MEXICAN TAILLESS AMPHIBIANS 11 



in 1889 was purchased. From these sources were obtained practi- 

 cally all the Mexican amphibians belonging to this museum. 



In 1910, about 15 species of Mexican amphibians were collected for 

 the University Museums, University of Michigan, by Dr. A. G. 

 Ruthven on a low plain at the foot of the San Andreas Tuxtla 

 Range in southern Vera Cruz. From H. B. Baker this museum in 

 1926 received a small number of amphibians collected in Puebla and 

 Vera Cruz. 



During July, 1925, Joseph R. Slevin made general herpetological 

 collections for the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, in 

 Vera Cruz, Federal District, and Oaxaca. 



European. — Herpetologists of Europe have described 54 species of 

 Mexican tailless amphibians, and the majority of the types and 

 CO types of these forms are still extant in European museums. The 

 writer therefore made an effort during April and May, 1930, to locate 

 and examine as many of these original specimens as possible. 



The nucleus of the Mexican herpetological collection in the Museum 

 fiir Naturkunde in Berlin seems to have been obtained from three 

 botanical collectors. Included in the herpetological collections made 

 by Ferdinand Deppe, Christian Julius Wilhelm Schiede (who died in 

 Mexico in 1836), and Graf von Sack were the types of the toads of 

 the genus Bujo described by Dr. Arend Frederick August Wiegmann 

 in Oken's Isis for 1833. These toads, Bwfo compaciilis, B. cristatus, 

 B. horribUis, B. marmoreus, and B. valliceps, formed a part of what 

 appears to be the first Mexican herpetological collection received by 

 any European museum, and presumably led Wiegmann to publish 

 in 1834 his "Herpetologia Mexicana." In 1870, Dr. Wilhelm C. H. 

 Peters published a report on a collection made by Berkenbusch near 

 Matamoros and at other localities in Puebla. In reporting upon this 

 collection, Peters described the following new species: Hyla microtis, 

 Hylodes berkenbuschii, Liuperus nitidus, and Engystoma mexicanum. 

 A new leptodactylid collected at Haunusco [ = ? Huatusco in Vera 

 Cruz] by Doctor Hille was named Phyllobates verruculatus by Peters. 



Fifteen supposedly new species of Mexican amphibians w^ere based 

 upon specimens belonging to the Museum National d'Histoire Natu- 

 relle, in Paris. In their "Erpetologie Generale" published in 1841, 

 Dum^ril and Bibron recognized two new amphibians from Mexico, 

 one a peculiar burrowing narrow-mouthed toad (Rhinophrynus dor- 

 salis), which had been collected by Auguste Sall6, and the other a 

 widely distributed tree frog (Hyla baudinii). In 1853, Dumeril dis- 

 covered the broad-headed cave frog (Eleutherodactylus laticeps) among 

 specimens collected by Arthur Morelet in Yucatan. The French 

 naturalist Pierre Marie Arthur Morelet made an extended field trip 

 through southern Mexico and Central America during the years 1847 

 and 1848, and presented his collection to the Paris Museum. 



