BARBOUR AND NOBLE: AMPHIBIANS FROM PERU. 413 



Telmatobius NIGER, sp. nov. 



Diagnosis. A mediiim-sized frog, with finely granular skin; a strongly 

 developed supratympanic fold, the vomerine teeth well developed in two large 

 prominent groups and with the tympanimi hidden. 



Habitat. Many years ago a series of seven or eight of these frogs 

 were given the senior author by Mr. R. L. Ditniars, to whom they were 

 presented by a mining or railway engineer who had been to Ecuador 

 probably working on the Quito-Guayaquil Railroad at that time under 

 construction. They bore a label "Palmira Desert, Ecuador, 10,500 

 feet altitude." It has been impossible to identify this locality with 

 absolute certainty, but the Palmira is very probably the one referred 

 to as the hacienda de Palmira in the Andes of southern Ecuador by 

 Theodoro Wolf in his Geografia y Geologia del Ecuador (Leipzig, 

 1892, p. 35). The village of the hacienda is a few miles south of 

 Vilcabamba in the Province of Loja and is said to have an altitude of 

 1,748 meters. This is but half the altitude given on our label. There 

 may be another Palmira or the "desert" may in reality be a Paramo, 

 of the same name as the hacienda, not far away in the highlands 

 south of Loja. 



Type. M. C. Z. 3,037 from Palmira Desert, Ecuador. Coll. Thomas 

 Barbour, 1909. 



Description of Type. Size moderate; head broader than long, about equal 

 to the width of the body, its length contained in the total body length 3.3 times; 

 snout very short and high without canthus rostralis, nostril nearer the orbit 

 than the labial border. Vomerine teeth prominent in two well-defined groups 

 between the choanae which are of moderate size; tongue longer than broad. 

 Interorbital space 1.3 as broad as the length of the eye; the length of the snout 

 1.4 times that of the eye; tympanurp hidden, the region partly covered by the 

 supratympanic fold. Digits free, stout, slightly dilated at the tips, the first 

 finger longer than the second but shorter than the fourth; the elbow extended 

 forward reaches nearly to the eye. Toes fully webbed, the webs notched 

 making the toes appear only slightly more than half webbed; a distinct tarsal 

 fold; subarticular tubercles well developed; the inner metatarsal tubercle 

 much larger and more prominent than outer; heels not in <'ontact when the 

 hind limbs are folded at right angles to the axis of the body; the tibiotarsal 

 articulation reaches to the middle of the eye when the hind limb is carried 

 forward along the body. Skin very glandular above, the glands being so 

 small that the skin appears granular and not warty; a loose, baggy, latera 

 fold on each side, the fold beginning at the posterior angle of the eye and con 



