286 eanidjE. 



by me in Brittany, measure 77 mm., body 23 ; width 

 of body 18; tail 64; depth of tail 20. Tadpoles of 

 the var. ridibunda from Prague measure up to 90 mm., 

 and a specimen from the latter locality 111 mm. long- 

 is recorded by P finger. 



I am not aware of any differences by which to 

 distinguish the various races in the larval state. 



Habitat. — Few Batrachians have so wide a range 

 of distribution as Bana esculenta. for it not only 

 extends over a great part of the Palgearctic region, 

 but even encroaches upon the Ethiopian and Oriental. 

 It does not spread very far to the north, being absent 

 from Ireland, Scotland, Norway, and Northern Russia ; 

 its northernmost limit in Europe is the 59th parallel, 

 and in Asia it is not on record north of Mongolia, 

 Manchuria, and the central island of Japan. To the 

 south it extends to Madeira and the Canary Islands, 

 Morocco, far into the Algerian and Tunisian Sahara, 

 Tripoli, the north coast of Egypt, the Sinaitic peninsula, 

 the head of the Persian Gulf, Northern Persia, Balu- 

 chistan, Turkestan, Southern China, Formosa, Hainan, 

 and Siam. It is absent from Sardinia and Malta. 



It does not ascend high up the mountains, 3500 

 feet being, according to Fatio, its altitudinal limit in 

 the Alps. 



Bana esculenta occurs in a few places only in 

 England ; it used to be found in Cambridgeshire, in 

 Foulmire Fen, where it was discovered in 1844, and 

 Bell assures us that his father, who was a native of 

 Cambridgeshire, had noticed many years before the 

 presence of these frogs at Whaddon and Foulmire, 

 where they were known, from their loud croak, as 

 " Whaddon organs " and " Dutch nightingales." The 

 species was afterwards re-discovered in Norfolk, 

 between Thetford and Scoulton, where it is now still 

 very abundant, and, from inquiries made by Lord 

 Walsingham, must have existed for the last seventy 

 years at least. These frogs belong to the var. lessonse, 

 and differ widely from those found in a few other 



