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Show 726 MR. G. A. BOULENGER ON ADDITIONS TO THE LIZARD [Dec. 4, II. Descriptions of new Species. CEDURA NIVARIA; (Plate XL VII. fig. 1.) Head moderate, much depressed, oviform; snout as long as tbe distance between the eye and the ear-opening, once and a half the diameter of the orbit; ear-opening small, oval, oblique. Head covered with small, round, convex granules, largest on the snout; rostral twice as broad as deep, without cleft; nostril between five scales, the upper largest and separated from its fellow by a granule; eight or nine upper and as many lower labials; mental and anterior lower labials followed by small flat shields, gradually passing into the small granules of the throat. Back covered with uniform granules, as large as those on the snout; ventral scales larger, subimbricate, smooth. Digits strongly dilated, the basal portion not quite so broad as the distal expansion; two pairs of large plates at the extremity of the basal portion, followed by smaller single plates. Male with a curved series of 15 praeanal pores. Tail slightly longer than head and body, depressed, tapering to a fine point, its basal portion divided into distinct segments composed of six transverse series of scales above and five beneath. Pale brown above, mottled Avith darker and with undulous dark broAvn transverse bands; tail above Avith blackish transverse spots and with whitish annuli in its distal half. millim. millim. Total length 118 Fore limb 20 Head 15 Hind limb 25 Width of head.... 13 Tail 62 Body 41 A single male specimen, captured on the snoAv on the Drakens-berg Eange, Natal (see above, p. 608). Presented by Mr. B. T. Lewis. ELASMODACTYLUS, g. n. Geckonidarum. Digits strongly dilated, free, with transverse undivided lamellae below ; all digits Avith a minute claAv fitting in a notch of the distal lamella. Body covered with unequal-sized juxtaposed tubercles. Pupil vertical. In its digital structure this new form approaches Bhoptropus, Peters ( = Daclychilikion, Thominot *), and to a certain extent bridges over the gap separating the latter from Gecko. But it is well distinguished from Bhoptropus by the shorter digits expanding more gradually towards the end, the incomplete palpebral ring, and the dorsal lepidosis. 1 One of the principal characters on which Baetychilikion was founded, viz. the hair-like fringe of the subdigital lamellae, is common to all Geckos and more or less easily -risible when the outer layer of the epidermis has been removed. These cuticular hairs were first noticed in the Geckos by Cartier, Arb. Zool. Jnst. Wurzb. i. 1872, p. 86, in the Anoles by M . Braun, op. cit. v. 1879, p. 31. |