| OCR Text |
Show 1881.] AND F R O G S F R O M SINGAPORE. 217 The colour of the back is uniformly brown, there being no trace of the longitudinal pale bands usually found in this form; the prae-frontal is wanting ; the two postfrontals are slightly unequal and divided by a curved line ; they are in contact with the supranasal : this is probably an individual peculiarity. There are also but 22 series of scales round the body instead of 24 ; about 34 occur in a longitudinal line between the axils of the fore and hind legs as in the type; and in other respects the specimen agrees with Chinese examples. I am by no means sure that this form and its allies are really congeneric with E. pavimentatus, the type of the genus Eumeces. (See Peters, Monatsbericht Akad. Berl. 1864, p. 48 ; Stoliczka, J. A.S. B. 1870, xxxix. pt. 2, p. 174, and 1872, xli. pt. 2, p. 121 ; Anderson, P. A. S. B. 1871, xl. p. 181.) All these Scinks are very puzzling; and the generic distinctions accepted, such as the differences between smooth and keeled scales, transparent or scaly eyelid, presence or absence of supranasal shields, are scarcely of generic importance, and are merely convenient guides to identification. CYLINDROPHIS LINEATUS, sp. nov. (Plate XX.) Head depressed, broad, short, the width between the eyes being equal to the length from the eye to the tip of the snout. Each frontal is as broad as long. The vertical is longer than broad, sub-trapezoidal, the anterior margins meeting nearly at a right angle, the posterior termination slightly rounded. Supraorbitals longer than broad, each nearly equal in size to the vertical. Occipitals more than half as large as the vertical. Postocular very small, scarcely half the size of the first labial. Scales round the middle of the body in 21 rows. Ventrals, where widest, in the middle of the body, nearly twice the breadth of the scales on the sides; but the rows on each side of the ventrals are rather broader than the lateral and dorsal scales. Ventrals (from chin-shields to anal1) 215, two anals, subcaudals 9 besides the terminal scale. Back longitudinally banded. A blackish-brown stripe, three scales wide, runs down the middle of the back from head to tail, and is bordered on each side by a narrower white band; below this again is a second, broad, blackish band of irregular width, with the lower border waved. This longitudinal band is separated by a narrow wavy white stripe from the transverse dark bands of the belly ; the latter are wider than the alternating white bands; and, as in other species of the genus, the bands on the opposite sides of the abdomen do not precisely coincide. Head and tail yellowish white, with a few blackish spots. Only a single specimen is sent. This measures 25 inches, of which the tail is 0 7 5 in. The Snake is probably rare. Cylindrophis lineatus is distinguished from the three previously known species of the genus by its coloration, no other form exhi- 1 It is difficult to say precisely where tbe true ventrals commence, as there is a gradual passage from the small scales immediately behind the chin-shields into the broader ventral shields. |
