2. Batrachians. 



By 

 LARS GABRIEL ANDERSSON. 



This collection contains 13, or, if a Rappia-species that has not been identified 

 is counted in, 14 species, represented by 176 specimens. 



Professor Lönnberg has already before pointed out how the delayed rain}^ season 

 badly effected the collecting of the reptiles, and, of course, this must be the case in 

 a still higher degree regarding such water-loving animals as the batrachians. Dnring 

 the first months of the Expedition the batrachian life was perfectly inconspicuous; 

 only occasionally it happened that some single specimen could be found at some moist 

 place. First towards the end of the Expedition the rain began to fall, and the ba- 

 trachian life woke up. Thus, nearly all the batrachians were obtained during the last 

 two or three weeks. Nairobi was in accordance herewith the principal place for col- 

 lecting batrachians, although many specimens were obtained in the forests of Mount 

 Kenia, and on the steppe region between Kenia and Nairobi as well. 



Regarding the geographical distribution of the species collected, three belong 

 to the whole Ethiopian region, viz. Råna mascareniensis, Råna oxyrhyncha, and Bufo 

 regularis, two are distributed över the whole East-South-African region, viz. Phryno- 

 batrachus natalensis and Cassina senegalensis, two are chiefly southern species, but 

 ranging as far to the North as to British East Africa, viz. Cacosternum boettgeri which 

 hitherto is known with certainty only from South Africa, and Phrynomantis bifasciata 

 which to my knowledge has not been found further north than at Tana river; two 

 belong probably to the North-Eastern fauna, viz. Arthroleptis minutus and Phrynoba- 

 trachus acridoides, and three to East- Africa proper, viz. Råna nutti, Rappia symelrica 

 and Bufo lönnbergi, which latter is described here as new. One species at last, Rap- 

 pia concolor, seems to be distributed across the middle part of the continent to the 

 Gold Coast. 



K. Sv. Vet, Akad. Handl. Band 47. N:o 6. 4 



