SOME NOTES ON LIZARDS, FROGS AND HUMAN BEINGS. 497 
small a minority to attempt to repudiate being the cause of the damage done to 
certain plants that was pointed out by the incensed mali to the policeman. 
Moments like this cause me much distress ! 
Of course the malis in Sim’s Park are quite accustomed to small boys and girls 
jumping into the flower beds, and a very rich torrent of vernacular abuse they 
have at their command whenever they catch any of these little folk doing it, but 
when one of the same malis finds a grizzle-headed, apparently sober, quinque- 
genarian indulging in the same juvenile frolics, his indignation is such that his 
jaws lock and his lips refuse to function. My hostile environment left me no 
choice but to withdraw with as much nonchalance as I could assume, But I am 
not good at this sort of thing,and find I cannot retire with any dignity on such 
occasions. I never had any training for the stage. It is one thing to search for 
a frog, but to find oneself—the pursuer—also being pursued and tracked down 
by an uncouth specimen of Homo pithecops variety nilgiriensis—in other words 
a hill cooly—is most humiliating. On my way home in my rickshaw I decided 
there was nothing for it but to place Sim’s Park out of bounds for myself. I 
was decidedly unpopular among the officials there. People who read 
Natural History books have no idea at what cost the knowledge they contain 
has been acquired. Somebody has got to actas Ido, or no Natural History 
books would be written. 
On my return to the Hotel my captives were placed in a salt jar and provided 
with foliage and water and I awaited developments. Each frog took up his s2at 
in the middle of a leaf, and indulged in those silent gargling efforts peculiar to 
batrachians in general. At dusk suddenly one tuned up, I heard his tinkling 
cadence, and saw his vocal sac expanded to the full, and it was no small satis- 
faction to realise that I had solved the authorship of the notes that were so fami- 
liar to me. 
The call of this species is polysyllabic, and repeated from five to ten times at 
the rate of about twice a second. The notes are “ staccato ” and uttered with a 
slight tendency to “crescendo”. In quality they remind one of the sound pro- 
duced by castanets and there is a slight musical ring not heard in the note of 
variabilis. The notes commence when the vocal sac is almost at its maximum 
distension. 
Ivalus glandulosus. 
I obtained one specimen of this species which I dislodged from beneath a 
log at dusk on Adderley estate at about 4,500 feet elevation. 
There is another polysyllabic note one can distinguish among the babel of 
batrachian voices which probably emanates from another Jzalus, perhaps this 
one but which I failed to trace to its origin. It is not so frequently heard as 
the call of signatus. The notes are numerous and more rapidly uttered than 
those emitted by signatus, and I hope to make the acquaintance of my unknown 
friend on my next visit to Coonoor. 
Micrivalus opisthorhodus.—The Pink-legged Frog, 
A very pretty little batrachian is this species which is even more diminutive 
than [xalus variabilis. Its most striking feature is the rosy colouration of the 
backs of the thighs and the abdomen. It is fairly abundant at about 6,000 
feet, but not nearly so common as the Jvalus just referred to. I found one 
hopping about in the leaves in a dense jungle beyond Lamb’s Rock. I failed to 
hear its vocal effort, and the elucidation of this must be left till another visit. 
Genus Rana. 
Rana limnocharis.—The Yellow-legged Frog. 
This species common enough in the plains is also quite common at the altitude 
of Coonoor, and is the prevailing species found in the ornamental piece of 
water in Sim’s Park. In June it was very clamourous and evidently taking 
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