650 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol, XIII. 
hatch? What are his experiences during the tadpole stage and what 
is its duration ? And finally where does the enormous population of 
his kind appear from the moment the monsoon rains commence ? 
There must be some means by which the various frogs tide over the 
dry season to allow them to show in thousands where what was a few 
daysago dry earth, baked nearly as hard as stone, with possibly no 
water-pool within miles. To state an instance. Two nights after 
the monsoon bursts the Bombay “ Oval” is thickly populated, judg- 
ing by the croaking chorus. Where, I say, do they all come from ? 
Have they been lying in a state of hibernation in nice juicy mud 
below that hard crust, where the scorching sun affects them not, only 
to emerge when it softens and is once more to their mind and con- 
stitution habitable? Our knowledge of such matters, it must be 
admitted, is in a very rudimentary state ! 
Then again our recognised hand-book is absolutely silent on the 
subject of the tadpoles of all those hundred odd kinds of frogs and 
toads. Are we to conclude that a tadpole is but a tadpole and nothing 
more, all being alike ? Or is it owing to lack of material regarding 
them that their nursery days are passed over in silence ? Specimens 
of them in the tadpole stage, when their species can be accurately 
determined, should be of value in a collection as well as the adult 
animal. 
The preservation of both adult and tadpole presents no difficulties, 
being treatment in the formalin or spirit jar just like snakes and 
lizards as described above. 
(To be continued.) 
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