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Show 1891.] TADPOLES OF THE EUROPEAN BATRACHIANS. 607 of the muscular portion, at its base, about one third the greatest total depth. Beak broadly edged with black. Sides and lower edge of the lip bordered with papillae; upper lip with a long series of teeth, followed on each side by two or three series, which are widely separated from their fellows on the other side and gradually decrease in length ; four series of teeth in the lower lip, the fourth or inner widely interrupted in the middle, the first or outer at least two thirds the length of the second. Heron Royer (Bull. Ac. Belg. 3, i. 1881, p. 139) regards the specimens with three series of teeth in the upper lip as representing a distinct subspecies (honnorati, H. R.), but Born (Arch. f. mikr. Anat. xxvii. 1886, p. 209) and Camerano (Atti Ace. Torin. xxvi. 1890, p. 82) have shown that specimens with three or four series are found promiscuously in Germany and in the Alps. I may add that British specimens have usually only three series of upper labial teeth. Muciferous crypts very indistinct. Dark brown to blackish above, with metallic dots ; caudal crests greyish, uniform, or dotted or powdered with brown, with or without small golden spots; belly grey to blackish with metallic dots or spots. The largest specimen from the environs of London measures 37 millim.: body 13, width of body 9; tail 24, depth of tail 7. Camerano (I. c.) records specimens 46 millim. long. Rana temporaria inhabits Central and Northern Europe (where it is still found in abundance as far as the North Cape and Lapland1), the Pyrenees, the hills of North-western Spain, and the Italian Alps, Siberia and Yesso. It breeds, in the plains of Central Europe, from the beginning of February to the beginning of April, and the young leave the water in M a y or June. In the Alps, where this species is found as high up as 10,000 feet, the metamorphosis may not be completed until late in the summer, and cases of hibernation in the larval condition are frequent (Camerano, Atti Ace. Torin. xix. 1883, p. 86, and Boll. Mus. Torin. 1887, no. 30, and 1889, no. 56). 4. RANA GRJECA, Blgr. (Plate XLV. fig. 4.) This tadpole, although more nearly resembling that of R. temporaria than any other European species, differs from all its congeners in having the mouth quite as wide as the interorbital space, which equals once and a half the distance between the nostrils. The labial dentition is more developed even than in R. temporaria, the teeth 1 A note by Gaimard (Bibl. Univ. 2, xxvi. 1840, p. 207) has been interpreted by some authors as indicating the presence of Frogs in Iceland. Graimard states that he made experiments in Iceland on the endurance of cold on three Batrachians, viz. Bana temporaria, Bufo vulgaris, and Bufo calamita, but does not actually say that he procured the specimens on that island, although, from the wording of his note, it would be quite natural to infer he did. But neither the list of Iceland animals given by Mohr (Fors. Isl. Naturh., Copenhagen, 1786) nor that published by E. Robert in Gaimard's Voyage (Voy. en Islande et au Grroenl., Zool. et Med., Paris, 1851) contains any allusion to Batrachians. PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1891, No. XLI. 41 |