SYSTEMATIC ACCOUNT OF THE SPECIES. Ill 



The histoiy of our knowledge of this species is rather pecuhar. It was 

 first found by the botanist Charles Wright probably at Monte Verde, whence 

 came most, if not all, of his specimens which were described by Cope as from 

 "Eastern Cuba." The species subsequently remained unknown in Cuba for 

 many years. In the meanwhile Stejneger in his Herpetology of Porto Rico 

 (p. 583 et seq.) had shown that what had for a long time Ijeen called martini- 

 censis in Porto Rico was really Cope's auriculatus and since then it has been 

 recorded from Haiti. In 1914 one of us (Ramsden) found it again in the moun- 

 tains about Guantanamo where it appears to be confined to the "curujeyes" 

 or epiphytic bromeliaceous plants — at any rate there ; elsewhere it seems very 

 rare in Cuba. In 1915, nevertheless, a typical example, not fully adult, however, 

 was taken under a decaying log near where the Rio Cuyaguateje passes by the 

 foot of the Sierra de Guane, in western Cuba (Barbour). 



Regarding the habits of this Uttle frog, which curiously enough is exces- 

 sively abundant in Porto Rico, we cannot do better than to quote Stejneger 

 who says : — 



" Although by no means confined to living on or among the trees this species probably 

 deserves the name of tree toad more tlian any of the other species of the genus inhabiting 

 these islands. A Favorite place of conceahnent diuing the day we found to be the axils of the 

 leaves of palms and liliaceous plants, but it was also caught under the bark of trees, fallen 

 logs, stones, or in crevices in the rocks, clay banks, or in holes in trees. 



"They keep usually cjuiet during the day, but toward dusk they come out from their 

 hiding places, and the island then begins to resound with their call notes. These, 1 believe 

 to be different in the adults and the young. The former utter a loud and rather sonorous 

 6-ki'-ki'-ki', or simply a persistently repeated o-ki', 6-ki.. . The chorus of soft "pit, pit, pit" 

 around our camp in the evening I attributed to these young ones. 



"Living specimens placed in a glass jar adhere to the sides chiefly by their digital pads 

 or disks. The belly is flatteaed against the glass, but there is apparently no special adhesi\'e 

 area. 



"The reproduction of tliis species is most extraordinary in that the young escape from 

 the egg a full developed frog without undergoing any tadpole stage or metamorphosis. The 

 eggs are usually deposited in the damp axils of an air plant, about 20 to 30 in a| lump. The 

 development of the young in the egg is remarkable for the fact that the anterior and pos- 

 terior limbs appear simultaneously and that there is no trace of gills. In about three weeks 

 the young escape from the egg, the onl>' sign of unmaturit\' being a short rudiment of tail, 

 which is absorbed, however, in a few hom-s. The discovery of this extraordinary- batrachian 

 development, which so strongly foreshadows that of the amniote vertebrates, was made by 

 Dr. Bello y Espinosa in 1870, and has been confirmed and elaborated by Gundlach and 

 Peters." (Stejneger, Rept. U. S. N. M. for 1902, 1904, p. 587-588). 



