EANA MASCABENIENSIS. 349 
E. mascareniensis, but with this exception, that the orifices of the vocal sacs which in 
frogs from Egypt and Madagascar run parallel to the lower jaw are in them placed 
obliquely to it, being directed downwards and backwards to below the shoulder. Frogs 
presenting this type of vocal sac are found in Abyssinia, Wadelai, Lamu, north of 
Zanzibar, in the Gaboon District, and in Sierra Leone. All of them have the fifth 
toe longer than the third, as in Egyptian specimens. The British Museum possesses 
two frogs from Angola with the orifices of the vocal sacs oblique. One of them has 
the fifth toe longer than the third, whereas the other has these proportions reversed, 
and yet they seem to be specifically identical. Their hind limbs are somewhat longer 
than in the frogs from Egypt, Madagascar, and other parts of Africa referable to this 
species, but it is only a question of degree. 
The slight difference in the way in which the vocal sac opens in relation to the 
ramus of the lower jaw, i. e. whether it is straight or oblique in position, cannot well 
be regarded as more than an illustrative variation when all the other features of these 
frogs are duly considered. 
Frogs with the vocal sacs opening in a straight line are met with in Egypt, the Isle 
of France, and Madagascar, while those with them more or less oblique occur in 
Abyssinia, the Upper Nile (Wadelai), East Africa, West Africa, and Angola. 
In the two series the fifth toe is longer than the third, or the two are equal, or this 
proportion may even be reversed, so great is variation in this detail. 
Professor Peters held a distinctly opposite view to that here expressed, as he not 
only regarded the Nilotic frog as a good species, but he also upheld the specific 
distinctness of E. mossambica, Peters, E. bibroni, Hallow., and E. porosissima, 
Steindach., and went even further and described the Abyssinian frogs as representing a 
valid species. 
The frog-headed deity Batrachocephalm or Ka was a form of Ptah, the Lord of 
Truth, particularly in relation to the creation of man. There was also a frog-headed 
goddess Heqa, the wife of Nun or Khnum, the male and female principle of water, and 
the celestial water or abyss. 
According to Horapollo a frog was emblematical of renewed birth. It appears as a 
symbol to form the base of the palm-branch of years held by Thoth, as the deity who 
presided over the life of man. At Thebes it was sacred to the goddess Heqa. The 
figure of a tadpole occurs as a hieroglyph. Besides its proper meaning (hfn) tadpole, 
it had the transferred signification hundred thousand. From the fact that frogs were 
embalmed at Thebes it is evident that some peculiar belief was attached to them. 
The Engystomatidae are represented in Kordoi'au by the genus Hemisas (G-linther, Cat. Batr. Sal. B. M. 
1858, p. 47) and by a species which Dr. Steindachner named (Sitz. Ak. Wien, xlviii. Abth. i. 1863, p. 191, 
pi. i. figs. 10-13) Kakophrynus sudanensis and (Verh. zool.-bot. Ges. Wien, xiv. 1864, p. 284) Hemisus 
sudanense. An example of this species is preserved in the British Museum, and another in the Vienna 
Museum. The former was obtained in Kordofan, and the latter in the Sudan, but in what part of it is 
seemingly unknown. 
