414 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1917. 



noticed a number of them on flowering Datura, in a funnel-shaped 

 corolLa of which one of them had established itself as a desirable sta- 

 tion for securing his insect food. 



MARSH FROGS. 



The leopard frog of Eoyal Palm State Park, Rana sphenocephala 

 Cope, regarded by Doctor Stejneger as a variety of our well-known 

 Rami pipien.s, is beautifully figured by Miss Dickerson in her Frog 

 Book. To this species Miss Dickerson pays the following tribute : 



The southern leopard frog is perhaps the most beautiful frog in North 

 America. It has not the delicate modest beauty of the wood frog, but it has 

 distinction of form, richness of coloring, and intricacy of color patterns. It has 

 not, lilfe the wood frog, an expression indicating gentleness and tameness. In- 

 stead, a creature extremely alert and wild, possessing great powers of activity, 

 is seen in the unusually large eyes and in the attentive pose of the slender 

 body. * * * Tjie male, Rana sphenocephala, has large vocal pouches, one 

 at each side, above the arm. These frogs are wild and active. They leap 

 long distances, and are difficult to catch. The species is evidently a very distinct 

 one, not intergrading with Rana pipiens, but holding its own with the latter 

 frog in the same localities in the southern part of the United States.^ 



The Florida bullfrog, Rana grylio Stejneger, is also described and 

 figured by Miss Dickerson, who designates it as "a beautiful frog, 

 very retiring and thoroughly aquatic in habit." It is usually of a 

 vivid metallic green on the head and shoulders and olive on the pos- 

 terior portion of its body, with a pointed head, bulging eyes, the 

 ears of the male remarkably large and conspicuous, spheroid in 

 shape, and of an orange-brown color with a green center, and the 

 throat a bright yellow. It is probably this species which is common 

 in the slough near Paradise Key, living among the dense aquatic 

 vegetation among which it seeks refuge when disturbed. Miss Dick- 

 erson compares the sounds which it produces to " the grunting of a 

 herd of pigs,"" thus differing from the familiar bass notes of the 

 common bullfrog.^ 



REPTILES. 

 TURTL^ES. 



Among the turtles of Royal Palm State Park is a large terrestrial 

 box tortoise, a living specimen of which was received from the park 

 warden. This was determined as Terrapene major {Cistudo tnajor 

 Agassiz), by Dr. Leonhard Stejneger, of the United States National 

 Museum, to whom the writer is indebted for much information re- 

 garding the batrachians and reptiles of the region here considered. 



1 See Dickerson, Mary C, The Frog Book, pp. 186-18S. 1906. 

 a Dickerson, op. cit., 226 to 228, pis. 85 and 86. 



