VI 



RANINAE 265 



This form or race has the widest distribution, namely, all 

 over Europe with the exception of England, the northern half of 

 France, the Khine countries, Denmark, and Italy. Southwards 

 it extends from France through Spain and Portugal into the 

 Sahara, eastwards into Turkestan. It attains a larger size than 

 the others, but only in certain localities in various countries, 

 where circumstances favour its development. Eastern countries 

 produce the largest of all ; those of the Volga are said to be very 

 large. German physiological laboratories prefer those from the 

 Danube, from Bohemia, and from the lakes and broad expansions 

 of the Spree, to specimens from other localities. 



2. Var. typica (esculenta, Linnaeus). The heels just meet, but 

 do not overlap. The inner metatarsal tubercle is strong, com- 

 pressed, and prominent. A small outer tubercle is present. The 

 heel reaches to the eye or a little further ; the hinder surface of 

 the thighs is " marbled with black, usually with more or less 

 bright yellow pigment " in the living specimens ; the vocal sacs 

 are white or feebly pigmented. This race inclines to rather 

 more green than the others, the males especially are often dark 

 grass-green, with scarcely any markings. The vertebral stripe 

 is then yellowish, and the lateral stripes almost golden. The 

 range extends over the whole of Central Europe and the kingdom 

 of Italy. Its northern limit is the southern end of Sweden. In 

 the greater portion of Germany, Poland, and Austria it overlaps 

 the var. ridibunda, with which it does not seem to pair, owing to 

 a difference in the time of spawning ; the var. typica being about a 

 fortnight later, and beginning to spawn when the other has finished. 



3. Var. lessonae, Camerano. Except that the inner tubercle 

 is stronger, while the outer one is near the vanishing point, and 

 that the fourth toe is proportionally longer, this variety is really 

 not distinguishable from the typical form, and Boulenger himself 

 confesses that the distinction is arbitrary. The var. lessonae 

 seems to have a rather sporadic distribution. It has been found 

 in Piedmont and other parts of Italy, in Hungary and Transyl- 

 vania, near Vienna, Halle, Upper Bavaria, on the Rhine, near 

 Brussels, Paris, and what is of especial interest to us, in a few 

 places in the eastern counties of England. 



According to Boulenger's " Notes on the Edible Frog in 

 England," * the individuals of R. esculenta "which live in Foulrnire 

 1 P.Z.S. 1884, p. 573. 



