Joseph C. Mitchell

Department of Biology

University of Richmond

Richmond, Virginia 23173

Two of the three unpublished manuscripts on amphibians and reptiles written by John B. Lewis (1868-1957) have appeared in earlier issues of this journal (Mitchell, 1990a, 1990b). Both of these were compilations of information accumulated over several years while Lewis was employed by the Wildlife Research Unit of Virginia Polytechnic Institute. After his retirement, Lewis was hired at the age of 72 as the naturalist of the Seward Experimental Forest, owned by the University of Virginia. The largest tract was in Brunswick County between its eastern border and the town of Triplett. Lewis worked there between 1940 and 1946 where he concentrated his efforts on botanical surveys, although he accumulated records on all of the vertebrates.

Three Lewis manuscripts were mentioned in a report on the Seward Forest to the University of Virginia as being "ready for the printer and only awaited lifting of the wartime ban on the use of paper" (Anonymous, 1971). Perhaps the three manuscripts published as a series in Catesbeiana are those to which this line referred. If so, economic and wartime conditions precluded their publication in the 1940s. The Seward Forest amphibian manuscript by John B. Lewis is reproduced in its entirety here. Only misspellings have been corrected and current scientific names have been added in brackets.

-----------------------------------------------------

"Very little effort has been made at collecting and studying amphibians. Most of the species treated here were picked up while collecting plants. The classification and nomenclature are from Jordan's Manual of the Vertebrate Animals, edition of 1929. Specimens of most of the species treated here have been preserved in alcohol and are now in the Seward Forest collection.

Family Pleurodelidae [Salamandridae] The Newts

Triturus viridescens (Rafinesque) [Notophthalmus viridescens]. Newt.

A small lizard-like creature about 3 1/2 inches long, usually found in water, but comes out often in wet weather to wander about in woods and weedy places.

Family Ambystomatidae The Mole Salamanders

Ambystoma maculatum Shaw. Spotted Salamander

Occasional under rotten logs or damp leaf mold in woods, and in swampy places under decaying vegetation.

Ambystoma texanum (Matthes). No common name.

One specimen collected to date, from the branch below the Seward Forest spring, March 12, 1942.

Family Plethodontidae The Lungless Salamanders.

Plethodon glutinosus (Green). No common name.

One specimen known to date, caught near a small pool in woods near Seward Forest headquarters, June 13, 1940.

Aneides aeneus (Cope & Packard). No common name.

One specimen caught in a mouse trap in mixed woods, on the slope of a steep bluff south side of Rattlesnake Creek a half mile above Wrights Bridge on November 22, 1940. Specimen preserved in formaldehyde.

Family Amphiumidae The Congo Snakes.

Amphiuma means Garden. Congo Snake.

One specimen known to date. It was caught in a 1 1/2 inch iron pipe that is used as a special outlet for a recently made pond near the Seward Forest headquarters. This pipe had been partly covered at the outlet end, and the creature had evidently entered it at the intake end and was too large to pass through the restricted outlet. It was dead when taken out. Its length was 25 inches. It was caught August 8, 1944. It is now in the Seward Forest Collection.

Family Pelobatidae The Burrowing Toads, Spadefoot Toads. [Scaphiopus holbrookii]

These rarely seen and most interesting creatures have held one carnival in hearing distance of Seward Forest headquarters in the five years of my residence here.

On June 13, 1941 as very heavy rain fell early in the afternoon. About 4 PM I heard the loud screaming of these toads and following the sounds, soon located them in a shallow rain pool near where the Seward Forest road east from the Saw Mill joins the "Hells Island" public road about one third of a mile east of headquarters. The water was alive with them, most of them screaming. Three specimens, a female and two males, were collected and preserved in alcohol. No. 13. I had previously witnessed one such event in Amelia County.

The night of July 30, 1937, I had a fine opportunity to observe these interesting toads in a rain pool near my home in central Amelia County. The screaming started just after dark, in a pool about 6 inches deep. With the aid of a strong flashlight I watched the males as they floated on the water. When the impulse to sing seized them they puffed their throats out to such an extent that it floated them above the water so that the white undersurface of the front end of the body was distinctly visible. In my sixty years of observing wild creatures I have had only three experiences with these camp meetings of the spadefoot toads.

Family Bufonidae The Toads.

Bufo americanus Holbrook. Common Toad.

Fairly common and well distributed, though it seems to prefer the farm yard and door yard, especially through the summer, after it leaves the ponds and swamps where it goes to breed.

Bufo fowleri Garman [Bufo woodhousii fowleri]. Fowler's Toad.

Probably more numerous than B. americanus, and comes out of hibernation a little earlier in the spring. Its song is much shorter than that of americanus and gives the impression that its utterance puts the singer under a great strain.

Family Hylidae The Tree Frogs.

Acris gryllus (Le Conte). Cricket Frog.

This tiny frog is fairly common and becomes quite noisy in early spring, when it resorts to swamps and ponds to breed. Dr. Jordan describes its notes as "resembling the rattling of pebbles."

Pseudacris feriarum (Baird). Swamp Tree Frog

One of our most abundant frogs and one of the earliest to begin to sing in spring, usually turning up in the first warm days in February. It is also one of the smallest of our frogs, it and the spring peeper tying for that honor. The total length of the head and body is one inch. Its song is a series of rather slow notes following each other in a rising scale.

Hyla versicolor Le Conte. Tree Toad.

Common in deciduous trees, singing in warm, damp weather by day or night alike. A most interesting species, changing its color to some extent to match its surroundings. Its life is spent in trees except for a few days in spring when it goes to ponds and swamps to breed.

Hyla crucifer Weid. Spring Peeper.

Abundant and very noisy in early spring, when it congregates in swamps and about ponds to breed in large numbers. At such times its chorus of ear-splitting peeps may be heard at a long distance.

Family Ranidae The Frogs.

Rana catesbeiana Shaw. Bullfrog.

Occasional about the larger swamps and ponds. Also sometimes along the larger streams, mostly in woods. On August 25, 1941 I found a partly eaten specimen on the bank of Triplett Pond, with a head and body length of 5 3/4 inches. Its deep bass notes are quite pleasing when heard at some distance.

Rana clamitans Latreille. Green Frog.

A specimen collected at the new pond near Seward Forest headquarters on August 24, 1944. Probably not common.

Rana pipiens Schreber. Leopard Frog.

Common about ponds and stream banks. Quite noisy in early spring.

Rana sphenocephala Cope. Southern Leopard Frog.

On November 3, 1943, a specimen of this frog was caught in a mouse trap set in tall grasses and sedges in the old mill pond bed of what is known locally as the old Clipper Mill, on Rattlesnake Creek about 3 miles southwest of Triplett. No other specimens have been seen."

 

Discussion

Lewis apparently misidentified two species of salamanders represented by single specimens and one frog which was apparently common. Jordan (1929) describes Ambystoma texanum as "blackish, usually plumbeous shades and specks; head small, short, broad; body slender; skin very smooth and slippery; snout very short, the lower jaw projecting beyond it. Costal grooves 14." I do not think this description would have caused Lewis to mistake what he saw for the mole salamander, A. talpoideum, because Jordan (1929) included another description for that species and noted that it has 10 costal grooves. The above description more likely allows interpretation as A. mabeei; it has 13 costal grooves (Pague and Mitchell, 1991). It was not included in Jordan (1929) because the original description had been published only the year before (Bishop, 1928) and was probably unknown to Jordan. Mabee's salamander occurs approximately 60 km to the east in Southampton County (Mitchell and Hedges, 1980). Its occurrence in Brunswick County would not be zoogeographically improbable.

It is difficult to determine what Lewis identified as Aneides aeneus, the green salamander. Jordan (1929) described it as "black, with large blotches of greenish or coppery; costal grooves 14; toes dilated at tip. Teeth enlarged, confined to front part of mouth; hind part of maxilla knife-edged" and noted that it occurred in the Cumberland Mts. of Virginia and Tennessee. Lewis noted that the salamander was caught on the slope of a steep bluff on the south side of Rattlesnake Creek. This suggests that a north-facing slope may have provided a cool microhabitat on a cliff face, appropriate conditions for green salamanders. However, the presence of a population of Aneides at this site on the eastern margin of the Virginia Piedmont seems improbable, given the known distribution of this species (Conant, 1975; Tobey, 1985; Mitchell and Pague, unpublished). Could an isolated population have existed several hundred kilometers east of its known range? Or what did Lewis really see?

Lewis may have been confused on the identification of pickerel (Rana palustris) and southern leopard frogs (Rana utricularia = R. sphenocephala). The northern leopard frog (Rana pipiens) is not known to occur in Virginia (Conant, 1975; Mitchell and Pague, in preparation). Jordan (1929) described Rana pipiens as "Green, usually bright, with irregular black blotches edged with whitish, these mostly in 2 irregular rows on back; usually 2 spots between the eyes; legs barred above; belly pale; head rather elongate." This description could have been interpreted wrongly, especially since the dorsal patterns of pickerel frogs and southern leopard frogs are quite variable. It may be that he only saw southern leopard frogs. In any case, Rana pipiens should not be listed as part of the Seward Forest frog fauna, although Rana palustris should be included.

Lewis noted that Fowler's toads emerged from hibernation earlier than American toads. This observation is reversed as the American toad is the first to be encountered in the early spring (Mitchell, 1986).

Jordan (1929) did not list the northern cricket frog, Acris crepitans, because at that time A. gryllus included what we now know as two species. Both should have occurred in the Seward Forest.

Lewis' observations of three species (Ambystoma maculatum, Notophthalmus viridescens, Pseudacris feriarum) constitute new literature records for Brunswick County (Tobey, 1985; Mitchell and Pague, unpublished). The gray treefrogs (formerly all listed as Hyla versicolor) heard in the trees was most likely Cope's gray treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis). The eastern gray treefrog (H. versicolor) is known from Brunswick County only along the western margin, whereas records exist for Cope's gray treefrog in the Seward Forest area (Mitchell and Pague, unpublished). The slimy salamander Lewis caught was probably the redescribed Atlantic coastal slimy salamander, Plethodon chlorobryonis (Highton et al., 1989).

In several places in the manuscript, Lewis noted that he placed preserved specimens in the Seward Forest collection. That collection was salvaged around 1970 by Robert D. Ross, who maintained fish, amphibian, and reptile collections at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI&SU). Unfortunately, many of the specimens that Lewis preserved had dried up and were discarded. The VPI&SU fish and herpetology collections were later (1985) donated to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Unfortunately, none of Lewis' specimens have survived, as the AMNH amphibian catalogue contains no entries from the original Seward Forest collection for the years 1940-1946.

The Seward Experimental Forest was sold to timber companies in 1975 and all of the old growth forest remaining on the original 3571 acres has been logged (James R. Batman, personal communication, August 1989). The herpetology of the area was surveyed in more detail by W. Leslie Burger in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Unfortunately his manuscript on the amphibians and reptiles of the Seward Forest area, containing a more accurate list of these animals, cannot be located. We are left wondering how much Lewis contributed to the herpetology of the area and how the biodiversity of the Seward Forest may have been changed by the alteration of the forest.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Christina Bolgiano for introducing me to the University of Virginia Archives where Lewis' manuscripts are housed (Seward Forest Archives, #10,026). Permission to reproduce this manuscript was given by the Curator of Manuscripts/University Archivist of the Alderman Library. Kurt A. Buhlmann criticized the original manuscript.

Literature Cited

Anonymous. 1971. The Seward Forest. Unpublished report submitted to the President of the University of Virginia by the Arboretum Committee. 24 pages + VII appendices.

Bishop, S.C. 1928. Notes on some amphibians and reptiles from the

southeastern states, with a description of a new salamander from North Carolina. J. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc. 43:153-170.

Conant, R. 1975. A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, MA. 429 pp.

Highton, R., G.C. Maha, and L.R. Maxson. 1989. Biochemical evolution in the slimy salamanders of the Plethodon glutinosus complex in eastern United States. Illinois Biol. Monogr. 57:1-153.

Jordan, D.S. 1929. A Manual of the Vertebrates of the Northern United States Inclusive of the Marine Species. 13th edition, Yonkers on the Hudson, World Book Co., New York.

Mitchell, J.C. 1986. Life history patterns in a central Virginia frog

community. Virginia J. Sci. 37:262-271.

. 1990a. Contributions to the history of Virginia herpetology I: John B. Lewis' "List of amphibians observed in Amelia, Brunswick, and Norfolk Counties." Catesbeiana 10:3-9.

. 1990b. Contributions to the history of Virginia herpetology II: John B. Lewis' "List of reptiles observed in Amelia, Brunswick, and Norfolk Counties." Catesbeiana 10:36-42.

Mitchell, J.C. and S.B. Hedges. 1980. Ambystoma mabeei Bishop

(Caudata: Ambystomatidae): An addition to the salamander fauna of Virginia. Brimleyana 3:119-121.

Pague, C.A. and J.C. Mitchell. 1991. Ambystoma mabeei Bishop, Mabee's salamander. In K. Terwilliger (Coordinator), Virginia's Endangered Species. McDonald and Woodward Publ. Co., Blacksburg, VA. (in press)

Tobey, J.F. 1985. Virginia's Amphibians and Reptiles, A

Distributional Survey. Privately Printed, VA Herpetol. Soc.,

Purcellville, VA. 114 pp.