| OCR Text |
Show 778 DR. A. GUNTHER ON A NEW INDIAN LIZARD. [NOV. 15, When I first observed a spur from the subcostal in form 1 of the above species, I supposed that it was an ordinary monstrosity; but finding that exactly one-sixth of the specimens in the Museum collection possessed the same character, more or less developed from the same nervure, I thought it a fact of some significance and worthy of being recorded. It is well known that the greater number of the genera of diurnal Lepidoptera are founded upon neural characters, and in the genus Ithomia the species are separated chiefly by slight modifications in the venation of the hind wing. If, then, any species can be proved to exhibit inconstancy in the venation of its hind wings, it must, at the least, cast the shadow of a doubt upon the value of species which are precisely alike in every character but this. Secondly. 1 think the above modifications interesting, as showing how characters do occur which, if of any advantage to the species, may be further developed by natural selection, and thus result in forming distinct genera. In a paper which I have recently published upon the genera of the Pierinae (a subfamily which I maintain to be most constant in neuration) I have found it necessary to divide the genera into three groups, distinguished from each other by the number of branches to the subcostal nervure in the front wings; an additional branch to the subcostal in the hind wings would be quite as important a character, and would have the effect of widely separating two genera, otherwise allied, in any systematic arrangement founded upon structural characters. 7. Description of a New Indian Lizard of the Genus Calotes. By Dr. A. G U N T H E R , F.Z.S. &c. (Plate XLV.) Mr. Jerdon has brought home with him a considerable number of examples of Khasyan Calotes, and has convinced me that two species have been hitherto confounded under the name of Calotes maria (Gray). The one has the scales of the throat of rather small size ; the supertympanic series of spines is at a distance from the tympanum ; the nuchal spines are narrow, slender, very rigid, and not flexible ; besides, this form has never a black streak through the eye. To this form belongs the largest of the four typical examples of Calotes maria, which name, therefore, must be retained for it. Mr. Blyth's diagnosis of his Calotes platyceps agrees entirely with this form, and not with the next, as supposed by Mr. Jerdon (Proc. As. Soc. Bengal, 1870, p. 77). The second form, Mr. Jerdon informs me, remains always of smaller dimensions ; the nearly perfect identity of coloration of certain specimens with others of C. maria is a very surprising fact, the differences from this species being solely structural. Its gular scales are large; the supertympanic series of spines is immediately above |
