Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/130

122 variations of form or relative position in these plates, generic distinctions often rest, and hence, for the sake of perspicuity in description, these have received names, which we here enumerate, copying the accompanying illustration from Professor Bell's beautiful work on British Reptiles.

The plate marked 1 is termed the rostral; 2, the nasal; 3, internasal; 4, fronto-nasal; 5, frontal; 6, anterior palpebral; 7, posterior palpebral; 8, frontoparietal; 9, inter-parietal; 10, parietal; 11, occipital.

The scales of the tail, which are arranged in distinct rings or transverse bands, are long and narrow, especially towards the tip of this organ. The lower parts of the body are clothed with broad plate arranged lengthwise in several rows; not overlapping, but in contact at their margins.

The femoral pores, which we have before mentioned, either as present or absent, in other Saurian groups, are always found in the Lacertadæ. "They consist, probably," observes Professor Bell, "of very small follicular glands, each placed in a scale, the middle of which is pierced by the opening of the follicle. In some, the scale is very little larger than the pore, and appears almost like a minute tube; in others, the scale is larger and triangular. The use of these pores