68 Discovery of a Frog in New Zealand. 



recollects the last visit Captain Cook paid to this country. 

 None of these individuals had ever seen the animal before, 

 nor could they give any name to it. All the New Zea- 

 landers present were much struck with its appearance, and 

 they said it must be the Atua, the spirit or god of the gold, 

 which had appeared upon the earth ; many of them shrunk 

 back from it in horror, and some of them were inclined to 

 draw unfavourable omens from its discovery at such a parti- 

 cular time. At Auckland I met natives from all parts of the 

 island to whom I shewed the frog, but none of them had ever 

 seen it before. Three other frogs were caught by the gold- 

 diggers in a different stream from the one in which the spe- 

 cimen was found, — one of these was lost, and the natives in- 

 sisted that the other two should be set at liberty, lest evil 

 should come on the party who caught them. The country 

 where the frogs were found is made up of plutonic and me- 

 tamorphic rocks, which rise in some places to the height of 

 nearly 1500 feet. It forms a peninsula from Cape Colville 

 to the mouth of the Thames. The rivulets in which the 

 frogs were found run down the western side of the range 

 into the harbour of Coromandel. The hills are thickly co- 

 vered with fine timber, and the streams beautifully shaded 

 from the heat of the sun. 



Description of the Frog, as taken from the specimen disco- 

 vered. — Length of body one inch ; head more round and less 

 pointed than that of the Rana Palustris of Europe ; mouth 

 large, with teeth in the upper jaw ; skin smooth and shining, 

 with several small rounded tubercles or papillae on the sides ; 

 posterior extremities long and muscular, with five toes pal- 

 mated, and partially webbed ; anterior extremities short, with 

 four toes ; eyes prominent, colour olive-brown, a white spot 

 between them ; the colour of grayish-white, back brown, the 

 belly of a lighter brown, which extends round and forms a 

 border on either side of the brown on the back. The extre- 

 mities are marked across with lines of brown and greyish- 

 white alternately. 



Remarks. — Bory St Vincent states,* that frogs and toads 



* Voyages aux Quatri lies d'Afrique. 



