1915] Camp: New Amphibia from Southern California 33] 



Bufo cognatus californicus, new subspecies 

 Arroyo Toad 



Type. — Female, adult; no. 4364, Mus. Vert. Zool.; Santa Paula, 

 800 feet altitude, Ventura County, California ; May 22, 1 !>1 12 ; collected 

 by C. L. Camp; orig. no. 551. 



Diagnosis. — A toad with divergent head crests, a nasal boss, short, 

 slightly divergent parotoids and with an internal, cutting tubercle mi 

 hind foot; femur short as in Bufo cognatus cognatus, the Great Plains 

 toad. Size medium; parotoids wide; coloration nearly uniform, with- 

 out large spots; no vertebral streak; external tubercle on hind foot 

 small and rounded, not provided with a cutting edge. 



Material. — Two alcoholic specimens: the type; and adult female. 

 no. 767, Mus. Vert. Zool. ; Tujunga Wash, near Sunland, Los Angeles 

 County, California; April 1, 1904; collected by J. Grinned. 



Comparisons. — This Bufo is distinct from the common toad 

 (Bufo halophilus) of the Los Angeles region, differing from it : in 

 the possession of both transverse and longitudinal cranial crests, in 

 the smaller size, in the absence of a vertebral stripe, in the thick 

 head, and in the more even character of the tuberculation of the 

 back. It is clearly most closely related to Bufo cognatus cognatus 

 Say (1823, 2, p. 190) of Arizona and the Great Plains, cast of the 

 Rockies. 



The type locality of the latter is the Arkansas River in Colorado, 

 probably between the present site of La Junta, Colorado, and the 

 Colorado-Kansas boundary. Bufo cognatus ranges over a large part 

 of the Great Plains district east of the Rocky .Mountains, in Colorado, 

 Kansas, Arkansas, New Mexico, Texas, Nebraska, Montana, and South 

 Dakota. West of the Rockies it occurs in northern Mexico, Arizona, 

 and, in southeastern California, along the Colorado River and in the 

 Salton Basin. 



The two specimens here included in the subspecies californicus 

 are the first representatives of this species known from the Pacific 

 coast of California. They differ from a series at hand of Bufo 

 cognatus taken on the Colorado River, in California and Arizona, in 

 the slightly longer hind loot, in the lack of an external cutting 

 tubercle, in the width of the parotoids, which are 10 to 20 per cent 

 broader in californicus, and in the type of coloration, which is uniform 

 and without a trace of the large green spots, so pronounced a feature 

 of the coloration of most of the Colorado River examples. 



