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Show 170 MR. G. A. BOULENGER ON REPTILES [Feb. 21, smaller than those of the fingers ; subarticular and inner metatarsal tubercles moderate, flat. The tibio-tarsal articulation reaches the eye; tibia not half length of head and body. Skin of upper parts more or less granular, the granules very feeble, though distinct, in the type specimen, most developed in one of the males from Kuatun ; belly and lower surface of thighs coarsely granular; throat smooth or feebly granular; a dermal ridge aboA^e the tympanum ; no folds along the limbs. Mr. Blanford was informed by Dr. Dennys that the type specimen, a female, was of a beautiful emerald-green colour wben alive. It was, in spirit, dark violet, almost slaty above, with a broAvn spot behind the occiput, dirty Avhite below, mottled with dusky. It is now nearly completely bleached, traces of the violet colour being only discernible on the parts protected from the light by the folding of the limbs. The Foochow specimen, a female, is dark violet above, with four irregularly disposed rusty spots edged with whitish on the head and scapular region ; a few similar spots on the fore limbs; a pale golden lumbar spot, and streaks of the same tint and edged with brown across the anal region and along the outer edges of the forearm and the hand and of the tarsus and foot; white beneath, the lower jaw broadly edged Avith violet. The three specimens from Kuatun, all males, with internal vocal sac, have retained a dark green coloration ; one of them has the red spots on the head of the Foochow specimen ; all three have a lateral series of irregular, Avhite, black-edged spots, extending from the shoulder to the groin. 9. BUFO VULGARIS Laur. The examination of the 32 specimens brought home by Mr. La Touche (males up to 110 millim. from snout to vent, females up to 122) confirms the opinion I have preriously expressed as to the impossibility of defining with anything like precision the Eastern form of our C o m m o n Toad even as a variety or subspecies. In some of the specimens the tympanum is almost hidden, in others it is very distinct and its diameter, as compared with that of the eye, varies betAveen one half and three fourths. The toes are only half or barely two-thirds Avebbed, even in males with the nuptial excrescences, and the fourth toe is generally a little longer in proportion than in European specimens. A black lateral band is usually Avell marked, as in Japanese specimens, and the ventral marbling is usually' very striking, although varying in extent and intensity. Some of the specimens have a yellow vertebral line, as Avell marked as in Bufo calamita. In describing Chinese specimens under the name of Bufo vulgaris japonicus, in 1880, M . Lataste has pointed out a difference in the shape of the testis in the breeding male. This is described as being shaped like a long cylinder attenuate in front, its width 7 or 8 times in its length, and occupying the whole length of the abdominal cavity, whilst in the European specimens the organ is oval, elongate, depressed, its width usually twice and a half in its |