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Show 1 9 0 5 .] AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES. 211 Northern continent. The earliest, probably all of the genus Testudo, have been found in the mid-Eocene of Wyoming and New Mexico; since Oligocene in Europe, still later in India. With this remote occurrence in ancient Sonor aland I couple the most important fact of the Galapagos Tortoises. They are a strong indication of the former, let us say Oligocene, extension of land considerably to the west and south of the present Central America. We shall find this idea supported by Iguanidse. Now North America possesses but the single T. polyphemus in the South-eastern States, and South America has only T. tabulata. Something has gone wrong with this genus, which has flourished in the Miocene of Dakota, Nebraska, and Oregon, as has been the case with so many mammals which started and flourished in the States and are now restricted to the Old World. L a c e r t i l i a . G e c k o n id .e .- The distribution of American Geckos is almost entirely tropical. The greatest number and diversity of species occur in the Antilles, in Northern South America and the adjoining Central America, whence few have spread into the warmer parts of Mexico, avoiding the plateau. North America has received only Sphcerodactylus notatus from the Antilles through the Bahamas into Florida, and Phyllodactylus tubercidosus into California; this species is the commonest Gecko in Mexico, ranging strictly along the Pacific slope to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and thence to Nicaragua. Sphcerodactylus sends only three species into Mexico : S. glaucus to Salina Cruz and into the State of Vera Cruz; the Central American S. torquatus and the Antillean S. cmthracinus are recorded from the same State, and S. torquatus has been described from Mazatlan. Gymno-dactylus sumichrasti reaches the Isthmus, and Thecadactylus rapicauda, of Yucatan, Antilles, and southwards, is said by Cope to have been recorded from Guadalajara, a very doubtful locality. Phyllodactylus tubercidosus is common in the villages of Southern Oaxaca and Guerrero, where it is known as " Pata de bueye," i. e. ox-foot, because of its peculiar digits. The general name for Geckos is " Salamanqueza" or " Salamanquezca," which name, however, also applies to the slippery Mabuia and Eumeces. I found the same Gecko on the trees of dense forests near the coast of Guerrero. Sphcerodactylus glaucus is typically xex-ophile. As in Spain and Portugal, all Geckos are considered extremely poisonous. Eublepharid.e.-This small and very scattered family (in West Africa, Somaliland, India, Transcaspia, and Persia) is represented by three species in Mexico, a few others occurring in Panama and Ecuador. Eublepharis vciriegatus is the northern offshoot, from El Paso to the Gila River and California, probably also in Sinaloa. E . fasciatus is known from Ventanas, north-west of Mazatlan. These are apparently typically xerophile, like the 14* |