Zsivny Viktor (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 30. (Budapest 1936)

Fejérváry, G. J.: Notes on a very little-known lizard: Lacerta princeps Blanf., with description of the male specimen preserved in the Vienna Natural History Museum

thanks for the courtesy Dr. v. WETTSTEIN so loyally extended to him. his best thanks being due also to Miss CLARA DE RÁSKY, the writer's Assistant, by the work of whom facilities were granted in technical respect. The jar, in which the specimen to be dealt with is preserved, bears the following label: „Lacerta Brandtii de Fil. wahrscheinlich L. princeps!! (Lacerta ocellata Eichw., L. cyaneo-ocellata Fitz.) Persien. 1845. I. 7. Coll. Kotschyi" The additional note „wahrscheinlich L. princeps" exhibits the handwriting of Dr. v. WETTSTEIN. It is rather unconceivable how the specimen could have been identified, by some early determiner, as L.Brandtii DE FIL., having nothing to do, indeed, with that small-sized species which, according to BOULENGER (3, p. 301), presents characters intermediate between the L. muralis group and L. parva BLGR. The presence of axillar ocelli — followed, in L. Brandtii, by other ocelli on the flanks — does by no means account for the commitment of such diagnostical lapsus. As to a „L. ocellata" described precisely by EICHWALD, I must confess to be at a loss of my literary knowledge, for I am in ignorance of the fact that EICHWALD would have described any Lizard under such name. FITZINGER'S „Lacerta cyaneo-ocellata" appears to be a museum name especially adapted to this specimen, for it fits it absolutely, but, on the other hand, it does not occur, so far as I am informed, in literature. These local museal remarks bearing upon the diagnostical history of the specimen under inspection, should be completed by the -observation that BOULENGER'S supposition, — according to which „It is possible that a female specimen from Angora, noticed by STEINDACHNER (Denkschr. Ak. Wien, LXIV, 1897, p. 696) under die name of L. viridis, belongs to this species, in which case its range would extend to Asia Minor" — seems to base upon a misinterpretation of STEINDACHNER'S data, for Dr. v. WETTSTEIN, who kindly directed my attention to the respective passage (p. 97) in BOULENGER'S „Monograph", assured me to have made a thorough examination of the whole of the Vienna Museum's material concerned, and thus having come to the conclusion that all the Anatolian Lizards entering, in this respect, into consideration, belonged to the specific -complex of L. viridis LAUR. to which also subsp. strigata EICHW.