III. THE TADPOLES OF THE FAMILIES RANIDAE 



AND BUFONIDAE FOUND IN THE 



PLAINS OF INDIA. 



By N. Annandale, D.Sc, F.A.S.B., Director, Zoological Survey of Indta^ 

 and C. R. Narayan Rao, M.A., L.T., Mysore University, Bangalore. 



(Plate II.) 



In his admirable account of the larvae of the European toads and 

 frogs Dr. G. A. Boulenger^ discussed the differential characters 

 proper to species, genera and families. He was, however, dealing with 

 a fauna comparatively little specialized, in which the Batrachian larvae 

 were not highly modified in correlation with different modes of life. In 

 a short note ^ published in the Proceedings of the fourth meeting of the 

 Indian Science Congress we have pointed out the extreme complexity 

 of evolution in the Indian tadpoles, due both to convergence and to 

 divergence in structure as well as in habits. Before a satisfactory 

 account can be given of those that live in hill-streams and in pools on 

 the Indian plateaux — and the majority of the Indian frogs inhabit 

 hill-jungles — further investigations are necessary, more particularly 

 in Southern India. The tadpoles of the plains, however, living in open 

 country and as a rule in still water, do not exhibit the same diversity of 

 structure or the same degree of specialization. With the exception of 

 a few rare and apparently geographically restricted species such as 

 Rana strachani from Malar in Sind and Rana dohsoni from Mangalore 

 on the West Coast of Madras, they are well-known ; we have been able 

 to examine fresh or at least fairly well-preserved material of all the 

 species except the two mentioned by name. In the present paper, 

 therefore, we propose to give a succinct taxonomic account of the tad- 

 poles of the great majority of the toads and frogs of the families Bufo- 

 nidae and Ranidae that are found in the plains of India and Assam ; 

 material is not yet forthcoming that would enable us to deal with the 

 species peculiar to Burma and Ceylon. When good descriptions are 

 already available in readily accessible journals such as the Proceedings 

 of the Zoological Society of London, the Journal of the Bombay Natural 

 History Society, the Records of the Indian Museum or the Memoirs of the 

 Asiatic Society of Betigal it is unnecessary, at a time when paper and 

 printing are so expensive, to duplicate them. We have, therefore, 

 contented ourselves with a reference and such explanatory remarks 

 as seem necessary. Our object is merely to facilitate future work on 

 the anatomy and bionomics of the species. 



Animals so soft as tadpoles, even when preserved with great care, 

 are very apt to be distorted owing to pressure or shrinkage. We have, 

 therefore, relied in our descriptions on definite structural characters, 

 such as those connected with the mouth, rather than on comparative 



» Proc. Zool. Soc. London, pp. 593-626, pis. xlv-xlvii (1891). 

 * Proc. As. Soc. Bengal (n. s.) 1917, p. clxxxv. 



