OCR Text |
Show 1906.] IN MEXICAN LIZARDS. 345 many, about 10 or more, rows of whitish-blue spots, especially numerous on the lower back, rump, and thighs, upon a very dark ground. In large and old specimens the ground-colour becomes olive-grey, with bold transverse black tiger-bars across the middle of the trunk ; the white stripes and spots having changed completely into grey. The black pigment encroaches upon the breaking-up stripes, and the neck of some old specimens tends to become monochrome. There is no doubt that this clan of rather large-sized Lizards conforms more with C. g. communis than with C. c. bcdsas. It is all the more interesting that these Puebla lizards come to resemble the more or less tiger-barred specimens of C. c. bcdsas (which are probably their neighbours) if they pass beyond the white-spotted stage. Patzcuaro (text-fig. 77 B), south-west of Morelia, in Michoacan. • - The smallest specimen with 6 complete stripes and a broad mottled mid-field. In the gravid female and in the adult male the stripes are broken into streaks or numerous spots, bluish-white and similar spots have appeared in the fields. Chest and belly suffused with blue owing to the underlying dark pigment. Acambaro, north-east of Morelia. Only one immature specimen, collected by Dr. Meek.-Still with 6 very sharp, white stripes; pale spots just appearing in the outer and in the second fields. Celaya, north of Acambaro, west of Queretaro: 4 specimens collected by Dr. Meek ; largest about 75 m m . - W i t h 6 whitish stripes; the younger specimens still without field-spots, but new whitish spots appear in the older, still immature specimens; chest and belly blue, with white- edged scales. Throat and collar white. San Juan del Rio. 3 specimens, Dr. Meek ; 70-76 m m. Guanajuato. 6 specimens in the British Museum, collected by Dr. Duges, three of which only 48 to 50 mm.-These very young forms have 6 very sharp white stripes and very dark spotless fields. Faint pale brown spots in one row appear in the first and second dark brown fields of the 62 m m . specimen. In the two 86-87 mm. specimens the field-spots are white, very sharp and more numerous; and in one of these specimens numerous small white specks have appeared within some of the three pairs of stripes, which themselves have become dull. . Unfortunately most of the specimens from Acambaro to Guanajuato are young, or immature, whilst few, if any, are adult. However, the fact of a gravid female from Patzcuaro seems to indicate that all these lizards belong to a rather small race. The breaking-up of the stripes into whitish spots, characteristic of C. communis, is clearly shown at Patzcuaro and at least in one specimen from Guanajuato. It is impossible, with the present material, to say whether the lizards of Acambaro, Celaya, and San Juan del Rio represent the transition from C. communis to C. mexicanus var. balsas, or whether they are potentially C. com- |