THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS SCIENCE BULLETIN Vol. XXXVIII, Pt. II] March 20, 1958 [No. 14 Report on a Collection of Amphibians and Reptiles from Harbel, Republic of Liberia BY Edward H. Taylor * and Dora Weyer ** The collection of Liberian reptiles and amphibians reported herein has been brought together by Mrs. Dora Weyer, the junior author, while residing at The Firestone Rubber Plantations at Harbel, Liberia. Her husband, Dr. Albert E. Weyer, director of sanitation, has assisted her to some extent in this work. The collection contains a number of rarities and certain species are regarded as new. Field notes appearing in quotation marks are those of the junior author, sent with the collection. "All of these specimens come from the main Firestone plantation save one from the Cavalla plantation — very similar ecologically but southeast of Harbel on the Cavalla River. "Ecologically Harbel is in the heaviest rain-forest in Africa. The soil is a gravelly laterite, with many outcroppings of rocks. The large Du and Farmington rivers curve back and forth through the area and there is a multitude of small rivers and creeks tributary to them fed by water from innumerable swamps. This is an area of low hills rising from the coastal sand plain which edges the plantation seaward and lying between each hill and the next is usually a swamp! In fact, the survey map shows 25 percent of the entire area is swamp. "Lastly, of interest from an ecological viewpoint, with the excep-tion of certain experimental plots, the river edges, and the cutover swamp lands, the area is covered with dense rubber forest. In the old rubber forest with trees reaching 75 to 90 feet in height, and where most of the collecting was done, the ground cover is pretty * Department of Zoology, Kansas University, Lawrence, Kansas. * * Firestone Plantations, Harbel, Liberia. (1191) 6—8050
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