the Midwife Toad. 177 
arrival (April 21). On many occasions Kammerer has 
appealed to the highly perfected installation of his terrarium * 
to account for the marvellous way in which breeding experi- 
ments succeed under his care, and I am quite ready to concede 
him this point to some extent; but he surely cannot make 
such a claim in this case. Knowing by experience how 
Alytes behaves under the circumstances, I cannot imagine 
this shy and highly impressionable batrachian, which, in 
common with.many others, is able to withhold parturition, 
setting down to breed with such promptitude after a long 
journey. Considering the protracted breeding-season of 
the species (usually from April to August, each female ovi- 
positing two or three times), how can as many females as 
there were males have been ready to lay almost at the same 
time ? 
De l’Isle was, as I have said before, the first to give a full 
and true account of the breeding operations in Brittany, 
which, having been so fortunate as to witness several times 
myself in Belgium, I have verified in all essential points, 
whilst I cannot confirm Hartmann’s and Kammerer’s state- 
ments. Is it possible to think that specimens from West- 
phalia and Switzerland should behave in a manner so 
different? The Zoological Society received some years ago 
a number of Westphalian Alytes purchased from the same 
Dr. Hartmann. Contrary to what happened when sent to 
Kammerer, they did not breed with us; but I saw them 
at the time, and they.did not strike me asin any way different 
from the French and Belgian. , Yet Kammerer’s account of 
the manner in which the eggs are laid differs entirely from 
what de I’Isle has witnessed twenty-three times, Héron Royer 
once, and I seven times. Nowhere can I find a circum- 
stantiated note of Kammerer’s observations on the breeding, 
or how many times he has seen it, or on how many occasions 
he Las spent part of the night at the Versuchsanstalt—the 
latter a subject worth enquiring into, considering that 
Kammerer tells us himself fT that he does not reside at the 
Versuchsanstalt, but at Hiitteldorf, two miles from Vienna, 
whilst the extent of his multifarious experiments on 
salamanders, Proteus, Alytes, Hyla, &c., would, it seems to 
me, have required his almost constant watch, especially after 
* Tn using the term in the singular, I do not mean to convey the idea 
that Kammerer keeps all his batrachians in a single case, any more than 
when speaking of an aquarium I have in mind a single tank, 
+ Arch. Entwicklmech. xxxvi, 1913, p, 168, 
