276 Frogs of the Okefinokee Swamp 



outhouses or about fences and in old fields" must consequently not be taken 

 too literally, though the conditions on Billy's Island even in Lee's clearing 

 are yet essentially forest-like in their nature. 



In 192 1 we have made the following notes on habitat. On April 27 we 

 have "This morning four Hyla femoralis are dead. Two inches of rain water 

 in their can. Apparently they like water in general less than some other 

 forms and are rather delicate." On May 9 "Harry Chesser brought us a Hyla 

 femoralis which he caught on a cypress tree in a cypress bay. Surely it is not 

 restricted to pines." On May 7 we have a Hyla femoralis from the hammock, 



FIRST APPEARANCE 



In 1 92 1 we entered the swamp April 21. At once the boys began to bring 



us pinewood's tree frogs. One specimen of April 25 was a spent female which 



shows the specimen must have been abroad some time before. The earhest 



seasonal record we have is a specimen taken February 19,1911, by Professor 



. J. C. Bradley at Waynesville, Ga. 



GENERAL HABITS 



Metachrosis. In 1826 (p. 342) Harlan holds "its colors various: a variety 

 with the back chiefly occupied with a large irregular blotch; legs barred." In 

 1855 LeConte (p. 428) notes that "The darker marks in the head and back 

 are sometimes evanescent but the yellow spots on the hind part of the thighs 

 are always more or less distinctly visible. The chin is cancellately reticulate, 

 sometimes speckled with dusky, sometimes altogether of that color. The 

 color of the body above varies at the will of the animal." 



Deckert (191 5, p. 3) writes that "Its usual color is dark reddish-brown or 

 chestnut, but it can readily change from fleshy pink or pale gray to any shade 

 of brown, gray or green." 



In 192 1 a little 20 mm. Hyla femoralis has these colors (Non-Ridgway) 

 April 26: "Back greenish gray with dusky. Black line from snout through 

 eye over tympanum past angle of mouth half way to unguinal region. Upper 

 margin silvery or yellowish silvery; lower margin of black vitta yellow. There 

 is some pinkish bronze on rear end of vitta. Bright silvery or yellowish stripe 

 on back of hind foot, fainter on back of tibia. Yellow over vent and on to 

 femur posterior half way to knee. Only three rear orange yellow spots on 

 each femur." 



On April 27, 192 1 we have the note "James Lee says that he found on rail 

 fence some which are whiter than those he finds in the rain barrels which have 

 boards or cover over the top." One rain barrel specimen we watched for 

 several days before May 2. On May 4 we observed that it "had remained 

 several days. It is as dark as the wood over it." On the following day. May 

 5, it was still in the barrel. 



Two weeks later. May 19, "on the way back from a trip to Crosby Pond 

 at 6:00 p. m. near the remains of an old cypress pond in piney woods saw a 

 female Hyla femoralis hopping along into saw palmetto. It was as whitish 



