I880.J PAL^ARCTIC AND ^.THIOPIAN TOADS. 57 1 



large metacarpal tubercles — one ou the middle of the hand, large and 

 rounded, another at the base of the thumb, smaller and oval. 



The hind limb is moderately elongate; being carried forwards along 

 the body the metatarsal tubercles reach the eye in the male, the 

 shoulder in the female ; the tibia is considerably longer than the 

 head and destitute of a parotoid-like gland. There is no tarsal fold. 

 The metatarsus is provided with two large tubercles — the inner very 

 prominent and oval, the outer flat and rounded. The toes are mode- 

 rately elongate, depressed, nearly entirely webbed in the male during 

 the breeding-season, at other times half-webbed ; the subarticular 

 tubercles are small and two-rowed. 



The upper surfaces are covered with irregular, more or less pro- 

 minent, often spinous warts, the pores of which are nearly quite in- 

 distinct to the naked eye ; the Japanese specimens are remarkable 

 for the greater prominence of the warts, which are very spinous; the 

 Chinese have also the warts very prominent, but rather less spinous 

 and more elongate, as if two warts had blended into one. The lower 

 surfaces are granular, the granules being larger and more distant 

 from one another ou the lower belly and beneath the thighs. 



The upper surfaces are brown, greyish or reddish, with irregular 

 dark brown or blackish spots. The young and some females have 

 the parotoids and the large warts fine brick-red. The parotoids are 

 margined on their outer side with dark browu or black, which, ia 

 Chinese and Japanese specimens, extends as a vitta along the upper 

 side of the flanks. The lower surfaces are dirty white, greyish or 

 brownish, more or less spotted with blackish ; these spots are very 

 large and dark in the Asiatic specimens. 



The iris is reddish, more or less vermiculated with black. 



The male is furnished with blackish rugosities ou the inner side 

 of the first three fingers during the breeding-season. 



Most recent authors have considered the Chinese and Japanese spe- 

 cimens of this Toad a distinct variety (B. vulgaris jupomcus, Lataste), 

 or even species (jB._;apo«2cws, Camerano). But none of the characters 

 given to distinguish them from the typical form appear to me 

 to be constant. These chief characters are the more prominent and 

 spinous warts and the black horny layer ou various parts of the body, 

 the rather larger head, and the blackish stripe on the flanks. M. 

 Lataste has discovered a difference in the shape and size of the liver 

 and of the testicles in specimens from Pekin. If the Japanese form 

 should be separated from the European, it should certainly also be 

 separated from the Chinese : but 1 do not think that distinctioa 

 necessary ; and I do not agree with M. Lataste when he says that, 

 on the same ground upon which he has separated Eana esculenta of 

 Europe from its Asiatic representative E. marmorata, he admits two 

 subspecies in B. vukjaris, viz. cinereus and japouicus. 



Skeleton. — The prefrontals are large, subtriangular or pear-shaped, 

 convex, once and a half as broad as long, their inner edges in con- 

 tact on their whole length. The frouto-parietals are flat, not or 

 scarcely broader backwards than forwards, without fontanelle. The 

 zygomatic apophysis of the temporo-mastoidians is very short. 



3S* 



