From A. R. Carrington   15 November 1880

Sir,

In reading one of your books lately, I came to a passage in which the non-existence of frogs in New Zealand is mentioned—¹ Some ten years ago I was in New Zealand, and attached to a Surveying party under Government.— We were engaged in traversing the bed of a very rocky mountain stream near a new digging settlement called Te Tiki situated on the Coromandel peninsula, not far from Kapanga or Coromandel— We had our camp in a very remote and almost inaccessible part of the range by the side of the stream and one day when I was off duty and engaged in tracing a small vein of quartz across the bed of the stream with the hope of finding gold, I found a small green frog in a crevice— It was about the size of the little green tree frogs found in the south of Europe, only of a darker green & slightly blotched with black or dark brown, and its feet were only partially webbed— I kept it in a match box for some time but it died, and having no spirit I was unable to preserve it— I lived in NZ altogether about 5 years, nearly always in the Bush, and this is the only one I ever saw or heard of—with the exception of some ordinary brown frogs w^h. were said to have been found in the settled districts near Auckland, but for these I cannot answer—² I have taken the liberty of writing, as I thought the above facts, for which I can vouch, might be of interest to you—

I am, Sir, | faithfully yours | A. R. Carrington (Lecturer on Field-Engineering &c. RA.C)