464 Frogs of the Okefinokee Swamp 



were 24 mm. for the male and 28 mm. for the female. Another ovulating 

 pair of the year before, July 3, 1921, were 23 mm. cf and 27 mm. 9 . 



Duration, night or day. Amplexation. This subterranean species normally 

 breeds and mates at night. Heavy, warm rains of 1-4 inches may precipitate 

 mating in dayhght and rarely one captures a croaking male in mid-day. 

 We took or recorded mated pairs May 21, July 3, July 7, 192 1, all taken at 

 night choruses. In every one the amplexation was axillary except in one 

 pair where for a time it was preaxillary. 



OVULATION 



Habitat. Deckert (1914, No. 9, p. i) has "caught hundreds of these 

 queer httle toads, and on August 28, 192 1, came across their spawn in a ditch 

 between two potato hills." 



In 192 1 we found egg masses or mating or ovulation in the following 

 places: The clearing on Billy's Island was in a hammock with pine barrens 

 on the south and cypress bay on north end. Between the lumber quarters 

 and the bay were the Lee's cleared fields. In the temporary pools in the 

 streets of the lumber quarters after a rain or in any depression they might 

 lay. In the furrows of corn fields or in a walled-in area in a pumpkin patch 

 or in a well beside a shanty they laid. In small ponds at the edge of the 

 clearing or edge of hammock or edge of bay they frequently deposited eggs. 

 The most prevalent places were the ditches in the east and west negro quarters 

 beside the railroad tracks. In any place where a depression will furnish 

 water they ovulate, — places such as a sink hole near a stable, temporary 

 pools in old camp grounds (191 2 camp site), pools around a landing, overflows 

 or depressions around a turpentine still or building. At times after a 2-4 

 inch rain they may appear all over the island in any habitat with water. 



In 1922 we found them in deep dug pools on high banks of St. Mary's 

 River at Camp Pinckney, in pools beside wood roads, in ditches along Dixie 

 Highway, in open, artificial and natural ponds in cut over pine barrens, in 

 ponds of Ilex myrtifolia or Hypericum fasciculatum or shallow cypress ponds 

 or in moist pine barren pools normally dry or in wet meadows. 



Apparently whenever a great rain comes they breed wherever much 

 surface water accumulates. Apparently they do not lay so much in the 

 deeper pools and in this respect are much hke the fast developing Scaphiopus 

 holhrookii. 



Period. J. A. Ryder (1891, p. 838) holds that "Oviposition seems to 

 occur in the evening and during cloudy afternoons. It is now late in July, 

 yet two lots of ova have been found by me which have been very recently 

 deposited by the parent female 'frog-toad' as it is known here amongst the 

 natives." 



In Raleigh, C. S. Brimley (1896, p. 501) writes that "This species is very 

 abundant in the breeding season, which is in July and August, and possibly 

 the two preceding months. Have never seen any except when breeding; I 

 think they are nocturnal." And Strecker (1909, p. 120) reports that C. S. 

 Brimley says that it "breeds from May to August" at Raleigh, N. C. 



