Discovering Tree Frogs
Whip:
Here is a recounting of the identifying of tree frogs in the Pine Barrens:
From The American Naturalist, Vol. 38, November-December 1904, Page 893.
HYLA ANDERSONII AND RANA VIRGATIPES AT LAKEHURST, NEW JERSEY.
WILLIAM T. DAVIS.
On the 5th of last September while looking for insects near a swamp at Lakehurst in the pine barrens of New Jersey, the writer was fortunate in finding a specimen of the rare tree frog Hyla andcrsonii Baird. The frog was in a small oak tree standing but a few feet from the swamp. At the time Cope's work on “The Batrachia of North America” was published in 1889, but three specimens had been recorded, namely the type from Anderson, South Carolina; the one collected at Jackson, Camden Co., New Jersey, in 1863 by Leidy, and the third example found by Dr. John E. Peters at May's Landing, Atlantic Co., New Jersey on June first, 1888. A record of this last is to be found in the American Naturalist for January, 1889. In the American Naturalist for December, 1894, J. P. Moore gives an account of two of these tree frogs collected in June, 1889, at Pleasant Mills, New Jersey, and of the many others heard at the time. The frogs, however, disappeared shortly and no others could be found on subsequent visits to the locality. Lakehurst is considerably farther North than the three New Jersey stations mentioned above. It may be well to mention at this time that Rana virgatipes Cope, is also to be found at Lakehurst. The species was originally described from Cape May County, New Jersey.
According to Cope, in Hyla andersonii, “The green of the back and extremities is everywhere margined with pure white, except posteriorly on the femur and tibia, and anteriorly on the former where saffron takes its place.” My living specimen, however, differs from this description and the colored figure, by having the band of pure white extend along the end of the body and a short distance on the posterior margin of each femur.
NEW BRIGHTON, STATEN ISLAND, N. Y.
Best regards,
Jerseyman
