236 Georgritd Sicret : 



their Tunction and ceasing to exist, compared ^nth otlier forms 

 herein described, unless possibly Hyla lesuenrii. 



CJuroleples albo^^^uttatiis. 



Thiis form, like Notaden bennetti, is a burrowing^ one which 

 stores up water in its body while aestivating. Its kidneys are 

 almost oval in transverse section, and seem peculiarly liable to 

 be folded back against one another, their inner edges ■with the 

 Renal Veins forming the ventrai edge of the mas's (Cf. also 

 Pseudophryne australis., and Notaden bennetti). The dorsal sur- 

 face of the kidney is the more convex. Tlie kidneys resemble 

 those of Notaden in having the minimum of fibrous tissue and 

 very large blood-space*^, though the large central venous space 

 found in Notaden is lacking here, the Renal Veins arising in 

 the usual way in Chiroleptes alboguttatus. The general vertical 

 (dorso-ventral) arrangement of the tubules and blood-spaces is 

 very strongly marked as seen in transverse s.©ctions, the 

 tubules being much pigmented and the blood-spaices crammed 

 full of corpuscles. The Malpighian bodies are rounded, ver}' 

 few in number, and remarkably small in comparison with the 

 size of the kidney. Indeed one often comes across v-eotions in 

 which no sign of Malpighian bodies is to be seen. They are 

 found in the ventral one-third of the kidney tliickness. The 

 nephrostomes, on the other hand, are numerous and well-dc>- 

 veloped, though not neajrly to such a,n extent as in Notaden 

 bennetti. In number I found in one kidney, 210 e\i;ernal open- 

 ings, the number diminishing from the anterior end back- 

 wards. There is hardly a section in a full series through the 

 whole length of the kidneys, in which the nephrostomes are 

 absent, while there may be as many as six in one section. To 

 a certain extent they resemble Notaden in having two kinds of 

 " funnelT^," though the branched forms are much less developed 

 than in Notaden. These slope inwards as a rule, at an angle of 

 20 to 30 deg. for a sliort distance, and then branch : the 

 branches coil more or less through the substance of the kidney, 

 but always end in blood-spaces, where their cilia protrude among- 

 the corpuscles which are so densely packed around these in- 

 ternal openings. There is also, neau- the median edge of the 



