Art. XXV.—On the New Zealand Frog.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 12, 1879, Page 250

Art. XXV.—On the New Zealand Frog. By Dr. Fitzinger. Translated from the Zoology of the Voyage of the “Novara,” by Professor Hutton. [Read before the Otago Institute, 14th October, 1879.] Family Bombinatoridœ. Auditory passage imperfectly developed; transverse processes of the sacral vertebræ triangular, flat; no paratoids. (Fingers and toes not dilated at the tips; maxillary teeth). Genus Leiopelma, Fitz. Tympanum, sacs, and auditory tubes wanting; teeth in the upper jaw, and in two faint oblique rows on the palate, behind and between the interior nares. Tongue roundish, more or less margined. Fingers free. Toes half webbed. Projection of the navicular bone small. L. Hochstetteri, Fitz. Verhandl. d. zool-bot. Gesellschaft zu Wien, Jahrg 1861; XI; pag. 218, Taf. VI. Body moderately compressed. Eyes rather large; muzzle rather longer than the eye; exterior nostrils rather nearer to the eye than to the end of the muzzle. A glandular fold between the posterior corner of the eye and the shoulder; a second from the eyes, along the sides of the body to the thighs. Several warts about the corner of the mouth, and a few smaller ones on the back and on the sides of the rump. Two smooth, yellow callosities on the palm of the hand, one on the metacarpus of the thumb, and one near that of the fourth finger. Fingers and toes depressed. Toes connected by the web for about half their length, the free part bordered by the membrane. Projection of the navicular bone faintly elevated. A dark-grey triangular band between the eyes, in front of which is a broadish and lighter oblique stripe; hind limbs with broad cross bands on a yellowish-brown ground. Belly and sides of rump dirty grey-violet, marbled with yellowish-brown; a

light oblique streak running down from the anterior and posterior corners of the eye, and diverging to the rim of the upper jaw. Male without sound-bag. Coromandel, near Auckland.