AND BATRACHIANS OF BARBART. 157 



Fam. 1. RANIDiE. 



1. Rana, LiiiDseus, ]766. 



Pupil horizontal. Vomerine teeth. Tongue forked and free behind. Fingers free, 

 toes webbed. 



This almost cosmopolitan genus is represented in Barbary by a single species. 



1. Rana esculenta, Linnseus, 1766. 

 R. viridis, Guichenot. 



Vomerine teeth between the choanse. Interorbital space narrower than the upper 

 eyelid ; tympanum distinct, about two thirds the size of the eye. Toes entirely webbed. 

 A glandular lateral fold. Green, oUve, or bronzy brown above, usually with black spots 

 and a pale green vertebral line. Male with two external vocal sacs. 



This species is distributed over nearly the whole of the Palaearctic Region. The 

 form found in Barbary, which has been named var. latastii by Camerano, I regard as 

 inseparable from the var. ridibimda. Pall., which is found in Western and Central 

 Asia, Eastern Europe and Germany, the south of France and the Pyrenean Peninsula, 

 Tripoli, Egypt (1), and the Sinaitic Peninsula. It is distinguished from the typical 

 form by the smaller size of the inner metatarsal tubercle, which is blunt, not com- 

 pressed. It is found throughout Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis, penetrating into the 

 desert, where it was obtained as far as Wargla by M. Lataste, who also found it 

 everywhere in Tunisia. 



I append measurements in millimetres of several specimens (females) in the collection 

 of the British Museum : — 



Tangier. Constantine. Tunis. 



/O 



Prom snout to vent 85 69 69 65 90 53 75 



Length of tibia 45 37 35 35 44 27 37 37 



Length of foot (from outer meta- 

 tarsal tubercle) 45 37 34 34 46 27 38 38 



Length of inner toe 13 11 10 10 13 7i 11 IQi 



Length of inner metatarsal tubercle . 4 3 3 3 4 2i 3| 3| 



From which we see that the length of the inner metatarsal tubercle is contained from 

 3 to 3§ times in the length of the inner toe, and from 11 to 12 times in the length of 

 the foot, which nearly equals that of the tibia. 



The var. ridibunda is figured, from German specimens, in Proc. Zool. Soc. 1885, 

 pi. xl. 



VOL. XIII. — PART III. No. 9. — October, 1891. 2 a 



