Allen.] 18'8 [December 2, 



(first edition, Vol. I, p. 85, pi. 12), as Scaphiopus solUarlus-l^ subse- 

 quently it was found in Rockland County, New York, by Mr. J. P. 

 Hill," at Salem, Massachusetts, by Dr. Andrew Nichols,^ and a little 

 later at Cambridge, by Prof. Agassiz. As it is still known only from 

 these and a few other widely separated localities, it is often cited as an 

 example of a species locally distributed.'' It appeai-s to me, however, 

 that the facts do not warrant this supposition; the species, from its 

 peculiarly recluse or subterranean habits, is one of the hardest to 

 observe, and only likely to attract attention at spawning time, when 

 it is abroad at most but a day or two, and often but once in several 



1 Dr. Harlan redescribed it the following year as Rami Holbrooldl, Medical and 

 riiysical Researches, 1835, p. 105. The citation of Dr. Holbrook's first edition, in this 

 and other cases, is made from the references of DeKay and other writers, as I 

 have been unable to find a copy of this edition in any of the public libraries in this 

 vicinity (Boston), the author having, as I have found in several instances, taken up 

 the first edition and replaced it with the second. Dr. DeKay gives theddtes of the 

 first edition as " 18.3i et seq," while Prof. Baird and others cite Volume I as pub- 

 lished in 1836, and Volume II in 1838. The date of the second edition is 1842. The 

 name Holbrookii used for this species by Dr. Harlan in 1835, has priority by about 

 one year, if the correct date of Vol. I of Holbrook's first edition is 1838. Dr. 

 Harlan, however, states expressly, that it had already been described and figured 

 by Dr. Holbrook in his great work on North American Keptilia, to which he refers 

 the reader ; but as he does not cite the volume and page, it is probable the work had 

 not at that time been duly published. 



2 DeKay, Nat. Hist. N. York, III, p. 66. 



3 Since writing the above I have had an opportunity of referring to Dr. Nichols' 

 very interesting paper on the " Occurrence of Scaphiopus solitarius, in Essex 

 County," read before the Essex County Natural History Society, June 17, 1843, 

 and published in the third and last number of that Society's Journal (pp. 113-17, 

 March, 1852). He states that they were first noticed in a pond in Danvers, " subse- 

 quent to a great rain in summer," " about the year 1810, 1811, or 1812," by Mr. John 

 Swiuerton. Their notes were heard at a distance of half a mile, and were mistaken 

 for those of young crows. Between this time and 1843 Dr. Nichols states they had 

 been observed but three times, namely, " August 12th, 1834; again in the summer 

 of a year whose date is forgotten; and on June I6th, 1842." Dr. Nichols raised 

 the toads from the spawn, and gives very interesting facts respecting their devel- 

 opment. He states that those in confinement lived longer and grew larger in the 

 tadpole state than those left in their native pools. Also that those kept in water 

 with no opportunity of getting upon any support above it, sucli as a floating chip 

 or dry land, were also slower in their development; from which he concludes that 

 their transformation from the larval to the adult state conforms to circumstances. 

 "' So long," he says, "as water is wliolly their residence, their caudal appendage is 

 necessary and accordingly used, retaining its proportionate size and strength," but 

 that if the " water be gradually withdrawn, and mud, moist earth, and then dry, 

 be gradually substituted, they will much sooner undergo the change from the em- 

 bryotic to the infantile condition of existence." 



« See Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. XI, p. 233. 



