Note 5 — Introductory material
Reading edition
Skilton's description, which seems to apply rather to the species afterward named by Baird and Girard Gerrhonotus principis, is as follows:
"Tropidolepis scincicauda, n. s. Slender, tail much longer than body, cylindrical. Dermal plates of the body and tail, carinate above, smooth beneath, verticillate. The carinate plates in nine rows. Color, dusky green above, light ash color below. A row of small dark spots on each flank. Another row of smaller ones along the vertebral line. Some of the dark colored scales on the flanks tipped with a whitish color. Length five to five and a half inches."
The plate accompanying Skilton's article is so poor as to throw no light on this question, and it seems best to make no change in the nomenclature until some one has examined Skilton's specimens, one of which, according to Yarrow's Catalogue, is No. 3089 of the National Museum collection.