Occasional Papers of the Museum of Zoology 3 



July 3 to July 26 tadpoles were found in pools, and on July 

 3, 9, II, and 14, single adults with tadpoles on their backs were 

 observed hopping about on the land. The nurse frog was in 

 each case a male, and the number of tadpoles carried was three, 

 four, eleven and fifteen. The tadpoles were all very small 

 (from 9 mm. to 12 mm. in length), apparently of about the 

 same age, and were usually arranged on either side of the mid- 

 dorsal line and at right angles to the axis of the body of the 

 nurse frog. (PI. I, Fig. 2). They apparently clung to the back 

 of the nurse frog by means of the lips, and were rather active 

 in that they were observed to wriggle about over the back and 

 even over the other tadpoles. In the case of the nurse frog 

 with fifteen tadpoles, there was room on the back and head for 

 but fourteen young and one wriggled about over the others. 

 When removed from the adult these tadpoles would cling to a 

 wet finger or to the sides of a glass bottle. 



When the nurse frog entered the water the tadpoles one 

 by one dropped off the back and swam away. Possibly if the 

 adult lingered in the water for a sufficient time the young 

 would all escape at the first submersion, but the frogs are very 

 active and the ones under observation entered and left the 

 water several times before all of the young had released them- 

 selves. This may account, at least in part, for the observed 

 differences in the number of tadpoles on the nurse frogs. 



The tadpoles found in the pools varied in size from 12 

 mm. to 20 mm., and up to July 26 none had progressed so far 

 as to show limb buds. The smallest ones would, when re- 

 moved from the water, cling to the fingers and permit them- 

 selves to be carried about, only slipping oft' when the fingers 

 were immersed, but the larger ones were apparently unable 

 to cling to any surface when removed from the water. 



This kind of nursing habit has been recorded for Arthro- 

 Icptis seychellensis Bottger, Phyllobates trinitatis Garman, 



