246 



ANURA 



Several species of this genus are remarkable for two reasons. 

 First, the great enlargement of the fully-webbed hands and feet, 

 which are then used as parachutes ; secondly, the mode of pro- 

 pagation. 



Greatly exaggerated notions are, however, entertained about 

 the parachutes, ever since "Wallace's description 1 of the first 

 " flying frog." The creature was brought to him in Borneo by 



[ FIG. 48. RhacopJwrus pardalis, x about 1. (From Wallace, Malay Archipelago.) 



a Chinese workman. " He assured me that he had seen it come 

 down, in a slanting direction, from a high tree, as if it flew. . . . 

 The body was about four inches long, while the webs of each 

 hind-foot, when fully expanded, covered a surface of four square 

 inches, and the webs of all the feet together about twelve square 

 inches." 



The species in question is Rh. pardalis, an inhabitant of 

 Borneo and of the Philippine Islands. Specimens from Wallace's 

 Collection are in the National Collection and the largest speci- 

 1 Malay Archipelago, 2nd ed. i. 1869, p. 38. 



