OCR Text |
Show 550 M. G. A. B O U L E N G E R O N T H E [Nov. 16, loped on the limbs. The lower surfaces are covered with rounded granules, which are much more developed and more distant from one another on the lower belly and under the thighs. The coloration of the upper surface varies very much. The ground-colour is greenish, greyish, brownish, or pinkish, with numerous dark olive spots, very variable in size and in shape. These spots are generally more distinct from the ground-colour upon the limbs. The body is often dotted all over with black. The large warts on the back are often reddish, margined with black; those at the angles of the mouth are of a beautiful red ; the parotoid and tibial glands are often reddish. Nearly always a narrow yellow vertebral line extends from the level of the anterior corners of the eyes to the vent; this line, however, may be more or less indistinct or even entirely absent. Females have often a light undulous stripe on the sides of the body. During the breeding-season males and females have the tips of the fingers and toes brown or black. The lower surfaces are dirty white, more or less abundantly spotted with blackish. The iris is greenish yellow, vermiculated with black. The males are furnished with a subgular vocal vesicle, which, when swollen, much resembles that of the common Tree-frog; the air penetrates by a short slit situated in the mouth, sometimes on the right side, sometimes on the left; in none of the specimens I have examined have I found two of these slits. During the breeding-season the male's throat is bluish or violet, and the first three fingers are furnished on their inner side with blackish rugosities. Skeleton.-The prefrontals are large, subtriangular, convex, once and a half as broad as long, separated backwards by an angular prolongation of the superior plate of the ethmoid. The frontoparietals are flat, much broader backwards than forwards, especially in males, with a rather large central fontanelle. The anterior arm or zygomatic apophysis of the temporomastoidians is very short, rudimentary. The length of the vertebral column to the base of the coccyx equals hardly once and a half that of the skuli in males, once and two thirds in females. The diapophyses of the seventh and eighth vertebrae are directed slightly forwards; those of the ninth, or sacral, are strongly dilated, rather higher than broad. The coccyx is deprived of any trace of diapophysis at its base, and is of the same length as the skull. The first metacarpian or rudiment of thumb, which is so much developed in the male B. viridis, is in this species scarcely distinct and rounded. Geographical Distribution.-B. calamita is a Western Palaearctic species, inhabiting Scotland, England, Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal, Southern Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and reaching eastwards to the frontiers of Russia. It seems to delight in the sea-coast, being very abundant on the dunes; in the interior it is rather local than rare. |