MEXICAN TAILLESS AMPHIBIANS 205 



Latin form, in allusion to the comment on the habits of this frog by 

 the original author. There are numerous similar usages of Latin 

 descriptive terms in this edition of Linnaeus. They have no status 

 under any code of nomenclature. 



The specific name Rana pipiens seems to have been published first 

 by Schreber, and he likewise based the description of this species on 

 the " Sillhoppetosser " {op. cit., vol. 3, p. 46), which Kalm observed 

 on March 11 at Raccoon, Gloucester County, N. J. 



Harlan failed to state whether the original description of Rana 

 utricularius was based on preserved specimens, and inasmuch as he 

 was at that time somewhat interested in the life histories of frogs, it 

 is quite likely that this diagnosis was based on captive individuals. 

 It is stated, however, in a footnote that "a specimen preserved in 

 spirits in the cabinet of the Philadelphia Acad, of Nat. Sc. is erron- 

 eously labelled R. halecina." The presence of an external greenish 

 vocal vesicle extending from the lower jaw to above the shoulder 

 joint is a modification that permits a greater distension of this ap- 

 paratus, and for such males Harlan proposed the name Rana utricu- 

 larius, and those that show no such modification of the outer skin 

 were allocated to R. halecina. 



In 1856, Edward Hallowell gave the name Rana oxyrhynchus to a 

 male frog collected by Mr. Ashmead "in a sulphur spring, near the 

 St. John's River, about three hundred miles from Key West," Fla. 

 Inasmuch as this name was preoccupied. Cope in 1886 proposed 

 Rana h.[alecina] sphenocephala as a substitute name. The type of 

 this subspecies is presumably in the collection of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. The diagnostic characters of the 

 subspecies sphenocephala were defined by Cope in 1889 as follows: 



Head entering length of head and body two and a half or less than three times; 

 males with external vesicles; muzzle more acuminate; no cross bars on tibia; 

 spots smaller. 



Hallowell, however, describes the type of R. oxyrhynchus as being 

 entirely destitute of vocal vesicles, head narrow and acute, and hind 

 limbs with white-margined transverse black bars. 



Baird gives "southern Texas generally" as the habitat of Rana 

 berlandieri. The 11 cotypes of this species (U.S.N.M. No. 3293) 

 were collected by Capt. Stewart Van Vliet, at Brownsville, Tex. 

 Two of them (M.C.Z. No. 155) were sent to the Museum of Com- 

 parative Zoology at Cambridge, Mass., and there now remain in the 

 collection of the United States National Museum 1 adult, 2 young, 

 and 6 tadpoles. The adult specimen in this lot w^as figured by 

 Baird on Plate 36, Figures 7-10, of the report on the reptiles of the 

 United States and Mexican Boundary Survey. 

 66786—32 14 



