58 MB. G. A. BOFLENGEE OK THE EEPTILES 



two are perfectly alike. The limbs are regularly cross barred with darker. The lower 

 surfaces are brownish, dotted or clouded with dark brown ; the throat is generally dark 

 brown, sometimes with white dots, and there is constantly a pair of round white spots 

 on the pectoral region ; the axilla and groin are bright yellow. 



The males are distinguished only by the presence of a pair of internal vocal sacs. 

 The ova are very large, and we may presume the development to be of the Eylodes type. 



The skeleton is essentially that of a Eanoid. It differs in the following points from 

 the normal pattern : — 



The skull is strongly ossified, rough, with bony granules on the fronto-parietal and 

 temporal regions, and the sutures are nearly obliterated. The fronto-parietals expand 

 in a large triangular postorbital process. The anterior process of the temporal, the 

 maxillary, and the quadrato-jugal have coalesced without leaving traces of sutures ; the 

 latter bone sends off a curved spine directed outwards and forwards. The posterior 

 process of the temporal is expanded horizontally, subtriangular, and its posterior border 

 is divided into several knobs. 



The lower jaw, which is so remarkable for the presence of acrodont teeth, is also 

 interesting for the extreme shortness of the dentary, which only quite anteriorly enters 

 the border of the jaw ; it bears two or three teeth only, all the others, twenty to thirty 

 in number, being inserted on the articular. In the African Rana adspersa, which 

 in its rough skull and triangular postorbital processes shows some resemblance to 

 Ceratohatrachus, the dentary, though of more moderate size, also has but a very small 

 share in the edge of the jaw, viz. the tooth-like anterior process. The symphyseal 

 bones are ossified and toothless. In the other BatracMa ecmidata with mandibular 

 teeth, viz. Eemiphr actus, Ceratohyla, and Amj)hignathodon, the symphyseals are absent, 

 as in the Caudata. The sternal apparatus differs from that of the normal Bana only 

 in the basal bifurcation of the omosternum, as in several other Ranoids. 



6. 2- 



milliia. millim. 



From snout to vent 75 86 



Head 31 36 



Width of head 35 44 



Fore limb 41 50 



Hand 16 19 



Hind limb 91 110 



Foot 29 34 



Numerous specimens were collected by Mr. Guppy in the Shortland, Treasury, and 



Faro Islands. 



Mr. Guppy obsei-ves : — " Horned frogs are very numerous in these islands, and so 



closely do they imitate their surroundings in colom- and pattern, that on one occasion 



I captured one by accidentally placing my hand on it when clasping a tree." 



