partly in the supraocular, and partly in the ocular plates, and are situated
where the supraocular joins the preocular suture. Plates of the body in
thirty-seven or thirty-eight longitudinal rows. Tail armed at the point
with a short, stiff, spine, directed obliquely downwards and backwards. Length from nose to tail 11 inches 8 lines; of tail 2 lines.
This species, like O. Delalandii. lives either in the earth or under stones or masses of wood.
If the soil, on its being discovered be rather loose, it progresses through it with considerable
velocity, but when otherwise it abandons the attempt to advance, and rolls itself up in the same
manner as the species already described. It inhabits the country to the northward of Latakoo,
and has not yet been found, so far as I know, within the boundaries of the colony.
The great size of the frontal plate, the breadth and shortness of the anterior frontal and the
subovate, instead of subtriangular form of the preocular plates, constitute characters by which it
is readily to be distinguished from O. Delalandii. It differs also from the latter in the eyes
being partly in the superocular and partly in the preocular, instead of entirely in the ocular,
as is the case in O. Delalandii.
ONYCHOCEPHALUS CAPENSIS.—S m it h .
R e p t il ia .— P l a t e LI. F ig . 3.
0. superne inferneque pallide auranteo-brunneus; caudd aculeata; scuto oculari subangusto, superne
inferneque acuto; labii superioris scuto ultimo magno-subtriangulari.
Coi.ouR.Vrhe head, the body, and the tail, superiorly as well as inferiorly,
a colour intermediate between pale orange-coloured brown and buff-orange,
the tint rather pale ; the colour of the under not quite so dark as that of the
upper parts, and exhibits a slight bluish tinge. The colour of each scale is
darker at the centre than the circumference.
F o rm , &c.— Figure slender; body and tail cylindrical, the former, below
towards the head, rather flattened; the head and anterior third of the body
less in circumference than the other two-thirds; tail slightly curved, and
armed with a short,, acute, conical spine. Nose rounded and obtuse; rostral
plate rather narrow, posteriorly slightly contracted, and the hinder edge arched and situated exactly the width of the anterior frontal plate in advance
of the eyes; naso-rostral plate broader below at the nostril than above, where
it joins the anterior frontal; preocular plate broad and rather irregularly
shaped, its inferior extremity truncated ; ocular plate pointed superiorly and
inferiorly, the eye situated in it immediately behind the point, where the
posterior edge of the supraocular joins the preocular plate; the last of the
plates of the upper lip large and subtriangular, it extends upwards nearly as
high as the middle of the ocular plate; the anterior frontal, frontal and inter
parietal plates rather larger than the scales of the body, but nearly the
same in shape, differing only in being a little longer as compared with their
width ; the supraocular plates rather irregular in form ; the parietals larger
than the body scales, but in other respects like them. Vide Plate LIV. figs.
g_12. Nostrils situated in the suture, between the nasal and naso-rostral
plates. Eyes small but distinctly visible. Length from the point of the nose
to the base of the tail five inches one line; length of the tail about one and a
half lines; diameter of the body one line and a quarter.
Inhabits the interior of Southern Africa, and is found like the other species of the genus,
either in the ground or under stones, &c.