reptiliA. 127 
BATRACHIA SALIENTIA. 
Fam. DACTYLETHRiDiE. Dr. Gray describes the tadpole of a 
West African Batracliian as the type of a new form which he 
names Silurana intertropicalis (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1864, 
xiv. p. 315) . In a paper published some weeks afterwards in 
the ^Proceedings of the Zoological Society^ (p. 458), he enters 
more minutely into the affinities of this tadpole, which is distin- 
guished by a pair of long maxillary barbels gradually becoming 
shorter with the growth of the animal, and admits the possi- 
bility of its finally proving to be the young state of Dactyletfira. 
However, he thinks that our present knowledge of this tadpole 
is not complete enough to admit of our proving its identity with 
Daciylethray and he therefore retains the genus Silurartaj dis- 
tinguishing it by the thickened, shield -like/^ dorsal integument. 
The Recorder may add that Silurana without doubt sheds its 
integuments, as other Batracliians, towards the close of the me- 
tamorphosis, and that Prof. Peters, in his unpublished work on 
Mozambique Reptiles, as well as Prof. Wyman (Proc. Bost. Soc. 
ix. p. 155), have described or figured this tadpole as a young Dac- 
tylethra. 
Dr. Gray shows in the same paper that all the old specimens 
of Dactylethra in the British Museum have the small appendage 
below the orbit considered by Peters peculiar to his mul- 
leri ; he therefore supposes that D. Icevis is founded upon speci- 
mens in which the appendage has been overlooked, or acciden- 
tally disappeared, and that D. mulleri is identical with D. Idevis, 
Fam. Ranidae. No Batracliian of this family had been known 
from Australia; the Recorder (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1864, p. 46) 
describes one which is the type of a new genus, Mixophyes : 
habit as in Rana ; tongue not notched ; vomerine teeth in two 
series; lower jaw without tooth-like apophyses; tympanum dis- 
tinct. No finger opposite to the others ; web between the toes 
well developed ; a long, compressed, subsemicircular tubercle at 
the metatarsus. M. fasciolatusj pi. 7. fig. 1, from the Clarence 
River. 
Rana temporaria is very common in the Upper Engadin, and is generally 
found in the Alps at an altitude of from 7000 to 8000 feet, whilst R. escu- 
hnta never leaves the lower country. It is not probable that the metamor- 
phosis of these frogs extends over two years in the Alpine regions ; hut the 
period of propagation may vary and the development of the larvae may be 
retarded according to the different elevations. Frogs engaged in copulation, 
and larvae considerably advanced in their metamorphosis may he seen in the 
month of June in pools covered with ice, or in water the temperature of 
which is at the freezing-point. Fatio, in Bihl. Univ. 1864, p. 270. 
Rana cceruleo-punctata, sp. n., Steindachner, Verb. zool. hot. Ges. Wien, 
1864, p. 264, taf. 15. fig^ 1 (habitat unknown) ; Rana icUsy Steind. 1. c. p. 266, 
taf. 12. fig. 1, from Madagascar, very probably identical with R. ntascanensis 
