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FA UNA OF THE MALA Y ISLANDS AND PHILIPPINES 



really take flying leaps by the aid of the interdigital membranes. The Javan 

 species, which is about 4 inches long, and of a deep shining green above and yellow 

 beneath, and is arboreal in its habits, even breeding amid the foliage. It is, more- 

 over, remarkable for its power of changing the colour of its skin. A specimen 

 captured in the daytime and examined in strong sunlight will, for instance, be 

 found of a brilliant greenish blue ; towards evening it will, however, change to 

 green, and finally to nearly black, the transformation taking place more rapidly in 

 males than in females. Night is the time when these frogs are really active, and 

 it is then that they awaken from their diurnal torpor and commence to search for 

 grasshoppers .and other orthopterous insects. Like other tree-frogs, they hold on 

 to leaves and boughs by means of adhesive discs to their toes. In regard to the 

 leaps from which they take their name, flying-frogs will leap to a height of about a 



CLIMBING PERCH. 



foot in an arc of a circle and alight two or three yards distant in a characteristic 

 attitude, with their bodies inflated to the greatest possible degree and their toe- 

 membranes fully extended. During these flying leaps, which are for the purpose 

 of escaping foes, the webs perform the part of a parachute. Each leap is 

 of extreme rapidity, lasting only a fraction of a second. Among the curious 

 worm-like amphibians or coecilians, the widely-spread Iclrfhyophis glutinosus, 

 whose range includes Ceylon, many parts of India, and Burma, occurs in Sumatra 

 Borneo, and Java. This creature, which is about 15 inches long and half 

 an inch thick, lives in damp places, particularly in soft mud, where it 

 lays large eggs, forming a heap like a bunch of grapes, in a hole near 

 the water, made for the purpose. The mother winds her body round the 

 eggs, and thus protects them and the young, which do not hatch out till they 

 have lost their outer gills. The young, which have fish-like heads and flat 



