FROGS AND TOADS 



603 



The Tree-frogs represent one of the most distinct 

 groups of the tribe. All its members are more or less 

 arboreal in their habits, repairing to the water only 

 during the breeding-season, or leaving the trees to seek 

 shelter in the earth or underneath stones or timber for 

 the purposes of hibernation. As an adaptation for their 

 special habits, the toes of the tree-frogs are provided 

 at their tips with suctorial disks, so that they can walk 

 on perpendicular or smoothly glazed surfaces after the 

 manner of the Geckos among the Lizards. Another 

 characteristic feature is the development on the under 

 surface of their bodies of peculiar granular glands pierced 

 by numerous pores, through the medium of which they 

 rapidly absorb the moisture deposited by dew or rain 

 on the surfaces of the leaves among which they live. 

 The colours of the tree-frogs harmonise, as a rule, so com- 

 pletely with those of their leafy environments that their 

 presence very readily escapes detection. Many of the 

 species, moreover, rival the chamseleon in their capacity 

 of quickly adapting their tints to that of a newly occu- 

 pied surrounding. Green is naturally the dominant 

 ground-tint of these frogs. Often, however, it is inter- 

 mixed with stripes and bands of other colours, while 

 sometimes the green hue is entirely replaced, as in the 

 Blue or Bicoloured Tree-frog of South America, 

 which is brilliant azure above and pure white beneath. 

 A very beautiful Australian species, abundant in Tasmania 

 and Victoria, and appropriately named the Golden Tree- 

 FROG, has its grass-green overcoat thickly overlaid and 

 embroidered with, as it were, the purest beaten gold. 



One small species of tree-frog is common on the 

 European Continent, its distribution extending to North 



Africa and eastward throughout Asia north of the Himalaya to Japan. The species is 

 imported into England inconsiderable numbers, and readily becomes acclimatised in a conserva 



tory 



P^iol. by W. Savilli-Kint, F.Z.S., MiUori-on-Sea 



QUEENSLAND TREE-FROGS 



This species is in the habit of making itself at home in 

 chamber tvatcr-jugs 



Won i/ H. G. F. Sfurrtll, £/}.] 



COMMON TOAD 



T oads are accredited "with attaining an age of several hundred years 



\_Eastbourni 



Green above and whitish 

 beneath constitute the prevailing 

 tints of this species, such uni- 

 formity being, however, varied by 

 the presence of a darker, often 

 nearly black, light-edged streak, 

 that extends from the snout through 

 the eye and ear along each side 

 of the body, and sends a branch 

 upwards and forwards on the loins. 

 The male of this European species 

 shares with many others of its 

 tribe the possession of a large 

 external vocal sac, which w'hen 

 inflated bulges out from the throat 

 in a spherical form to dimen- 

 sions little inferior to those of 

 the creature's body. It may be 



