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Show 40 UEPTILIA. with simple round tubercles, which are· more salient on the flanks,-G. regyptiacua, Nob. Egypt., Rept., pl. v, f. 7.(1) The nails are only deficient in the four thumbs of the greater number of the platydactile Geckos. They have a range of pores before the anus.(2) Such are, Gecko, Lacep. I, xxix; Stellio Geclco, Schneid.; Le Gecko a gouttelettes, Daud.; Seb. I, cviii, the whole plate. Rounded, slightly salient tubercles over the upper surface of the body, whose red ground is sprinkled with round white spots; tail furnished beneath with square and imbricated scales. Seba says it is from Ceylon, and pretends that it is to this identical spe· Lw cies that the name of Gecko is applied in imitation of its cry; but long before him it was attributed by Bontius to a species of Java. It is probable that the cry and the name are common to several species. We have ascertained that this one is found throughout the Archipelago of India. Lac. vittata, Gm.; Le Gecko a bandes; Lizard Pandang, at Amboina; Daud. IV, 1. Brown; a white band on the back which bifurcates on the head and on the root of the tail; tail annulated with white. From the East Indies: found at Am· boina on the branches of the shrub called the Pandang.(3) There are some of these four-nailed Platydactyli whose body is edged with a horizontal membrane, and which have palmated feet. One of the most remarkable is Lac. homalocephala, Crevett., Soc. of Nat. of Berlin, 18091 pl. viii, the sides of whose head and body are augmented bya broad membrane, which is scalloped into festoons on the sides of the tail. Its feet are palma ted. Found in Java, in Bengal.( 4) There is another species in India with a bordered head and body, and palmated feet, but in which the festoons on the tail, and the pores near the anus, are deficient,-PTEROPLEURA Horl· jieldii, Gray, Zool. Jour. No. X, p. 222. Finally, some Platydactyli have no nails to all their toes. There is a smooth species with palmated feet in France,-A. Leachianus, Nob. In a second subdivision of the Geckos, which I call the ( 1) This fig. entitled Var. du Gecko annulaire, has too many nails. (2) This division is the Gecko proper of M. Gray. (3) N.B. Daudin en·oneously gives nails to the thumbs of these two Geckos. (4) This bordered Platydactylus forms the genus Ptychozoon of Fitzinger· }1, Gray also separates his PTEROPLEURA from them on account of the absence oftbe pores. SAURIA. 41 HEMIDAOTYLI, The base of the toes is furnished with an oval disk formed beneath b.y a double row of scales, en chevron; from the middle of this disk ris.es th~ second phalanx, which is slender, and has the third or the nail. at Its extremity. The species known have flv e na1' I s, an d a senes of pores on each side of the auus. The sub-caudal scales form broad bands like those on the belly of Serpents. There is one s~ecies in the south of Europe, G. verruculatua, Nob., of a reddish grey; the back covered with little conical tubercles, somewhat rounded; circles of similar tubercles round the t~il; found in Italy, Sicily and Provence like the G. faaci- . culans. A very similar species, G. mabuia, Nob., with still smaller tubercles, those of the tail more pointed; grey, clouded with bro':n; brown ri~gs on the tail, abounds throughout the hot ~ort10ns of America, where it enters the houses. It is known m the French colonies by the name of Mabouia des muraillea.(l) There are others at Pondicherry and Bengal so very similar that we are almost induced to believe that they have been carriecl there in vessels.( 2) . A Hemidactylus with a bordered body, G. marginatus, Nob, IS also found in India; its feet are not palmated; the tail is horizontally flattened, and its edges are trenchant and somewhat ciliated. It was sent from Bengal by M. Duvaucel. In the third division of the Geckos, which I will call THEOADAO'l'YLI, The toes are widened throughout, and furnished beneath with transver~e sca~es; but these scales are divided by a deep longituclinal furrow, m wh1ch the nail can be completely concealed. In those species which are known to me the nails are deficient on the thumbs only; the femoral pores are wanting, and their tail i& covered above and beneath with small scales. G. lrevis,, D.; Stellio perfoliatus, Schn.; Lac. rapicauda, Gm, J Le Gecko ltsse, Daud. IV, li. Known in the French colonies as the Mabouia des bananiers. Grey, marbled with brown; finely G (k So fat· as we .can Judge from the figure, the Tltecadactylus .po,licaris and the ec . aculeatus, Sptx, XVIII, 2 and 3, seem to be different ages ofthis:Mabouia des m.u rha dd'J:l.eYs.. ' MM • de •J o nne' s 1l as gt· ven a monog1·aph of them, but h·e • co· nfounds it Wlt Jnerent spectes. e ~2 ) To this division, also belong the G. a tuberc~les triedres and the G. d gueuc [/~eus~ of Daud.; the ~rst is identical with the Stell, mauritanicus of Schn.' 1'hg e • P tyurus, Schn. ts also closely allied to it. VoL. II.-1" \ |
