guerrero, one brown, the other black and yellow; nocturnal, hidden in the daytime beneath the stump of a tree or under a boulder; aestivating during the dry season." Hundreds of times have I offered much money, even for being taken to its lair, but all in vain. The only place where I personally know it to occur is Jucliitan, not far to the north-east of Tehuantepec; in the museum at Oaxaca is a stuffed specimen, a monster about 2i feet in length. At last I thought I had run the beast down, when at Zapotlan in Jalisco. The poison, the sluggish fierceness, difficulty in killing it, all this sounded favourable. We found the Escorpion, but it was the harmless, gentle Gerrhonotus, which for some unaccountable reason is feared as very poisonous! The Zapotecan name of Jleloderma is " Talachini " ; the Aztecs called it " Acaltetepon." Hernandez states that " it is found in Cuernavaca and other hot districts." But it does not occur anywhere near the State of Morelos, unless the huge figure of a lizard carved out of a rock near Cuernavaca is evidence ! The last three families taken together form a very ancient group, which seems to have its original centre in the old Sonoraland, or let us say in the old Sonoran -f Central American + Antillean landmass. The absence of Anguidse in Eastern Asia suggests the spread from North America into Europe and Asia across the polar region, unless we prefer the problematic bridge across the Northern Atlantic from the Antilles (which possess their own genus Celestus with several species) towards the Mediterranean. S c in c id .e .- Of this large and almost cosmopolitan family America possesses the smallest number, and it is significant that the number of forms decreases from North to South. Mexico has about 10 species. They may perhaps be divided into a Northern lot, Emneces, which ranges from the middle of North America over the Mexican plateau and its bordering mountains; and into a Southern set, Mabuici and Lyyosoma s. Mocoa, which love the hot country, extending far into tropical South America, with species in the Antilles, in Mexico restricted to the Southern States east and west. Mahuia agilis is fond of basking on shrubs and it even climbs trees, hiding under the bark. Like Lyyosoma laterale it hunts in the dusk. Eitmeces, of which I have observed only lynxe and fuscirostris, prefer mountain forests, where they live on the |