New Species of Bairacian Repiites. ad. 
vality of other monsters, that the two-headed snakes owe the 
notoriety they hold among zoologists and travellers. 
New-York, August 1, 1825. 
ART. VII.—Descriptions of several new species of Batracian, 
Reptiles, with observations on the Larve of Frogs.*—By 
Ricaarp Harzan, of Philadelphia. 
Tue genus Rana of Linnzus is subdivided by modern erpe- 
tologists into three sections, which include the genera Rana, 
Hyla, and Bufo of Lacépede, Brongniart, Latreille, Daudin, 
and others. 
The unmerited neglect with which this class of animals has 
been treated by American naturalists, is unaccountable, when 
we consider the important station they maintain in the scale 
of beings. 
The interesting phenomena attending the metamorphose of 
the young frog or tadpole, early attracted the attention of men 
of science; and the works of Swammerdam, Roésal, Mal- 
pighi, Laurenti, Galvan!, and Spallanzani, furnish the most 
— 
* The present essay was nearly completed and ready for the press, 
when No. IX. of the Ann. of the Lyceum of Nat. Hist. of N. York ap- 
peared, containing a paper by Capt. J. Le Conte, entitled ““ Remarks on 
the American species of the genera Hyla and Rana.” In its publication, 
this learned and indefatigable naturalist has anticipated four of my new 
species, viz. Hyla versicolor, H. delttescens, Rana palustris, and R. 
sylvatica. 
In the indications of his new species fontinalis, pumila, and gryllus, 
the author has been so exceedingly laconic, and the characters he has 
noticed are so indecisive, as to render it impossible for me to say, whether 
or not they really differ from some of my species; the characters of the 
“ fontinalis,” for example, will apply with equal certainty to three a: 
four distinct species. 
On the conirary, his R. ngrita is a beautiful, well determined new 
species, and forms a valuable acquisition to this department. It is thus 
characterized: “ Rana nigrita, above black, speckled with small white 
warts; middle of the back cinereus with an interrupted stripe of black ; 
upper lip with a white line; beneath granulate whitish; irides golden; 
legs barred with whitish, hind part of the thighs brown; hind legs very 
long.” 
His R. gryllus is probably the same as was supposed by Daudin to be 
the young of a species of Hyla. (Vid. Hist, Nat. des Grenouilles, des 
Rainettes, et des Crapauds, p. 17.) 
