54 



BULLETIN 160, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



(Duges); Michoacan (Duges); Morelos, Cuautla (Duges); Guerrero, 

 Iguala, Tierra Colorado, and San Luis Allende (Gadow) ; Oaxaca, San 

 Mateo del Mar, and Tehuantepec (Gadow); Vera Cruz, Tampico 

 (Richardson), Coatzacoalcos (Street), Tetela (Gadow), Cuatotolapam 

 and Lake Catemaco (Ruthven). 



Remarks. — Linnaeus gave the name Rana marina to the toad 

 described and figured by Seba,^° and merely states that its habitat is 

 in America. In the caption for the Datch text, Seba refers to this 

 species as a "rare Virginia frog." In the Latin text, however, it is 

 listed as "Rana, Marina, Americana, rara; Mas." The presence of 

 scrotumlike protuberances below the vent, which possibly were the 



result of faulty preservation, led Seba 

 to conclude that the specimen figured 

 was a male. The type of Bufo mari- 

 nus is therefore the specimen figured 

 and described by Seba. Information 

 furnished by Dr. Leonhard Stejneger 

 indicates that the collection on which 

 the ''Thesaurus" was based was pur- 

 chased in 1716 for 15,000 Dutch guil- 

 ders by "Peter the Great" of Russia 

 and taken to St. Petersburg. This 

 collection subsequently became the 

 property of the St. Petersburg Acad- 

 emy of Sciences, which, however, was 

 not established by Catherine I until 

 December 21, 1725. A large part of 

 the first collection ^^ assembled by 

 Seba was destroyed by fire in St. 

 Petersburg in 1747. Seba died in 

 1736, and his second collection was 

 sold at public auction in 1752 at 

 Amsterdam. A portion of this collection was also purchased by the 

 :St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. 



Wallbaum, who published an extended description of this toad, con- 

 cludes that it is a land type because the construction of the foot does 

 not seem to be adapted for swimming in the sea. Hence, he argues 

 that if this observation is corroborated, the Latin specific name Bufo 

 marinus (Linnaeus) must be corrected, because it is misleading. 

 Wallbaum proposes Rana gigas as a substitute name for the inappro- 

 priate specific name marinus. 



b 



riGURE 11.— Head of Bufo marinus (U. S. N. 

 M. No. 54119) from Gatun, Panama: a, Lat- 

 eral view; 6, dorsal view 



i» Seba, A., Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri accurata descriptio, et iconihus artificiossimis 

 ■expressio, per universam physices historiam, Amsterdam, vol. 1, p. 120, pi. 70, fig. 1, 1734. 



" Strauch, A., Das zoologische Museum der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu St. Peters- 

 burg ii} Seinem funfzig jahrigen Bestehen, St. Petersburg, pp. iv+372, 1889; Thomas, 0., Anu. and Mag. 

 Kat. Hist., ser. 6, vol. 9, no. 63, p. 310, 1892. 



