Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia Volume II Part 52

84. Hydraspis australis, t. 6.

Body ovate, back dark olive, rather convex, rounded on the middle of the sides, with a narrow reflexed edge, shelving behind with a broad expanded margin; vertebral s.h.i.+elds broad, six-sided, last subtriangular; beneath rather convex, yellow, shelving on the sides; the second marginal plate with an angular lobe produced into the suture between the vertebral and first costal plates; claws sharp, black; skin of head and limbs smooth.

Inhabits Western Australia ?

The back covered with conferva.

85. Chelodina longicollis.

Mr. Gould brought two large specimens of this species, which are much more ovate and convex than Dr. Shaw's specimens. They are 7 inches long by 6 wide. It may be a particular variety, or they may become more ovate as they increase in size, The sternal s.h.i.+elds (in specimens preserved in brine) are pale yellow, with black edges.

86. Chelodina oblonga, t. 7.

Sh.e.l.l oblong, rather contracted in front, with a broad impression on the middle of the back; back olive brown, with irregular anastomosing lines on the s.h.i.+elds; beneath reddish-yellow. The marginal plates longer than broad, the second larger than the first and third; and rather angularly produced in the middle of the inner edge, opposite the suture between the first dorsal and first costal plate; the sternum high, flat, strongly and sharply keeled on the sides.

Inhabits Western Australia.

This species is at once known from Chelodina longicollis by the form of its high, flat sternum, which is strongly keeled on the sides, and by this part being of a uniform reddish colour, without any dark margin to the plates; the hinder part of the sternum is only slightly concavely truncated, and not deeply notched.

It is also known from that old well-known species by its oblong depressed form, and by the form of the marginal plates, and especially from the second and eleventh marginal plates on each side being placed more forwards, so that the centre of their inner edge is opposite the suture of the first and last costal plates with the dorsal ones; instead of their front margin, as is the case with all the specimens of Chelodina longicollis I have seen.

This species grows to a large size. Mr. Gould brought a specimen which he gave to Mr. Bell, which is 11 inches long, and the neck is nearly equally long, very thick, and studded with large warts; the head is broad and depressed, covered with a thin skin, like a Trionyx, and marked with small thin scales.

92. Cystignathus dorsalis.

The palatine teeth in a single large straight line, just behind the inner nostrils; tongue large, slightly nicked behind, the tympanum nearly hid under the skin; gray-brown (in spirits) marbled with dark irregular spots, with a white streak down the middle of the forehead and front of the back; sides pure white, spotted and marbled with black; beneath white; toes elongate, slender, tapering; back part of thighs brown, white speckled.

Inhabits Western Australia. Mr. Gould.

This species is very distinct from C. peronii and C. georgia.n.u.s, the two Australian species described by Messieurs Dumeril and Bibron. It agrees with the former in the disposition of the palatine teeth.

HELIOPORUS, Gray.

Head short, swollen; eyes large, convex; palatine teeth in a straight interrupted ridge between the two internal nostrils; teeth very small; body swollen; skin of the back minutely granular, of the belly smooth; legs rather short; toes 4.5, short, warty beneath, quite free; the hind wrist with a large, oblong, compressed, internal tubercle; the base of the inner finger with a conical wart, ending in a small acute bony process; tongue large, entire behind.

This genus has many of the characters of Cystignathus, but differs from it in being warty and swollen, and in having short toes like a toad.

94. Helioporus albo punctatus, t. 1 f. 2.

Lead-coloured (in spirits) with white spots; beneath dirty white, with some small white warts at the angle of the mouth; legs smooth.

Inhabits Western Australia.

103. Hyla Adelaidensis, Gray, t. 8 f. 2.

Slender; fore-toes quite free, hinder toes webbed to the last joint; (in spirits) gray-blue, with a series of small oblong tubercles; the sides purple-brown with a white streak from the underside of the eyes to the shoulders; sides of the belly and region of the vent purplish, with small white spots; the hinder side of the thighs purple-brown, with three large oblong white spots; belly and under side of thighs granular; chin white, brownish dotted; palatine teeth in two roundish groups between the internal nostrils.

Inhabits Western Australia.

104. Hyla binoculata, Gray, t. 8, f. 1.

Slender; fore-toes quite free; hinder toes webbed to the last joint.

Grayish white (in spirits) with a series of very small, indistinct, oblong tubercles, with a dark streak from the nostrils to the shoulder, enclosing the eyes, and a white streak below it from the underside of the eye; sides purplish, with small white spots; back of the thighs purple, with two yellow spots; belly and underside of thighs whitish, granular.

Var. 1. Back of thighs with one or two additional yellow spots.

Var. 2. Back bluish gray; back of the thighs with six or seven small subequal yellow spots.

Inhabits Western Australia.

UPEROLEIA, Gray.

Head large; palate quite toothless; upper jaw with small close teeth; tympanum hid under the skin; toes of the fore and hind feet elongate, slender, quite free; ankle with a roundish external and a small conical inner tubercle; tongue small, oblong, roundish, and entire behind.

This genus is most nearly allied to Leiuperus of Messieurs Dumeril and Bibron, with which it agrees in having no teeth on the palate, but it differs from it in the tympanum being quite hid.

The internal nostrils are some distance in front of the cross-ridge on which the palatine teeth are generally placed.

105. Uperoleia marmorata.

Black and green marbled, leaving a triangular greenish spot on the forehead, beneath lead colour.

Inhabits Western Australia.

Dr. Tschudi has formed a genus under the name of Crinia, which appears by his characters to be nearly related to the above; but Messieurs Dumeril and Bibron (Erp. Gen. 8 416) observe that the specimens he described have two very small groups of teeth on the vomer.

107. Breviceps gouldii, t. 1 f. 1.

Smooth, with a few scattered low tubercles; gray-brown (in spirits), yellowish beneath.

Inhabits Western Australia.

This animal has all the external appearance and character, as far as they are given in Messieurs Dumeril and Bibron's work, of the Breviceps gibbosus of the Cape of Good Hope, except that it has not the yellow dorsal band, and the back is scarcely to be designated as granular. It is the second species of the genus, and only the second Toad found in Australia.

APPENDIX F.

Notes on some Insects from King George's Sound, collected and presented to the British Museum by CAPTAIN GEORGE GREY, by ADAM WHITE, Esquire, British Museum, in a letter addressed to the author.

DEAR SIR,

Fabricius was the first, or among the earliest, Entomologists who described the Annulose animals of New Holland, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. At the time he published his Systema Entomologiae (1775) these parts of the world had been visited by but few persons, and I believe that all the species he described as coming from them he found in the collection which was made by Sir Joseph Banks and Dr. Solander on their well-known voyage with Captain Cook; that collection was presented to the Linnean Society of London. Several of the original specimens have been figured in the works of Olivier and Donovan, and it is perhaps unnecessary to say that modern Entomologists often refer to these specimens as the typical examples. As far as I am aware the next important addition to the Entomology of New Holland was made by Dr.

Schreibers of Vienna,* which was followed by that of Mr. Marsham.** All the specimens described by these entomologists were most probably collected by travellers touching only at certain points on the coast.

(*Footnote. Linnean Transactions 6 pages 185 to 206, tab. 19 to 21 1802.

Descriptions of some Singular Coleopterous Insects by Charles Schreibers, M.D., Deputy Professor of Natural History in the University of Vienna.

Luca.n.u.s aeneus (Lamprima Latr.) Scarabaeus proboscideus (Elephastomus Macleay). Cetonia philipsii (Schizorhina Kirby) Silpha lachrymosa (Ptomaphila Hope). Clerus fasciculatus. Prionus lepidopterus (Tragocerus Dejean) Cerambix giraffa (Gnoma) Cer. fichtelii (Enicodes G.R. Gray) Scarites schroetteri (Hyperion Lap.) all new, and a singular Brasilian genus, Scarabaeus dytiscoides (near Anamnesis Vigors and supposed to be the Eucranium arachnoides Dejean Cat. page 150 ed 1837) are all admirably described and figured here.)