BUFO CLAMOSUS, 



81 



and in motion. Catesby says it lives on ants and fire-flies, and will mistake a 

 piece of burning charcoal for an insect of that description. The male seeks the 

 female in the month of May, when hundreds of them may be seen together in some 

 stagnant pool; where having deposited their spawn, they return to the land. The 

 males at this season are extremely noisy, though in general they are silent, making 

 only a slight chirp when taken. Like many of the Hylse tribe, they have a large 

 sac under the throat, which is distended when the animal croaks. 



I have seen an individual kept for a long space of time, which became perfectly 

 tame: during the summer months it would retire to a corner of the room, into a 

 habitation it had prepared for itself in a small quantity of earth placed there for its 

 convenience. Towards evening it would wander about the room in search of food, 

 seizing greedily whatever insect came in his way. Some water having been 

 squeezed from a sponge upon his head one hot day in July, he returned the next to 

 the same spot, and seemed very well pleased with the repetition; nor did he fail 

 during the extreme heat of the summer to repair to it frequently, in search of his 

 shower-bath. 



General Remarks. Catesby first described and gave a figure of this animal 

 under the name Land Frog; and although this figure is badly executed, both as to 

 drawing and colouring, (the elevation of the superciliary ridges not being marked, 

 and the eyes represented as red,) it has been repeatedly copied by later Naturalists, 

 as Foster, Shaw, &c. Bosc, who, from a long residence in Carolina, had a good 

 opportunity of examining this animal, refers it to the Rana musica of Linnseus, in 

 which he is followed by Daudin, Merrem, and most Naturalists. This cannot be 

 correct, for there are no Toads, as far as has been hitherto ascertained, common 

 to North and South America, and Linnseus, in the 12th edition of the Systema 

 Naturae, gives Surinam as the country of the R. musica. The name Rana musica, 

 therefore, cannot be retained; but we must substitute that of Bufo clamosus, which 

 was first given to this species by Schneider. 



Vol. I.— 11 



