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Show 96 ON SOME TEEE-FBOGS OF BBAZIL. [Feb. 5, (vol. xix. p. 462), with a figure, which is now reproduced, by kind permission of the proprietors, together with the original note :-" If I remember well I have already told you of the curious fauna which is to be met with between the leaves of our Bromelice. Lately I found in a large Bromelia a little frog (Hylodes?) bearing its eggs on the back. The eggs were very large, so that nine of them covered the whole back, from the shoulders to the hind end, as you will see in the photograph (see p. 95) accompanying this letter (the little animal was so restless that only after many fruitless trials a tolerable photograph could be obtained). The tadpoles, on emerging from the eggs, were already provided with hind-legs; and one of them lived with me about a fortnight, when the fore-legs also had made their appearance. During this time I saw no external branchiae, nor did I find any opening which might lead to internal branchiae." Mr. Boulenger, to w h o m I a m indebted for continued help and advice in m y attempts to work at Brazilian herpetology, took great interest in the present Tree-Frog, which he has kindly named after me, and described in the ' Proceedings' of this Society for 1894 (p. 645). 4. HYLA NEBULOSA, Spix. Hyla luteola, Giinther et Burmeister. In the sheaths of old and decaying leaves of banana-trees (Musa) we have often found another Tree-Frog, so often that we have designated it as the Banana-Frog. It is generally brownish above, turning to yellowish in the daylight; below yellow, with vertical bluish bars on the sides of the thighs. I identify it, not without some hesitation, with H. nebulosa, Spix, as defined by Mr. Boulenger, p. 397 of his ' Catalogue.' I have a few words to say on this Tree-Frog, as it presents a fourth mode of oviposition. It glues its lumps of eggs on the edges and on the inside of withered banana-leaves, where, even during the hot hours of the day, sufficient coolness and moisture are preserved. These lumps are enveloped in a frothy, whitish substance, comparable to the scum formed by certain Cicadidce, so frequently met with in European meadows. Sometimes the tailed larvae are seen wriggling in this frothy mass. If they be put into fresh water all will die in a few hours. W e have many times repeated this experiment, and are convinced that superabundance of water is directly noxious to them. There can be no other explanation but that a quantity of water, covering entirely the lump, intercepts the respiration. Herpetologists will find a striking resemblance between my observations on this " Banana-Frog" and those made by Dr. H . von Ihering on the oviposition of Phyllomedusa iheringi1, as described 1 I have found several specimens of a species, not yet identified with certitude of Phyllomedusa in the Serra dos Orgaos, but I have not been able to observe the life-history of this interesting and magnificent Tree-Frog. |
