790 . ME. G. A. BOTTLEKGEB, ON THE [June 20, 



the great orders of small and excessively active birds. The 

 Passeriformes and Fringilliformes, with their allied orders, have an 

 average temperatiire ranging from 42° to 44°. 



Setting forth these results in a descending series, we find 

 that : — 



(1) The higher birds range about 43° C, (109°-4 F.). 



(2) The middle birds range about 41° C. (105°-8 F.). 



(3) The lowest birds range about 39° C. (102°-2 P.). 



But these observations in the Society's Gardens show that 

 Apteryx, the lowest order of all, is still lower in temperature, being 

 only about 38° (100° ¥.). 



The temperatures of the bh'ds were all taken under uniform con- 

 ditions, while the temperature of the air was between 55° and 63° F. 

 And the result seems to bear out the contention, otherwise very 

 probable, that the higher the bird in the zoological scale the higher 

 in general is the temperature of its blood. 



4. On the American Spade-foot {Scaphiopus solitarius 

 Holbrook). By G. A. Boulenger, F.R.S. 



[Eeceived May 25, 1899.] 

 (Plate LII.) 



Eemarks recently made by Dr. T. Gill ^ on the position of 

 Scaphiopus in the family Pelohatidce have induced me to make 

 a detailed examination of the typical species of this genus, the 

 osteological characters ol: which have not been fully described 

 before. I was all the better prepared for this task, having had an 

 opportunity of keepiug and observing some living specimens, for 

 which I am indebted to my frieud Mr. A. Pam. These have 

 enabled me to exhibit some figures of the animal carefully drawn 

 and painted from life by Mr. P. Smit (see Plate LII .), the figures 

 previously given by Holbrook and by Dumeril and Bibron being 

 very unsatisfactory and taken from spirit-specimens. I had at my 

 command a good supply of the latter, as well as two prepared 

 skeletons ; but of the eggs and larvae nothing was at hand, nor did 

 literature afford any information on this head. I had applied last 

 summer to Messrs. Brimley, in North Carolina, where the Spade- 

 foot is abundant, who kindly informed me that the eggs are laid 

 early in spring, in strings resembling those of toads, but thicker 

 and with the vitelline spheres more irregularly disposed — in fact, as 

 I infer, not unlike those of Pelobates. They added that the season 

 was then too far advanced for tadpoles to be procured, as their 

 development is comparatively rapid, and the pools in which they 

 are reared dry up by the end of spring. I have therefore to 

 postpone a description of the tadpole, which I hope, however, to 

 supply ere long. 



' Science, (2) viii. 1898, p. 935. 



