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Show 228 MR. A. W. E. O'SHAUGHNESSY ON [Feb. 1, The specimens were collected at three distinct stations:-viz. Canelos, Pallatanga, and Sarayacu. TEJID^E. 1. C E N T R O P Y X D O R S A M S , Gunther. Monoplocus dorsalis, Gunther, P. Z. S. 1859, p. 404. Centropyx pelviceps, Cope, Pr. Ac. Phil. 1868, p. 98. 1 Centropyx altamazonicus, Cope, J. Ac. Phil. (n. s.) viii. 1876, p. 162. Two specimens, the largest measuring about 11^ inches long, from Canelos. Another good-sized specimen, from the Peruvian Amazons, is also in the British Museum. By its keeled praeanal scutes this species would be the C. altamazonicus, Cope, rather than his C. pelviceps; but I am inclined to think that the very small specimen on which the former is founded will prove identical with the latter. If so, both must be referred to the species described by Dr. Giinther, also on a small type specimen, in which, after renewed examination, I do not find that the distinctions relied on by Prof. Cope when describing C. pelviceps hold good, as I count fourteen longitudinal series of ventrals in the middle of the body, and can also distinguish femoral pores. The largest specimen from Canelos has the sixteen ventral series characteristic of C. altamazonicus, though that species shows them already in a young specimen. I may add that Dr. Giinther's type possesses the anal spurs of this genus. 2. NEUSTICURUS ECPLEOPUS. Neusticurus ecpleopus, Cope, J.Ac. Phil. 1876, p. 161 ; O'Shaugh. Ann. N. H . ser. 5, vol. iv. p. 295 (1879). Pallatanga. CERCOSAURID^E. Emminia olivacea of Gray is a Cercosaura, as was rightly surmised by Dr. Peters in 1863; moreover it is so closely related to Cercosaura ocellata, Wagler, that nothing but the conspicuous lateral ocelli and the three additional femoral pores of that species separate them. With regard to the prseanal scutes, I may mention that another specimen from Para, which, some time since, I had occasion to add to the named series in the British Museum, has the two large plates figured by Peters as belonging to Wagler's species, instead of the four smaller marginal plates of Gray's type ; but on this ground alone I should not venture to separate it from C. olivacea, with which it agrees exactly in every detail. It is perhaps superfluous to state that no foundation for the peculiar position assigned to the nostril by Dr. Gray is afforded by the specimen. A similar variability in the arrangement of the prseanal scutes, associated with an irregularity in the plates of the muzzle, is shown in a series of four specimens, which, however, cannot be specifically distinct, and are doubtless referable to the species described by Prof, |
