119 

 SOME SOUTH INDIAN BATRACHIANS. 



BY 



C. R. Nakayan Rao, M. A 



Central College, Bangalore. 



[With two ■plates.'] 



These notes discuss a portion of the material collected some time ago 

 in certain parts of Coorg and Shimoga, and I propose to include in this 

 paper a few remarks on some of the unidentified examples of batrachians 

 belonging to the Bombay Natural History Society, entrusted to me for 

 determination. Through the courtesy of Dr. N, Annandale I have had 

 access to the named collection of amphibians in the Indian Museum, and I 

 should like to thank him and Dr. Boulenger who has very kindly examined 

 a few specimens submitted to him for his opinion. 



Two specimens belonging to the species Spclerpes Juscus are contained 

 in the Society"'s collection and the label on the specimens shows that they 

 are from Burma. There are a few points in which these two examples 

 differ from the description of juscus given in the Catalogue of the British 

 Museum. For instance, ]. The remnants of cirri or balancers are absent 

 below the nostrils in both the specimens. 2. The distance between the 

 snout and the gular fold is less than three times in the length of the snout 

 and the vent. 3. Two parotoids are present in both examples. 4. The 

 deep groove behind the gular fold is continuous with the cervical groove 

 starting from the posterior angle of the eye. -5. A lateral glandular fold 

 over the costal grooves (9-10) is present. 6. Total length from tip of 

 snout to tip of tail 105mm., more than 4 in. (a) 7. The tail is marbled. 

 ■Considering the locality that the specimens are alleged to come from and 

 also in view of the fact that the characters enumerated above are constant 

 in the two forms, I naturally thought whether they could not be distinct 

 iromfuscus. But Dr. Boulenger who has examined one of the specimens, 

 identifies it as the European Spelerpes fuscus and states that it could not 

 have been picked up in Burma, {b) The only species of Spelerpes present in 

 the Indian Museum is 8. ruber, No. 2712 from North Carolina, and there is 

 practically no further material in India for comparison. As the source of 

 these salamanders cannot be definitely traced for the present, the inter- 

 pretation of Dr. Boulenger is certainly the more natural and correct one. 



Among the unidentified examples of batrachians belonging to the 

 Society I found 1. Rana pileata, 2. R. plicatella. 3. R. erythrtsa, 4. 

 Rhacophorus bimaculatuJS, 5. GalopTirynus pleurostigma, 6. Kaloula pulchra, 

 7. Bufo melanostictus, 8. Leptobrachium hasseltii? All these are from 

 Burma, except Rh. bimaculatus which I found in Mr. Kinnear's collection 

 from Somavarapatna, Coorg. The occurrence in South India of this species 

 which is known to affect the rain forests of Assam is certainly very in- 

 teresting and is reported here for the first time. The two specimens of 

 Cal. pleurostigma are in a beautiful state of colo^ir preservation and the 

 scheme of markings on them closely conforms to the description of 



(a) Dr. Boulenger's measurement for the male specimens is 96mm, and Dr. Gadow 

 (Camp, Nat. Hist Amp. Kept., p. 105) states that the total length of fuscus 

 remains under four inches. 



(6) The only two salamanders known from this region are Tylototrtton verru- 

 cosus and Amhlystoma persimile. 



