348 THE BATRACHIANS OF EGYPT. 
beyond the tip of the snout or halfway between the latter and the eye ; openings of the 
vocal sacs either parallel to the lower jaw or placed slightly obliquely, the posterior 
extremity of the orifice lying immediately below the angle of the lower jaw. Upper 
surface of body with glandular folds, one on each side, from behind the eye to the 
groin, and six other folds between them either interrupted or continuous ; a strong 
glandular fold from the eye and tympanum to the shoulder. 
General colour greyish olive or brownish olive above, with dark spots on the back, 
which has occasionally a pale vertebral stripe, and with dark spots and bars on the limbs ; 
generally a pale line along the back of the thigh margined with black ; throat and 
chest more or less dusky or livid, the remainder of the under surface pure white. 
J . Snout to vent 41 mm., vent to tip of fourth toe 74 mm., eye to snout 7 - 6 mm. 
? • „ 47-7 „ „ „ 82 „ „ 8 „ 
This and the previous species are the only representatives of the genus in Lower 
Egypt 1 . It is very common in the backwaters and cauals and is found throughout 
the entire valley of the Nile, but it is not present at Suakin. It occurs in suitable 
localities, as a rule, throughout the entire continent 2 . 
It is known to the natives as >U!I c±kJ>, dofclah el moia, or water-frog, in contra- 
distinction to the toads ; but according to Seetzen 3 it is known in Egypt as el backrwr. 
An adolescent frog in the British Museum from the Isle of France has the snout 
very much the same as in the frogs from Egypt, possesses similarly proportioned limbs 
and digits, glandular folds of a like character, and the orifices of the vocal sacs running 
parallel to the lower jaw as in the Nilotic frogs. Its colour also is much the same as 
in the Egyptian frogs, and, as in some of them, there is a pale vertebral line. Two 
young frogs from Madagascar, in the same collection, resemble the frogs from Gizeh 
and Mahallet el Kebir in the details of their structure and coloration, while four 
others from the same island resemble the frogs from Alexandria in having a white 
vertebral line. Three specimens from Nossi Be, and two others from Ankafana in 
Madagascar, present the two types of coloration found in Egypt and are in no way 
separable specifically from the Egyptian frogs. 
A male and female from Taita, East Africa, have also all the structural characters of 
1 Dr. Steindachner has recorded (Reise Freg. Novara, Amphibien, 1867, p. 8) a species of Rana from 
Kordofan, viz. Pyxicephalus cordofanus=R. cordofana, but from what part of the province has not been 
stated. It is allied to the Southern and Eastern African R. delalandii. 
Peters in his account of the Reptiles and Batrachians collected by (the late) Baron von Barnim and by 
Dr. R. Hartmann on their expedition to the Sennaar district recorded the occurrence there of another genus 
of the family Ranida>, viz. Cassina, and considered the species to be C. senegdlensis, Dum. & Bibr. ; but it 
may possibly prove to be the form found in Shoa and Somalilaud, viz. C. obscura, Blgr. (Proc. Zool. Soc. 
1895, p. 644, pi. xxxix. fig. 3). 
2 Heron-Royer and Van Bambeke, in their communication on the buccal apparatus of the tadpoles of 
certain species of frogs and toads, quoted in the foregoing and following synonymy, give a list of the species 
they describe, and by an unfortunate oversight characterize all of them as European. The list includes 
Rana rnascareniensis, Bufo regularis, and Bufo pantlierinus, not one of which is European. 
3 Op. cit. iii. p. 490. 
