FROGS AND TOADS 
205 
The Tree-frogs represent one of the most distinct 
groups of the tribe. All its members are more or less 
arboreal in their habits, repairing to the water only 
during the breeding-season, or leav’ng the trees to seek 
shelter in the earth or underneath stones or timber for 
the purposes of hibernation. As an adaptation for their 
special habits, the toes of the tree-frogs are provided 
at their tips with suctorial disks, so that they can walk 
on perpendicular or smoothly glazed surfaces after the 
manner of the Geckos among the Lizards. Another 
characteristic feature is the development on the under 
surface of their bodies of peculiar granular glands pierced 
by numerous pores, through the medium of which they 
rapidly absorb the moisture deposited by dew or rain 
on the surfaces of the leaves among which they live. 
The colours of the tree-frogs harmonise, as a rule, so com- 
pletely with those of their leafy environments that their 
presence very readily escapes, detection. Many of the 
species, moreover, rival the chamaeleon in their capacity 
of quickly adapting their tints to that of a newly occu- 
pied surrounding. Green is naturally the dominant 
ground-tint of these frogs. Often, however, it is inter- 
mixed with stripes and bands of other colours, while 
sometimes the green hue is entirely replaced, as in the 
Blue or Bicoloured Tree-frog of South America, 
which is brilliant azure above and pure white beneath. 
A very beautiful Australian species, abundant in Tasmania 
and Victoria, and appropriately named the Golden Tree- 
frog, has its grass-green overcoat thickly overlaid and 
embroidered with, as it were, the purest beaten gold. 
One small species of tree-frog is common on the 
European Continent, its distribution extending to North 
Africa and eastward throughout Asia north of the Himalaya to Japan. The species is 
imported into England in considerable numbers, and readily becomes acclimatised in a conserva- 
tory. Green above and whitish 
beneath constitute the prevailing 
tints of this species, such uni- 
formity being, however, varied by 
the presence of a darker, often 
nearly black, light-edged streak, 
that extends from the snout through 
the eye and ear along each side 
of the body, and sends a branch 
upwards and forwards on the loins. 
The male of this European species 
shares with many others of its 
tribe the possession of a large 
external vocal sac, which when 
inflated bulges out from the throat 
in a spherical form to dimen- 
sions little inferior to those of 
the creature’s body. It may be 
Phot9 by SaviUe-K»nt . F.Z.S.^ Milforc* -cn~S6a 
QUEENSLAND TREE-FROGS 
TAis specie^ is in the habit of making itself at home in 
chamber ‘water-jugs 
Phoio b) H. G. F* Spurrell^ J 
COMMON TOAD 
Toads are accredited 'with attaining an age of server al hundred years 
[ Eastbourne 
14 
