BY J. J. FLETCHER. 381 



tail is 7 mru., and the body about 2 mm. broad. They grow pretty 

 rapidly when they are well fed, until they are about 25 mm. long, 

 the body being about 8-10 mm. long and 5-6 mm. broad. They are 

 of a dark colour, blackish, greyish or dark brown, becoming 

 lighter, olive brown, as they grow older, with innumerable 

 minute bronzy specks especially on the ventral surface. The ova 

 and tadpoles of the two species are indistinguishable as far as 

 I can see at present, the larval frogs not acquiring the colours of 

 the adults, but they probably do so very soon after quitting the 

 water, as I have a young specimen of P. australis found early in 

 April, about 10 mm. long, which has the characteristic markings. 

 In several instances tadpoles hatched from ova found in April, and 

 kept in an aquarium, completed their metamorphoses in the Sep- 

 tember following ; but this is probably at least twice as long 

 as is necessary under natural conditions. 



HYLIDiE. 



11. Hyla c^rulea. White, sp. 



One of our commonest species, but I have never been able to 

 catch the frogs breeding. Two males taken towards the end of 

 January both have breeding rugosities. In the first week in 

 March a number of tadpoles captured a fortnight previously com- 

 pleted their metamorphosis; three of the young frogs, now in 

 spirit, measuring about 17 mm. from snout to vent, and two of 

 them having a few white spots on the back and sides. The pond 

 from which these specimens came was in the middle of a grass 

 paddock, and was periodically visited by me ; and I have no doubt 

 that the ova were deposited in water in the ordinary way. This 

 species begins to be seen and heard later even than H. aurea ; and 

 appears to breed during the summer months. Mr. A. G. Hamilton 

 informs me that at Guntawang in the Mudgee district early in 

 February, on one occasion in a tuft of grass at some little distance 

 from water he found a pair in coitu, the embrace being axillary. 



12. Hyla peronii, D. &B,, sp. 



All my specimens have been captured in the post-holes in fences, 

 in which, in one locality when not too dry I could generally (in the 



