GENERAL ACCOUNTS OF SPECIES 

 Scaphiopus holbrookii (Harlan) 



(PI. I, Fig. 4; IV, Fig. 2; VI, Fig. 2; X, Fig. 12; XIV, Fig. 8; XV, Fig. 9; 

 XVII; XVIII; XIX; Text Fig. i, 5) 



COMMON NAMES 



Spade-foot. Hermit Spade-foot. Hermit Spade-foot Toad. Spade-foot 

 Toad. Hermit Toad. Solitary Spade-foot. Solitary Toad. Holbrook's 

 Spade-foot. "Storm Toads." "Storm Frogs." 



RANGE 



Check list. "Type Locality South Carolina. Range: Eastern States, 

 Mass-achusetts to Florida, west to Louisiana, Texas to Arkansas." Stejneger 

 and Barbour's Check List 1923, p. 23. 



Supplementary records. Dr. Holbrook (1842, Vol. IV, p. iii) writes 

 "Its range is more extended than I first apprehended. It is found in Carolina 

 and Georgia. Dr. Troost sent me a specimen from Tennessee, and Dr. DeKay 

 has observed it in the State of New York." In 1849 (Appendix, p. 15) Hol- 

 brook gives Scaphiopus holbrookii as a frog of Georgia. Dumeril and Bibron 

 (1841, p. 474) expect it to be discovered "sur d'autres points des Etat-Unis." 



In 1842 DeKay (p. 66) writes "We have now the pleasure to include it in 

 the Fauna of New York. Specimens of this animal were found by Mr. Hill, 

 in a garden near Clarkstown, Rockland County. . . , Dr. Pickering, I 

 learn, has recently seen it in the neighborhood of Salem, where they appear 

 in great numbers, at distant periods, after rains of long continuance." 



The same year, 1842, DeKay was publishing, Andrew Nichols (1852, 

 pp. 113-117) of Massachusetts was making the first extended descriptions of 

 their habits. "Holbrook, in his N. A. Herpetology, Vol. I, pp. 85-87, says that 

 he found these reptiles in three states only, viz : Georgia, South Carolina, and 

 Tennessee — that they go in the water only in the breeding season, that which 

 he observes in the spring; and that they live in holes in the ground of about 

 six inches in depth, excavated by themselves — never coming out of these, 

 except during the night and after heavy rains. This explains the mystery 

 of their sudden appearance and disappearance, as above mentioned. It would 

 also seem that they are Southern reptiles; — chilled by our northern climate, 

 they want a more genial climate to celebrate their nuptials ; and thus without 

 a suitable pool to receive their spawn, year after year in this instance trans- 

 pired, until a summer freshet filled their native habitat sufficiently." 



"I have some reasons to conjecture that other colonies of these frogs exist 

 in New England. An intelligent farmer of Topsfield (Mass.), to whom I 

 showed my specimens, and related the foregoing story, told me he had several 



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