248 ANURA 



CHAP. 



males croak loudly, producing a sound which can hardly be 

 distinguished from the chattering of the large black and yellow 

 squirrel, Sciurus bicolor" 



These arboreal frogs have a peculiar mode of nursing the 

 young and taking care of the eggs. Eli. maculatus of Ceylon, 

 Malacca, etc., and Eh. schlegeli of Japan, lay their eggs in a foamy 

 mass, the size of a fist, on the margins of ponds, and the whole 

 process has recently been described by Ikeda. 1 He observed 

 the Japanese Eli. schlegeli depositing the eggs in soft, muddy 

 ground covered with grass, and in wet, muddy banks of paddy- 

 fields, ponds, and similar localities near Tokyo. Sometimes they 

 are deposited between the leaves of trees,- near the ground. 

 The breeding season extends from the middle of April to the 

 middle of May. Towards the evening the female, bearing the much 

 smaller male on her back, retires underground for the deposition 

 of the eggs. The spots chosen are 10-15 cm. above the surface 

 of the water; the female digs a spherical hole 6-9 cm. wide. 

 Sitting thus concealed underground, the frogs assume a dark 

 colour and the spawning takes place during the night, where- 

 upon the parents leave the nest. The eggs are enveloped in a 

 white mass of jelly full of air-bubbles, the whole frothy lump 

 looking like the well-beaten white of a hen's egg, with the 

 yellowish eggs scattered through it, and measuring some 6 cm. 

 in diameter. The air-bubbles are 2-3 mm. large. The froth 

 is originally very elastic and sticky, but it gradually sinks down, 

 becomes liquid and ultimately runs out of the hole. It is pro- 

 duced in the following peculiar manner. During and after the 

 deposition of the eggs the female puts her feet upon the sticky 

 jelly, part of which adheres and is then pulled out as a thin, 

 transparent membrane stretching between both feet. The latter 

 are then thrust backwards, the membrane is folded downwards 

 and becomes a vesicle of 5 to 10 mm. in width. By repeated 

 working of the limbs the successively formed bubbles are trodden 

 and kneaded into froth, which ultimately surrounds and at the 

 same time separates the eggs. 



The female of Eh. reticulatus of Ceylon attaches the eggs, 

 about twenty in number, to the under surface of her belly, 011 

 the skin of which they leave little cellular impressions. What 

 becomes of the tadpoles is not known. 



1 Annotat. Zool. Jap. i. 1897, p. 113. 



