PELODYTES. 



189 



-Small, measuring 1^ to 2 



mm. in diameter ; 

 Laid in two 



in 

 Pig. 71. 



Eggs.— 

 blackish, with the lower pole white, 

 strings which coalesce in the cloaca, 

 thus forming a single lengthened 

 band, often broken into several 

 pieces, twined round the stalks of 

 small reeds or grass below the 

 surface of the water. The muci- 

 laginous capsule surrounding each 

 egg measures 2^ to 3 mm. ; the 

 outer envelop, which in the toads 

 forms a sort of tube protecting the 

 eggs, is here absent; and when, as 

 sometimes happens, the band is 

 deposited in fragments, the egg- 

 masses embracing a stalk may 

 have more the appearance of little 

 balls, resembling, but for the darker 

 colour, those of Hyla arborea. 



Heron-E-oyer has ascertained the number of ova in 

 a brood to vary between 1000 and 1600, and the 

 embryo to leave the mucilaginous envelop on the 

 fifth day, at a very low stage of development, tailless, 

 and having not yet developed the gills. 



Tadpole (PI. I, figs. 7 and 8). — Length of body 

 rather more than once and a half its width, and not 

 quite two-thirds the length of the tail. Nostrils half- 

 way between the end of the snout and the eyes, or a 

 little nearer the latter. Byes on the upper surface of 

 the body, equidistant from the end of the snout and 

 the spiraculum, the distance between them about twice 

 as great as that between the nostrils, and equal to the 

 width of the mouth. Spiraculum on the left side, 

 directed upwards and backwards, nearly equidistant 

 from either extremity of the body, visible from above 

 and from below. Anal opening median, much larger 

 than the opening of the spiraculum. Tail twice and a 

 half to three times as long as deep, ending in an 

 obtuse point ; the upper crest very convex, deeper 



