/ 



184 DR. N. ANNANDALE ON 



of the Babul Thorn {Acacia arabica Willd.) cover a considerable area, and there are large 

 groves of Cocoanut and Palmyra palms. The sandy wastes, where they are free of salt, 

 bear at intervals scattered bushes of Cassia auricalata Linn, (the yellow flowers of which 

 are most conspicuous), and in some places several of the poorer cereals are cultivated when 

 the rains occur. For the greater part of the year, however, ordinary cultivation is 

 impossible, the beds of the few rivers being dry or containing a very slender stream of 

 water in their depths, and all except a few of the deeper tanks and wells being empty. 

 Between October and January the rainfall is sometimes considerable ; but at all seasons 

 it is liable to fail. There is, close to the town of Ramanad, a basin about five miles 

 square which after heavy rain becomes a lake, and then the rivers are in flood. Even 

 during my visit in August, a few brief and extremely local thunder-storms occurred, and 

 the air, owing to the proximity of the sea, was often very moist. 



My visit to Ramanad was rendered successful largely by the kind offices of the Rev. 

 A. D. Limbrick, of the S.P.G. Mission established in the capital of the subdivision. I 

 am also indebted to the suggestions of Col. A. W. Alcock, F.R.S., at whose recom- 

 mendations the Trustees of the Indian Museum permitted me to go to Southern India. 

 The nomenclature in this paper is that of Boulenger's volume in the " Fauna of India," 

 except when it is otherwise stated. 



BATRACHIA. 



Rana cyanophlyctis. 



The specimens observed were all small, the largest male preserved measuring 41 mm. 

 in length. This frog is very common in the little pools which are formed in the sand by 

 every shower of rain, in wells, and at the edge of the larger tanks. 



In the evening, after a shower of rain, the males became very noisy. Judging 

 from a few tadpoles and young individuals which were seen in August, and from 

 notes made on R. Jimnocharis and Rhacophorus leucomystax in Malaya and Rana tigrina 

 in Calcutta, this croaking of the males means the renewal, to some extent, of sexual 

 activity, but is not, unless climatic conditions are favourable, necessarily followed by 

 breeding. After every shower, however, it appears that a few couples, suddenly aroused, 

 in many cases from torpor, are sufficiently vigorous actually to produce young, which may 

 either perish or survive according to circumstances ; the true breeding season being 

 apparently in the rains. It seems probable, moreover, that fall of comparatively cold 

 water on their bodies affords sufficient stimulus, in the case of many frogs inhabiting warm 

 countries, to induce a renewal both sudden (and it may be, as far as the offsprings are 

 concerned, inconvenient) of the sexual instinct. Mr. E. J. Bles's observations on the 

 breeding habits of Xenopus lavis in captivity ' give very powerful support to this view. 



Rana greenii. 



R. greenii, Boulcnger in Spolia Zeylanica ii. , p. 74. 



A single specimen was obtained at Ramanad which I believe to represent this form 

 It was a female measuring 35 mm. in length. I have gone through the large series in 



1 Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc. XI, p. 220. 



