head, body, and tail, the lips, and the inner surface of the extremities, pale
sienna-yellow; the outer surface of the extremities the colour of the back,
and finely speckled with yellowish brown. In young individuals the brown
of the back is paler and brighter than in adults, and the dark spots are less
regularly placed; on many the white vertebral line is scarcely visible; in
some the lower part of the sides has a vermilion-red tint. Fig. 3 shows the
colours of an adult female, 4 of a young female, and 5 of a young male.
F orm, &c.—Figure moderately robust. Head four-sided, tapered to the
nose; body rather depressed; the back slightly arched, the sides rather
protuberant; abdomen flat. Tail at and near the base subquadrangular,
elsewhere cylindrical, and tapered to the point, which is slender and acute.
The head, superiorly, is sloped to the nose, which is narrow and rounded.
Nostril small, circular, and situated in the nasal plate. Eyes rather small;
eyelids externally granular, the lower lid with a semi-transparent central
disc. External ear-opening oblique and narrow, its lower extremity in a line
with the angle of the mouth, and its anterior edge fringed with two or three
narrow, projecting, pointed scales. The anterior and posterior extremities
rather slender and subcylindrical; toes long and delicate, the fourth toe of
the hinder foot much the longest; claws slender, much curved, and pointed.
Rostral plate subtriangular, its apex rounded; supra-nasal plates narrow and
anteriorly contiguous. Naso-rostral plate sub-rhomboidal, longest transversely,
the anterior margin more or less arched. Fronto-nasal plates
subquadrangular, not contiguous. Frontal plate sub-rhomboidal, the two
anterior much shorter than the posterior sides. Fronto-parietal plates
subquadrangular or five-sided. Parietal plates five-sided; interparietal
plate rhomboidal, the two hindermost sides longest. Palpebral plates four,
the second the largest. Frenal plates, two, quadrangular; naso-frenal small
and subtriangular. Plates of upper lip, exclusive of rostral, and of lower,
exclusive of mental, seven; the fifth of the former much the longest. Scales
of the body and tail rather small, and somewhat six-sided, the posterior
sides often short and arched ; those of the back and sides, upper and lateral
surface of tail, and of the outer parts of the extremities, three keeled, the
keels on the back and the base of the tail strongly developed; pre-anal plates
seven or eight in an arched row. Between each parietal plate and the dorsal
scales, a long, narrow, transverse plate. Length from nose to base of tail,
in the smaller individuals, figured 1 inch 6 lines to 1 inch 10 lines; in the
larger, 2 inches 4 lines; length of the tail in the former, 2 to 2J inches,
in the latter, 3 to 4 inches.
This species occurs throughout the whole of Southern Africa, but not so abundantly
within the boundaries of the Cape Colony as beyond them. It inhabits dry, arid situations
especially where the surface of the ground is thickly strewed with large stones, and in
localities so circumstanced is often observed passing quickly between the stones, and when
frightened seeking concealment under them.
The majority of the individuals I procured were either small, like that represented in
Fig. 5, or a little larger, about or exceeding in size, Fig. 4. The remarkable preponderance
of the smaller individuals, so different to what is observed in the case of other species of the
group, led me to expect they were adults of a distinct species; but a careful examination
of their characters, and those of a size even larger than that represented, Fig. 3
furnished no evidence to justify their being viewed as distinct from the latter, which are
nowhere observed in anything like the same number. If the conclusion to which I have
arrived be the correct one, I think it probable the latter may be a permanent variety, and
I am the more inclined to hold this opinion from having noticed first that the smaller individuals
have usually the sides, close to the abdomen of a dull vermilion red colour, whereas
that tint is never observed in the larger ones ; and, secondly, that the ova of the female, and
the testes of the male in the small specimens, are found during the breeding season even
more developed in proportion than in the larger individuals, evidently the result of a special
influence which does not operate at other periods of the year, as may be seen by examining
either sex after or before the breeding season.
With reference to this fact, I have examined many individuals of Euprepes Meremii, Dum.
and Bib.* Sdncus trivittatus, Cuv.,f a common lizard, in gardens at Cape Town, but have
never found any of them prepared to propagate their species before they had nearly reached
their full size. In support of the probability of the existence of a permanent variety of a
smaller size, I may mention that such a variety does actually occur in the case of a species of
Ploceus, which inhabits South Africa to the northward of the Cape Colony. In the districts in
which these birds occur, individuals exist in abundance, differing in no respect from others with
which they are associated, except in being one-third smaller. Both build their nests on the
same reeds, construct them in the same manner, and give them the same form, the only difference
is the nests of the one are considerably smaller than those of the other. The eggs of both
kinds are also of the same colour, but those of the small variety are distinctly inferior in size.
On haying carefully compared individuals of this lizard obtained in Southern Africa with
specimens procured in Egypt, I have been able to discover slight differences in regard of
colour, but none in other respects.
* Erpétologie Generale, tom. v. page 671.
t Régné Animale, 2nd edit., tom. ii. page 62.