Arboreal Habits.

Hyla ewingii is a true climbing-frog, but according to Mr. J. J. Fletcher it has, at least in Australia, altogether or nearly lost the arboreal habits of a tree-frog. In Westland, however, it still seems to do a fair amount of climbing.

Mr. A. P. Harper, of Greymouth, in a letter to me, gives the following account of their climbing propensities: “I have personally seen these frogs (Hyla ewingii) crawling over black-berry bushes at a height of from six to eight feet above the ground, and also in the middle of a patch of berry, five yards by three at least. They even crawl along the thorny stems. I have also seen them on the macrocarpa and in the branches of the natural creepers on a dead tree-stem. The highest these frogs climb above the ground is, I should say, about eight feet. On one old tree-stem covered with creepers, ferns, &c. (as one so often sees here) there are nearly always some singing-frogs. It is just above a pool which exists in wet weather only. I rather think they climb when the pools are dry, but I am not sure.”

Several that escaped from me on the 9th March I afterwards found clinging to the top of grass-stems about two feet from the ground. Whether the abundance of bush in Westland has stimulated the frog to make use of a power which it has almost lost in Australia is difficult to decide. At any rate, the frog's environment in Westland would certainly be conducive to tree-climbing, and the abundance of undergrowth and creepers would make it very easy work.