DESCEIPTIYE CATALOGUE 



OF 



North American Batrachia and Reptilia. 



FOUND EAST OF MISSl.SSM'ri KIVEU. 



BY 



N. S. DAVIS, Jr., and FRANK L. RICE. 



The students of general lierpetologj in this country have 

 hibored under gi-eat disadvantage, as the descri])tions of American 

 Batrachia and lieptiKa are scattered through many works, which 

 are rarely found except in large scientific libraries. In the fol- 

 lowing pages an attemjit is made to describe, in convenient foi'm, 

 the species found in Eastern Xorth America, and the higher 

 groups to which they belong. The nomenclature and classitica- 

 tion used are the same as that adopted by Prof. E. D. Cope in 

 his Check List of North American Batrachia and Reptilia. 

 (Bull, of U. S. Nat. Mus., Xo. 1.) In order to facilitate the iden- 

 tification of sj)eciniens, and in order that the catalogue may be 

 available to the greatest number, when easily recognizable char- 

 acters did not exist in the natural synopses, they were added in 

 artificial ones. 



The works of the following authors have been especially 

 useful in preparing the present pai)er: p]. D. Cope, Baird, 

 Girard, Agassiz, Ilolbrook, Huxley, Dumeiil, Bibron, Gray's 

 and Gunther's British jMuseum Catalogues, also the reports of 

 the government exploring expeditions, the volumes of the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, etc, 



Many of the synopses have been compiled from the numer- 

 ous exhaustive articles by Prof. Cope, several of which have 

 been copied in part almost verbatim. The compilers are much 



