AMPHIBIANS 



Size. — Length 2li inches; female not much larger than 

 male. 



Range. — Common ; all of eastern North America, Gulf States 

 and Texas and northward into Arkansas. 



Tail-less Amphibians or Frogs 



Like toads, frogs are tail-less amphibians, but they are 

 stronger, more active jumpers, with moist skins and without 

 rough, warty swellings (Fig. 309). 



Tree Frogs — Hylidce 



Tree toad, common tree frog, Hyla versicolor. — As the 



scientific name suggests, the colors of the tree toad are change- 

 able and it may be white or gray or green or brown. It has 

 a dark irregularly star-shaped spot on the back, oblique dark 

 stripes on the head, and dark cross bands on the legs, but all 



Fig. 300. — Tree toad, Hyla versicolor, with vocal 

 sac inflated. 



of these may be indistinct or invisible (PI. XXI). Its white 

 under parts are washed with bright orange-yellow, especially 

 the folds of the hind legs. Like the spring-^peeper and other 

 climbing frogs, it has sticky pads on the tips of its toes (Fig. 



301)- 



Habits, habitat. — This is a tree climber whose long, reedy 

 tremolo is familiar on summer evenings, and in the sultry 

 hush before afternoon thunderstorms. Its favorite perch 

 is in the crotch of a limb, where it can hardly be told from 

 the gray bark. Sometimes tree frogs rest on leaves of low 

 shrubs, where they may scarcely be discovered except by 



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