S97.8 392 



III. 



The Midwife Toad. 



[Twenty specimens of the curious batrachian, Alytes obstetvicans, 

 having recently been purchased for the Zoological Gardens, London, 

 we have induced Mr. Hartmann, who supplied the animals, and who 

 has made an exhaustive study of their habits, to furnish us with the 

 following account of his observations. Mr. Hartmann is ready, not 

 only to supply further specimens, but to act as guide to any zoologist 

 who would like to observe the animals in their native haunts. 



The genus Alytes, we may remind readers of this article, belongs 

 to the ancient family Pelobatidae, which is in some respects inter- 

 mediate between the Ranidae (Frogs) and the Bufonidae (Toads). 

 In the presence of teeth on the upper jaw, they resemble frogs. In 

 the more important character of overlapping ends of the coracoids, 

 the thick body, the coarse, glandular skin, the short limbs, and in 

 their habit of laying the eggs in strings, they resemble toads. — Ed. 

 Nat. Sci.] 



THE German name for the animal, of which I am about to tell 

 English-speaking friends of terraria and their inhabitants, is not 

 beautiful — " Geburtshelferkrote." In English natural history it has 

 an equivalent name " Midwife Toad." In sundry works on natural 

 history, the names " Fessler " (lit. " chainer ") or " Hohlenkrote " 

 .("toad-in-the-hole") are also found. These names, however, do not 

 express the curious characteristics of the creatures, as does the first- 

 mentioned. The midwife toad occurs only in hilly ground, where 

 clear, perpetual springs are found, as in the Black Forest, the Vosges, 

 Taunus, Ahrthal, Siegthal, Wupperthal, and in the Harz and Sauer- 

 land. In France, whence the animal appears to have come into 

 Germany, it is to be met with in the neighbourhood of Paris. 



From the middle of March, so soon as the snow no longer covers 

 the fields, till August, in the evening as dusk comes on, the call of the 

 male, which is like a soft bell, can be heard in the places where 

 they live. Each individual has a different note, so that there is no 

 monotony ; on the contrary, the calls are like a distant melodious 

 chime. If you approach, the creature is silent, and retires creeping into 

 its hole, where it sits till all is quiet ; then it emerges again, and lets 

 its bell-like note float into the air. Professor Landois writes, in his 

 work " Animal Life of Westphalia," that this batrachian has indeed been 



