I 912.] N. Annandale : Batrachia. 19 



black with a faint vermicular reticulation running all over the 

 body and onto the ventral surface of the thighs. 



Hahiiat.—\jY)^Qr Renging (alt. 2,150 ft.): 5-io-ii-i2. 



Types (two adults). Nos. 16951 and 16932: presented by 

 Capt. the Hon. M. de Courcy. 



The circumstances in which these frogs and their tadpoles 

 were found are of considerable interest. Capt. de Courcy writes 

 about them as follows : — 



' ' [The frogs were taken] between Upper Renging and the Yernu 



Kotal It was a few yards this side of Prospect Col that 



some of my men found the new Phrynoderma frogs— 3 of them, 

 under a log— and kept them, trying to make me see them among 

 some lumps of earth— almost an impossibility. One escaped a few 

 minutes after I had taken them over, and while I was standing 

 there, the men cut off a big bit of the same log, the usual old 

 felled tree on a jhoom [clearing], and rolled it down on to the road. 

 Some water gushed out of a hole and I saw the tadpoles wriggling 

 about on the ground and collected all I could." 



The tadpoles, which are described below (p. 25), evidently 

 belong to the same species as the adult frogs, for one of them has 

 progressed far in its metamorphosis and has begun to develop the 

 characteristic ridge-like warts on the back. 



Fam. BUFONIDAE. 



22. Bufo melanostictus, Schneid. 



A typical specimen of this toad was taken by Mr. Kemp at 

 Dibrugarh in the middle of November and on the same date he 

 found a number of tadpoles in which the hind limbs were not de- 

 veloped. 



23. Bufo himalayanus, Glinlh. 



Bufo melanoslictusvar. himalayanus, Giinther, Rept. Brit. Ind., 



p. 442. 

 Bujo himalayanus, Boulenger, Joanna, p. 505. 



I am inclined to agree with Dr. Giinther in regarding this 

 form merely as an Alpine race of B. melanostidus. The greatest 

 difficulty is often experienced in separating specimens and quite 

 typical individuals of B. melanostictus are often found at consider- 

 able altitudes in the Himalayas x\lmost every gradation between 

 the two forms can be found. Tadpoles (plate iv, fig. 7), howev-er, 

 from above 4,000 ft. in the E. Himalayas can, so far as my ex- 

 perience goes, be distinguished from those found in the plains of 

 India by the fact that the eyes are not prominent but rather 

 sunken. Tadpoles from the plains agree well with one fram the 

 Malay Peninsula figured by Flower (P.Z.S., 1896, p. 911, pi. xliv, 

 fig. 3), and I have found similar specimens at an altitude of over 

 7,000 ft, in the W. Himalayas near Naini Tal. 



Mr. Kemp obtained four toads at Kobo in November and 

 December, which I assign to Giinther's ''variety" with some 



