56. Grammatophora muricata.
The young animals have a series of small spines on each side of the base of the tail, and a series of spots on each side of the back.
Mr. Gould has brought home two very distinct local varieties.
Var. 1 diemenensis. Young dark-coloured, with vermiculated marks on the chin, chest, and abdomen. The adult dark, beneath gray, varied with black spots placed in irregular lines.
Inhabits Van Diemen's Land.
Var. 2 adelaidensis. Young pale above and beneath, with three broad diverging black lines on the chin, leaving an oblong spot in the centre of the throat, with a broad streak on the chest separated into three lines on the abdomen, which unite together again on the pubis. The adult gray, with a few spots beneath.
58. Grammatophora decresii, Dumeril and Bibron, Erp. Gen. 4 472. ?
Tail conical, with nearly regular scales, the base rather swollen, without any series of spines on the side; the nape and back with a series of rather larger, low, compressed scales; back with small sub-equal scales, and a few larger ones in cross series; side of the head near the ears and side of neck with two or three ridges crowned with short conical spines. In spirits black, yellow spotted and varied, beneath gray, vermiculated with blackish; tail black-ringed.
Inhabits Western Australia.
So much smaller than G. muricata that I might have considered them as young animals if one of them had not had the body filled with well-formed eggs; and the tail is much shorter in comparison than even in the young of that species.