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Show 1906.] IN MEXICAN LTZARDS. 355 7 left once; 7 regular 3 times ; 8 to 9 irregular twice ; 9 regular rows once. The average is consequently rather high. Tibia with 2|, mostly 3, rows of scutes. Femoral pores : ranging from 17/16 to 24/24 each once, 19 twice, 20/19 twice, 21/20 twice, 21/22 once, and 23 twice. Average distinctly high, about 21. Size.-The 12 specimens range from 48 m m . to 138 and 140 mm., the two largest being exceptionally fine males. A female of 90 m m . and another of 69 m m . with eggs. Coloration of under ]xirts.-The throat is yellowish, or clearly pink. The collar of the female is whitish, sometimes with a blue tinge on the sides; in the medium-sized males quite black, but pink like the chest in the two largest specimens. The chest and abdomen change from whitish or leaden hues through mottled blue to uniform blue-black in the males. This dark pigmentation extends upon the arms and thighs, and partly upon the preanal region. The under surface of the tail, at least its distal half, is yellow to red. Pattern and coloration of upper surface.-These lizards start with 3 pairs of stripes, of which only the 1st and 2nd are whitish, whilst the 3rd is dull. Frequently there is a grey central stripe, bordered with black. The fields are black, at first spotless. Faint pale spots appear later. W h e n the specimens have passed about 70 m m . in length a few small, but sharply marked, white-blue spots appear in the fields I. and II., and stripe 1 is quite broken up into large black and white patches Then stripe 2 is transformed into a series of round blue-white spots, whilst stripe 3 fades away, leaving a very broad mid-field region 2-2, which is green with blackish tiger-bars. Or, all the stripes are broken up into rows of large white-blue spots, and large tiger-bars run right across the back from flank to flank, producing a strikingly handsome pattern upon the otherwise almost uniform dark olive ground (text-fig. 79 B, C). The continuation of stripe 1 on the hinder side of the thigh breaks up early into pale spots, which disappear in the largest specimens. The change of pattern from youth to age of these Cuicatlan Lizards is absolutely different from that of C. mexicanus, and still more from that of C. immutabilis and guttatus, while it agrees with that of C. communis. C. bocourti, although geographically the nearest so far as at present known, is structurally too different. The same applies to the C. communis occidentalis with its outlying clan of Puebla. These Cuicatlan specimens differ much more from those of Puebla than from those of Lagunas ; in fact, the only difference is the frequent occurrence of a smaller-scaled collar with a granular edge in the Cuicatlan specimens: but since in some of them the collar-scales are as large as in those of Lagunas, the importance of this character vanishes. The same applies to the number of femoral rows and the pores, which varies considerably. PROC ZOOL. Soc-1906, VOL. I. No. XXIV. 24 |