HERPETOLOGY OF JAPAN, 57 



( 



This statement is almost literally repeated in his latest work on the 

 Tailless Batracliians of Europe (1898). 



In the meantime (1883) he had described and figured a Bnfo for- 

 mosus from two specimens collected by the Challenger Expedition at 

 Yokohama, which "in its general characters agrees with Bufo vul- 

 garis, especially the Japanese form." The main distinctions relied on 

 are the large size of the tympanum, the greater length of the hind leg, 

 the more elongate digits, more excised webs of the hind foot, and the 

 shortness of the first finger. 



Notliing more is heard of this species. In the subsequent discus- 

 sions of the "Japanese form " of Bufo vulgaris there is not the slightest 

 reference to it. The fact, however, that the name is not included in 

 Boulenger's synonymy of Bufo vulgaris in liis Tailless Batracliians 

 of Europe, nor the types in the list of specimens appended, seems to 

 indicate that he still maintains its distinctness, although some doubt 

 arose in ni}^ mind upon seeing that in the aj)pendix to the latter work 

 he enumerates a specimen from Dagosliima," collected by Doctor 

 Anderson in May, 1884, under Bufo vulgaris. To me this specimen, 

 which the authorities of the British Museum kindly allowed me to 

 examine in 1898, is a strongly marked Bufo forma sus with the t}^es 

 of which I compared it. 



Much of the uncertainty is probabl}' due to the confusion of these 

 two toads in Japan. Thus, on examining the large series in the 

 Leiden Museum upon which Schlegel founded his Bufo vulgaris 

 juponicuSjl discovered that he had both forms before him. I tliink it 

 is also certain that Camerano based his conclusion of the specific dis- 

 tinctness of Bufo japonicus, or B. prsetextatus, as he called it in his 

 elaborate paper of 1901, upon true Bufoformosus. 



The status of the Japanese toad resolves itself into three queries: 



(1) Is there more than one species of Bufo in Japan? 



(2) Is one of these identical with the species on the mainland? 



(3) In case of different forms being recognized, what names are to be 

 employed ? 



First, then, are there more than one species of Bufo in Japan proper? 

 In the material which I have had an opportunity to examine, viz, 13 

 specimens in the Leiden Museum, 9 specimens in the British Museum, 

 and 36 in our owai National Museum, there appear to be tln-ee forms. 

 One has larger tympanum, longer limbs, slenderer digits, much more 

 deepl}" excised webs, longer and narrower parotoids, and, as a rule, 

 the fu'st finger shorter than the second. This is the so-called B.for- 

 mosus. That w^e have not to do with sexual or seasonal differences 

 seems ])lain. Thus the males with the nuptial asperities on their 

 fingers, wliich under tliis assumption would have the greatest extent 



o Probably Dogashima, near Miyanoshta. 



