222 ECAUDATA. 



The young usually pass through lengthy metamorphoses, in the 

 principal aquatic stages of which they are known as "tadpoles." 

 In the tadpoles the head and body are globular, with internal 

 gills, limbs are absent and a tail is present ; the hind and fore 

 limbs appear successively, the tail is gradually absorbed, and the 

 gills disappear, after which last transformation the young leaves 

 the water. 



The eggs and early development are essentially shnilar to those 

 of fishes, and quite unlike those of Reptiles. In many the eggs 

 are small, very numerous, and deposited in water. But in others 

 the eggs are large, with large vitelline mass, and the young pass 

 rapidly through part or all of the metamorphoses within the egg 

 capsule, emerging as advanced larvae or even as perfect lung- 

 breathing frogs. Much remains to be done in observing the 

 breeding habits and development of the Malayan Batrachians. 



Tailless Batrachians occur all over the world wherever insect 

 food is procurable. Eepresentatives of four families are found in 

 the Malay Peninsula. 



Series A. F/RMISTERNIA. 



Coracoid firmly united by the epicoracoid cartilage ; praecora- 

 coids, if pi-esent, each resting with its distal extremity upon the 

 coracoid, or connected with the latter by the epicoracoid cartilage. 

 (See fig. 66.) 



Upper jaw toothed ; diapopliyses of sacral 



vertebra cylindrical Ranidae, p. 223. 



Jaws toothless; diapopliyses of sacral 



vertebra dilated '. Engystomatidae, p. 257. 



Series B. ARCIFERA. 



Coracoids and epicoracoids connected by an arched cartilage 

 (the epicoracoid), that of the one side overlapping that of the 

 other. (See fig. 74, p. 267.) 



Jaws toothless; diapophyses of sacral vertebra 



dilated Bufonidae, p. 267. 



Upper jaw toothed ; diapophvses of sacral vertebra 



strougly dilated * Pelobatidas, p. 276. 



