PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Vol. XIII, No. 4, pp. 67-84 PI. vi November 15, 191 1 



ON THE SYSTEMATIC VALUE OF RANA CHINENSIS OSBECK. 



By Dr. Stefan Bolkay. 



In an article which I published in"Allattani Kozlemenyek (3)", I 

 separated as a distinct species Rana ridibunda from Rana esculenta. 

 After the publication of that paper Professor Dr. Mehely directed 

 my attention to a frog found in China and Japan which is men- 

 tioned in literature, according to Boulenger, as a variety of R. escu- 

 lenta (Rana esculenta chinensis Osb.), but which, however, as 

 Professor Mehely observed, can be separated with more right from 

 R. esculenta than is R. ridibunda. 



A short time afterward my article appeared in German also (4) , 

 and was commended by Wolterstorff who wrote as follows on that 

 subject: "As soon as we acknowledge the right of a species for Rana 

 ridibunda we must do the same with more reason still for Rana 

 chinensis, a fact also recognized not long ago by Stejneger." 



Wolterstorff considers this same question in one of his articles, 

 published in 1906, and there expresses his conviction that Rana 

 chinensis is a well-defined subspecies. 



Quite recently Leonhard Stejneger, the American herpetolo- 

 gist, described Rana chinensis as a distinct species under the name 

 Rana nigromaculata Hallowell. 



The first author who describes Rana chinensis is Osbeck. He 

 mentions as the sole peculiarity distinguishing it from R. esculenta 

 the fact of its having six toes of which the sixth is the shortest. 



Schlegel finds it quite similar to R. esculenta. Maack alludes 

 to it as R. esculenta var. japonica Hallowell and describes it under 

 the two names R. marmorata and R. nigromaculata. Peters and 

 Cope go furthest, placing it in an other genus, the former mentioning 



Proc. Wash. Acad. Sci., November, 191 1. 



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