246 



ANURA 



Several species of this genus are remarkable for two reasons. 

 First, the great enlargement of the fully- webbed hands and feet, 

 which are then used as parachutes ; secondly, the mode of pro- 

 pagation. 



Greatly exaggerated notions are, however, entertained about 

 the parachutes, ever since Wallace's description ^ of the first 

 " flying frog." The creature was brought to him in Borneo by 



Fig. 48. — RlmeophoTus pardalis, x about 1. (Yramy^aWnd^, Malay Archipelago.) 



a Chinese workman. " He assured me that he had seen it come 

 down, in a slanting direction, from a high tree, as if it flew. . . . 

 The body was about four inches long, while the webs of each 

 hind-foot, when fully expanded, covered a surface of four square 

 inches, and the webs of all the feet together about twelve square 

 inches." 



The species in ([uestion is Rh. 2^(i'i'dcdis, an inhabitant of 

 Jlorneo and of the Philippine Islands. Specimens from Wallace's 

 Collection are in the National Collection and the largest speci- 



^ Mahti) Archijielago, 2nd cd. i. 1869, p. 38. 



