THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 147 
body shrunk in, and slowly bent almost double, and the limbs, 
after a few spasmodic quiverings, set rigidly at most extraor- 
dinary angles—in fact the little actor looked most certainly 
dead. Thinking him quite dead, as he did not revive on 
handling, I put him down beside a little pool, when in a flash 
he was hiding amongst. the reed roots on the bottom, thus 
giving a proof of his powers of swimming and of acting. In 
all their movements these funny little toads are most quaint 
and frequently most human, well repaying the trifling trouble 
of keeping them. To deal now with those differences of form 
and habits that it has been my fortune to observe. Taking 
first P. bibronit we may notice that they are to be found round 
the borders of stagnant pools, rarely in any numbers at the 
one place. Hight and ten are the largest numbers I have ever 
found together; solitary specimens or pairs are much more 
frequently met with. I have never found P. bibronii far from 
water. The colouring of P. bibronii seems to-be fairly constant. 
A sooty black to dark brown above, bluish-white mottlings 
beneath, red or reddish yellow patch in the arm-pits, ani- 
formally coloured hands and feet, are the characteristics of 
colouring that I have found constant in all specimens that 
were unmistakably of the species bibronii. I have, moreover, 
never seen these colourings blended with the characteristic 
australis warkings. P. australis is found in‘ large numbers, 
often thirty or more together, in the fallen leaves on the banks 
of small streams. Both at Lindfield and Mosman the habitats 
were practically the same. I have never found P. bébroni? 
among these colonies of P. australis, though a solitary speci- 
men of the latter may be found in the haunts of the former. 
P. australis is a great wanderer; specimens have been turned 
up half a mile from any water, and this accounts for the 
presence of P. australis in the home of P. bibronit, for in every 
case where one was found there was a colony within half a 
mile of the solitary one, while at Ashfield, where no such cover 
as at Mosman or Lindfield exists, P. australis is never found. 
To come now to the colouration of P. australis. In forty 
specimens from Mosman, taken from within a quarter of a mile 
of the haunts of P. bibrontz, none had the sooty-black backs of 
the latter; the colour varied from almost bright-red in some 
to reddish-brown studded with bright spots in others. The 
arms and lees were of a bluish-gray colour, a tint never seen 
in P. bibroniit, the mottling beneath was much the same 
‘as P. bibroniz, but this latter never had the white patches 
on arms and legs so characteristic of P. australis, and one 
marking that I find invariable in the latter and wanting 
entirely in P. bibronti is the white tip to every toe and finger, 
sometimes small, but never wholly absent. The bright red 
markings, such as the red-arm-pitted toad never has, may vary 
considerably but never entirely leave the white-arm-pitted 
