"EN RESA TIL NORRA AMERICA." 99 



in running frightened the poor frog ; probably it was afraid 

 of being tortured with fire again, and therefore it redoub- 

 led its leaps, and by that means it reached the pond before 

 the Indian could over-take it. 



In some years they are more numerous than in others : 

 nobody could tell, whether the snakes had ever ventured 

 to eat them, though they eat all the lesser kinds of frogs. 

 The women are no friends to these frogs, because they 

 kill and eat young ducklings and goslings : sometimes they 

 carry off chickens that come too near the ponds. I have 

 not observed that they bite when they are held in the 

 hands, though they have little teeth ; when they are beat- 

 en, they cry out almost like children. I was told that some 

 eat the thighs of the hind legs, and that they are very pal- 

 atable," 2nd Engl. ed., n, 29 (1st Engl., n, 170 ; Dutch, 

 ii, 206). 



Linn6 had applied the name Rana boans to a South 

 American tree frog, Syst. Nat., ed. x, 1758, i, 213, 

 and Kalm mistook in applying it to the bull frog. Fors- 

 ter retained the name, but, correctly as it happened, added 

 as a synonym Catesby's Rana maxima, which Linn6 had 

 placed under his Rana ocellata. Catesby's name for this 

 frog has about the same standing as Kalm's R. virescens 

 for the leopard frog, and like the latter gives way to one 

 of much later date, Rana Catesbeiana Shaw, 1802, Gen. 

 Zool., in, Amphibia, 106, pi. 33. 



Taking Linne's references, the synonymy of Rana boans, 

 from the twelfth edition of the Systema backward, stands 

 something like this : 



Rana boans Linne", 1766, Syst. Nat., I, 358; 



Linn6, 1758, Syst. Nat., i, 213. 

 Rana lactea Linn., 1754, Mus. Ad. Frid., 



p. 47. 



