OCR Text |
Show 1895.] OF SOME TEEE-FEOGS OF BRAZIL. 95 below our bed-room ; the voice is much louder than that of Hgla polytcenia. I had hoped to succeed in bringing up the remaining part of the young Tree-Frogs. But they died one after the other in a few days, without m y being able to assign any cause for this mortality. Thus m y study unfortunately soon came to an end. The first author who, as I believe, noted that the Bromelia-water often contains larva? of Brazilian Batrachians was Prince Maximilian. Thus he writes about his Hyla luteola :-" Er lebt auf den Gestrauchen, besonders auf den stiefen Blattern der Bromelien, w o er auch in dem daselbst zuriickbleibenden Regen-wasser seine Brut anbringt." But he tells us nothing about the abridged direct development. This discovery is due, I find by reference to what literature1 is accessible to me, to Dr. Bello in Puertorico. Peters, of Berlin, states, in 1876 2, that Dr. Gundlach re-diseovered the fact, having made thorough observations on the Antillean " Coqui " (Hylodes martinicensis). Unfortunately I have nothing to add to these statements, now already 20 years old, beyond the circumstance that not only in the Antillean region, but also in the South-American continent, there exist Batrachians which leave Fig. 2. Hyla goelcli, with egg-mass on back. (' Nature,' xix. p. 463.) the egg in a highly developed condition, provided with the extremities and the other requisites for terrestrial life. I find, moreover, I cannot lay claim to the first discovery of the breeding-habits of the above mentioned Hgla. On looking through some old papers left by Dr. Fritz Miiller, I recently came across some notes and a photograph, which evidently refer to the same facts. Mr. Boulenger, to whom I submitted these documents, informs me that Dr. Fritz Muller's observations, communicated by hiru to Darwin, were published in 1879 in the journal 'Nature' 1 See, on this subject especially, F. K. Knauer, ' Naturgeschichte der Lurche' (Wien, 1878), p. 83 seq. fand Mr. Boulenger, Ann. & Mag. N. H. ser. 5, xvii. p. 464. 2 " Ueber eine von Krug und Gundlach auf der Insel Puertorico gemachte Sammlung von Amphibien, sowie iiber die Entwicklung eines Batrachiers, Hylodes martinicensis." Monatsb. d. k. Akad. Wissensch. Berlin, November 1876. (Quoted from Knauer.) |