N. marsupiatum is green with darker blue-green spots, or with longitudinal patches which are each surrounded by a whitish or yellow seam of little dots. The limbs have cross-bars. Total length about 2½ to 3 inches. The eggs of this species are comparatively small and numerous. The very small tadpoles have no external gills, and escape from the pouch to finish their metamorphosis in the water.
N. testudineum, about 3 inches in length, is of a uniform lead-colour, but is lighter beneath. The skin of the back is studded with stellate calcareous deposits, a peculiarity which is alluded to in the specific name.
N. oviferum is brown above, with darker patches on the sides of the body and with cross-bars on the limbs. The last two species and N. fissipes of Brazil, near Pernambuco, carry their young in the pouch until the metamorphosis is completed. This long nursing-period necessitates a great amount of food-yolk in the eggs, and this enlargement in turn implies a considerable reduction in their number. The female's load consists of about fifteen eggs only, but these are of a great size, namely one-eighth of the length of the mother's body.
N. pygmaeum, in Venezuela, is a tiny creature. The female, just one inch in length, carries only from four to seven eggs. It looks then "as if it carried a sac filled with a few gigantic balls." This species is further worthy of note on account of the opening of the brood-pouch, which is a longitudinal slit, whence a kind of thin and slightly elevated ridge or fold of the skin extends on to the neck. The suggestion, that this seam is burst open, in order to set the full-grown young free, instead of their passing through the existing opening, is scarcely credible.
These Neotropical tree-frogs seem to be rare, and females with embryos are of course still more uncommon, so that the best account of their structure is still that given by Weinland[[88]] of N. oviferum. How the eggs get into the pouch has not yet been observed, but it is most likely with the help of the male, immediately after fertilisation. The pouch forms two blind sacs which extend forwards over the sides of the back. The eggs are large, 1 cm. in diameter, and the enclosed embryos, or rather tadpoles, had a length of 15 mm., with a large amount of yolk still contained in the spirally wound intestine. The first two gill-arches carried each a double thread, which expanded into a funnel-shaped membrane, not unlike the flower of a Convolvulus, and furnished with a capillary network; the stalk contained muscular fibres. These most peculiar structures are of course the much modified external gills. Those of N. testudineum and N. cornutum are likewise bell-shaped.
Hylella differs from Hyla chiefly by the absence of vomerine teeth, and consists of about half-a-dozen small species, about one inch in length. The fact that two species live in Queensland and New Guinea, while the others are natives of tropical America, suggests that this genus is not a natural but an artificial assembly, an instance of convergent evolution.
Phyllomedusa, composed of about one dozen species of tree-frogs, is characterised by the vertically contracted pupil, large adhesive discs, and the opposable nature of the inner finger and of the hallux, the last joints of which are like thumbs. The sacral diapophyses are strongly dilated. The range of the genus extends from tropical Central America to Buenos Aires. Most of the species are about 2 inches in length, blue-green to violet above, with white purple-edged patches on the sides of the body; the under parts uniform white, or with purple or brown patches. The male has a subgular vocal sac. Some have more or less distinct parotoid glands. Ph. dacnicolor of Mexico is uniform green above, whitish below, and attains a size of more than 3 inches. In Ph. bicolor of Brazil, the skin of the upper parts is studded with calcareous deposits, and the parotoids are large. It is blue-green above, purplish white below, the sides of the body and limbs with white purple-edged spots.
Ph. hypochondrialis has been found breeding freely in the Paraguayan Chaco by Budgett,[[89]] from whose account the following notes have been extracted. This brilliantly coloured frog is green above, which colour may become brown-grey or bluish at will; below, white and granular. The flanks are scarlet, with black transverse bars, and the plantar surfaces are deep purplish black. Total length about 1½ inch.
The "Wollunnkukk," as it is called by the Indians, from the call of both male and female at pairing time, is extremely slow in its movements, and is active only at night. At this time, if it is seen by the aid of a lantern as it slowly climbs over the low bushes and grass, it is very conspicuous. In the daytime, however, nothing is seen but the upper surface of the body as it lies on the green leaf of a plant. It has a remarkable power of changing its colour to harmonise with its surroundings, and can effect a change from the brightest green to light chocolate in a few minutes. The skin is also directly sensitive to light; for if the frog is exposed to the sun while in a tuft of grass in such a way that shadows of blades of grass fall across it, on removal it will be found that dark shadows of the grasses remain on the skin, while the general colour has been raised to a lighter shade. Its food consists largely of young locusts. The ovaries on each side are divided into five distinct clusters. The rectum has a large saccular diverticulum, which is very heavily pigmented.
In the breeding season–December to February–this beautiful frog collects in considerable numbers in the neighbourhood of pools. During the night-time they call incessantly to one another, and produce a sound as of a dozen men breaking stones, well imitated by the native name.