THE DISTRIBUTION OF HYLA AEENICOLOE 

 COPE, WITH NOTES ON ITS HABITS 

 AND VARIATION 



C. H. RICHARDSON, JR. 

 Stanford University 



Students of zoogeographical distribution are fre- 

 quently hindered by the scarcity and inexactness of the 

 published data in the particular group which they are 

 studying. Especially is this true of students of western 

 North American amphibians, for they must rely largely 

 upon the publications of the early exploring expeditions 

 in which localities were often stated in a most general 

 way and at times with doubtful accuracy. 



Our present knowledge of the distribution of the tree 

 toad, Eyla arenicolor Cope, is very incomplete. Many 

 of the references to its occurrence are extremely indefi- 

 nite and unreliable and in no case has enough material 

 been gathered to give the limits of its range in any one 

 region. It was first discovered and named Eyla affinis 

 by Baird 1 in 1854, the description being based upon one 

 specimen from the state of Sonora, Mexico. Later Cope 2 

 found this name to be preoccupied and replaced it with 

 arenicolor. At the present writing this tree toad is known 

 to inhabit parts of southern California, Utah, Arizona, 

 New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico. Southern California is 

 included in its range on the strength of two specimens 

 collected in 1875 by H. W. Henshaw, 3 and no additional 

 records of its occurrence within the state have been made 

 by the herpetologists who have explored this region. 

 Within the last few years, however, the University of 

 California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology has acquired 

 a number of specimens of Eyla arenicolor from various 



1 Proe. Acad. Nat. Sci. PMla., p. 61. 



'Journal Acad. Nat. Sci. PMla., 1866, p. 84. 



3 Yarrow, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 24, 1882, pp. 24, 175. 



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