94 THE HERPETOLOGY OF CUBA. 
near tip of snout and distance from eye slightly greater than its diameter; 
fingers with enormous discs, toes with similar discs and completely webbed; 
head broad (the breadth increasing with age, in young specimens the head is 
longer than broad, in adults the reverse is true); skin of head involved com- 
pletely in the cranial ossification; posterior outline of casque openly emargi- 
nate (the degree of emargination varies greatly with age and in different 
specimens); snout rounded; loreal region oblique, concave; canthus rostralis 
strongly marked; crown distinctly concave (less concave or almost flat in half- 
grown and young specimens); interorbital space nearly three times as broad 
as the upper eyelid; tympanum large and distinct, at least two thirds the 
diameter of the eye; the hind limb being adpressed to the body the tibiotarsal 
articulation reaches the eye; upper surfaces strongly tubercular, lower surfaces 
coarsely granular, a fold above the tympanum; male with external vocal sacs 
and blackish rugosities on the inner side of the first finger (during the nuptial 
season only). 
Colour (in life):— Grayish varying to whitish, greenish or brownish, vari- 
ously spotted and striped. Hinder side of thighs reticulated with black. 
Dimensions: — Tip of snout to vent 90 mm. 
Width of head 35 mm. 
Diameter of eye 9.5 mm. 
Diameter of tympanum 7.5 mm. 
Fore limb from axilla 54 mm. 
Hind limb from vent 145 mm. 
Vent to heel 88 mm. 
The big tree frog is found throughout the entire Island, and is most abundant 
everywhere in the groves of banana trees in the lowlands. It is often found 
about the stone cisterns so widely used in Cuba, and its call, like the noise made 
when a rope is drawn through an unoiled block, is frequently heard on rainy 
evenings and even in the day time during a shower. The species is rare or 
absent in the deep forest, being found, however, about cultivated plantations 
at a considerable altitude. 
Gundlach and other naturalists believed that there were three species of 
Hyla found in Cuba, but the type of Hyla wrightii Cope, which has been exam- 
ined in the U. 8. N. M., proves to be a synonym of Hyla septentrionalis. The 
same is beyond doubt true of Hyla insulsa Cope, although the type has been 
lost. 
