200 E. D, Cope—System of the Batrachia Anura 



The presence and absence of maxilliarv teeth is an important 

 character, much more so than the conditions of the digital 

 dilatations, — though the esteem in which I formerly held it has 

 been much diminished by the discovery of the genera Cobste- 

 thus Cope and Eupemphix Steindachner. Their presence or 

 absence, together with the perfection or imperfection of the ear, 

 as to tympanum, ves'tibule and eustachian tubes gives our au- 

 thor occasion for dividing each of his series dichotomously into 

 four groups — or three, in the case of the tree-frogs, since the 

 diagnosis of one of them has no answering gi-oup in nature. 

 But the presence or absence of the different parts of tk au- 

 ditory apparatus is a character of far less importance than is 

 here assigned to it. The two nearly allied genera Scaphiopus 

 and Pelobates are separated into two different primary divisions 

 by it, the last to be associated with the Bomhinator and the fist 

 with Alyt^ and Helwporus, two genera quite remote in affini- 

 ties, as well as from the most widely separated regions of the 

 earth. Thus Heliopwus is Australian, Alytes European, and &■ 

 phiopus American, and each has sundry allies in its own countrv 

 with which it should be arranged. Other most remotely alhed 

 genera are associated because of agreement in the structure ot 

 the ear. Thus Discoglossm is placed in the gi'oup Banrm 

 though It represents the family of all others in the MraclM 

 anura, the most remote from the Kanid», and which include, 

 beyond a shadow of doubt the genus Bmnhinator which buii- 

 ther makes not only the type of a different family, but of a dis- 

 tinct primary series, his 'Bombinatorina. Many other instances 

 of the same want of appreciation of natural affinities mignt oe 

 adduced here, but I pass to the toothless or Bufonoid senes. 

 Here we find Phryniscid genera separated from their true allien 

 the Engystomidae, while the latter are placed with much r • 

 moter relatives the Bufonid*, merely because a lesser grade o 

 imperfection of the auditory organs characterizes them. 



To come to the characters used to distinguish the tamiiK. 

 the same window-pane arrangement prevails. Those emploj 

 are the presence or absence of parotoid glands, of palma^io", 

 the toes, and of dilated or non-dilated sacral diapophysis. |" 

 latter character, noted by Bibron and Gray, is of family va^u , 

 and the only one of the above to be so estimated. The palma^i ^^ 

 01 the toes is only a generic feature, hardly that in some w* :• 

 As this is now agreed to by all good herpetologists, i «i^ ,^ 

 no further notice. The presence or absence of parotoid g;^; 

 IS quiet as worthless in this connection. Thus ScyUyp^ [l 

 l^sm has or has not an immense "parotoid " covering the u^ 

 and back indifferently, as both Steindachner and myseU ; 

 Observed independently. Alytes and Bomhinator, two -buu 

 genera of Discoglossid* little known to our author, but , 

 closely aUied, have, the one a small parotoid, the other i- 



