BY J. J. FLETCHER. "^ 675 



In the following list, foi* the sake of completeness, the localities 

 recorded in the B. M. Catalogue are given within sqviare 

 brackets : — 



C Y S T I G N A T H I D .E. 



1. LiMNODYNASTES DORSALis, Gray. — Hah. : [West Australia, 

 Houtman's Abrolhos], Perth (Mr. H. Richards), Geraldton (Mr. 

 A. M. Lea). The difference in the colour pattern of eastern and 

 western specimens of this species is very striking. Six westei-n 

 .specimens are very fairly represented by Gray's figure of the type 

 (Eyre's Journals, Vol. i. App. p. 405), in which the dorsal surface 

 shows rather large irregular insuliform dark spots, and a white 

 vertebral stripe. The common eastern form is almost uniformly 

 dark, without spots (except light ones on the outlying parts), and 

 without a vertebral stripe, and is very fairly represented (but the 

 back and head are rather light) by Steindachner's figure (Reise 

 Novara, Amphibia, t. ii. fig. 11, under the name of Heliorana 

 grayi). This is the common widely distributed eastern form, but 

 with it in the neighbourhood of Sj^dney- — whence come all the 

 New South Wales specimens I have seen — there occurs a variety 

 of a smaller size, in which the back is usually more or less varie- 

 gated with lighter without the dark ground colour being broken 

 up into definite spots, and with a more or less complete light 

 vertebral stripe. In Victoria also there are two varieties, of 

 which I have seen only the unspotted variet}'. from Warragul. 

 Sir Frederick McCoy has figured a specimen of the variety with 

 a variegated dorsal surface showing incomplete spots (Prod. 

 Zoology of Vict. Dec. v. PI. 42, tig. '!) under the name of the 

 Common Sand-Frog, between which and specimens more like that 

 figured by Gray he says there are intermediate varieties. Of 

 five Tasraanian specimens in my possession, one is unspotted and 

 unstriped, and four are spotted, with an incomplete vertebi^al 

 stripe. In the spotted forms the spots are smaller and more 

 numerous, but not quite so definitely marked as in the western 

 specimens, and the vertebral stripe is not so complete. The point 

 to which I wish to direct attention is this. Tasmanian examples 

 .show a fairly established differentiation into a spotted variety, with 



