One Of The Most Curious And Interesting Reptiles Which I Met With
In Borneo Was A Large Tree-Frog, Which Was Brought Me By One Of
The Chinese Workmen.
He assured me that he had seen it come down
in a slanting direction from a high tree, as if it flew.
On
examining it, I found the toes very long and fully webbed to
their very extremity, so that when expanded they offered a
surface much larger than the body. The forelegs were also
bordered by a membrane, and the body was capable of considerable
inflation. The back and limbs were of a very deep shining green
colour, the undersurface and the inner toes yellow, while the
webs were black, rayed with yellow. The body was about four
inches long, while the webs of each hind foot, when fully
expanded, covered a surface of four square inches, and the webs
of all the feet together about twelve square inches. As the
extremities of the toes have dilated discs for adhesion, showing
the creature to be a true tree frog, it is difficult to imagine
that this immense membrane of the toes can be for the purpose of
swimming only, and the account of the Chinaman, that it flew down
from the tree, becomes more credible. This is, I believe, the
first instance known of a "flying frog," and it is very
interesting to Darwinians as showing that the variability of the
toes which have been already modified for purposes of swimming
and adhesive climbing, have been taken advantage of to enable an
allied species to pass through the air like the flying lizard.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 57 of 419
Words from 15194 to 15466
of 114260
