246 



ANURA 



CHAP. 



Several species of this geiuis 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, 



(rreatly exaggerated notions are, however, entertained about 

 the parachutes, ever since Wallace's description ^ of the first 

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



Fig. \^.~Rhaco]jhorHs pardalis, x about 1. (From Wallace, Malay Archipelago.) 



a Chinese workman. " He assured me tliat 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 (^ach 

 hind-foot, wlien fully expanded, covered a surface of four stpuire 

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

 inches." 



The species in (pu'stion is 7.7/. jutrdalis, an inhabitant of 

 Borneo and uf tlic I'liilippine Islands. Specimens from "Wallace's 

 Collection arc in the Xatii.nal Collecti<'n .iiid the largest speci- 

 ^ Mtilaij Jrehipelago, 2ii(l rd. i. ]8ti9. ].. ;!8. 



