THE FBOG AS PARENT. 69 



In most such cases the peculiar habit of the parent seems to be asso- 

 ciated with an unusual character and development of the eggs. In the 

 common species that have many small eggs, these are left by the parent 

 to develop slowly in the water, where they gi-adually assume a frog- 

 like character. Wliereas species having few and large eggs protect 

 these in some manner until they rapidly turn into frogs with little or 

 none of the aquatic youth we are so used to regard as a sine qua non 

 for a frog. 



We need go no further than the island of Jamaica for examples of 

 the protected eggs. For there, where everything has to compete stren- 

 uously for light and air, the trees themselves support dense popula- 

 tions of plants and these harbor animals of various sorts — amongst 

 them, frogs. One kind of frog in Jamaica lays its eggs in the water 

 that accumulates at the bases of the leaves of Bromelias growing high 

 up on tree trunks, and here the tadpoles have their brief existence. 



Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 



Another frog abandons even this semblance of aquatic life, laying a 

 few very large eggs under stones and 'trash' on the ground, where they 

 may even be many miles distant from the water — and the young develop 

 into small frogs that hatch from the egg without having known what 

 it is to be a tadpole. Stevenson's fable admits of literal application here. 



'Be ashamed of yourself,' said the frog. 'When I was a tadpole I 

 had no tail.' 'Just what I thought,' said the tadpole; 'you never were 

 a tadpole.' 



In this frog, however, there is within the egg a stage when the young 

 is active and has a tadpole form, lacking chiefly the medium in which 

 to express its tadpole possibilities. Not being able to swim with its 

 tail, it yet puts this to good use, for it is richly supplied with blood- 

 vessels and can serve as a breathing organ. 



In the Solomon Islands there is another frog (Rana opisthodon) 

 which lays large eggs, 6-10 nun. thick, on moist ground and not in 



