In Kansas it occurs over the eastern one-fourth, west to the Flint Hills, and a little farther west in peninsular extensions of the forest along some of the main river valleys. In Braun's map the Deciduous Forest Biome is shown to reach only the eastern edge of Kansas along the Kaw River and Missouri River at and near their junction, the Osage (or Marais des Cygnes) River valley near the Missouri border, and the southeastern corner of Kansas. However, for almost 100 miles farther west from the Missouri border, the country has the aspect of a savannah with scattered groves of trees on hillsides and along streams, providing suitable habitat. The distribution of the five-lined skink in eastern Kansas corresponds well with certain "Biotic Districts" as mapped by Cockrum (1952:12), namely the Kaw River, Osage Savannah (southern part), and Cherokee Prairie. Conversely the skink is excluded from the Short Grass Plains and Mixed Grass Plains Biotic Districts which occupy nearly all of the western three-fourths of the state. There are two specimens in the University of Kansas Natural History Museum, labelled Ranson, Ness County. This locality, in the western third of the state, more than 150 miles from any other recorded station, may represent an isolated colony; however Smith (1950:185) states that the record needs verification, and it is not included in the map, Figure 6. In Oklahoma the distribution records fit fairly well the portion of the state mapped by Braun as the Oak-Hickory Association of the Deciduous Forest, but extends a little farther west in the northeastern part of the state. A game type map published by the Oklahoma Game and Fish Department, Division of Wildlife Restoration, in 1943 shows in more detail distribution of the main vegetation types within the state. The locality records for the skink fall almost entirely within three of the fifteen vegetation types mapped, namely, the oak-pine, and oak-hickory forest of the state's eastern edge and the post oak-blackjack oak type of the eastern and central parts. The locality records extend almost throughout the area occupied by these three types but not in attenuate westward extensions of the post oak-blackjack type that occur along several of the main stream courses. In Texas likewise the recorded localities fall mainly within the area mapped as deciduous forest, but with several slightly beyond its boundaries. In a detailed map of the "game regions" of Texas (Anonymous, 1945:1), some of these outlying localities fall into the coastal prairie area, and the remainder into the post oak and blackland prairie belts, which grade into each other and the oak-hickory forest.