CAREFUL MOTHERS 



we might call the Resin-frog. This remarkable creature is said to 

 line a hole in a tree with resin, and lay its eggs in this watertight 

 basin, which is filled by the next shower of rain. 

 But recently doubts have been expressed as to 

 whether it is really the frog that conveys the 

 resin to the hole. 



While the frogs hitherto enumerated do no Fig.i8.— GoeldiFrog 



with a pocket of 

 eggs on her back. 

 {After Boulenger) 



more than provide their young with a safe home, 

 and then trouble no further about them, there are 

 frogs in Northern Brazil which lay their eggs in 

 drying sloughs or puddles, and after the tadpoles are hatched they 

 squat down in the puddle, when, with the help of their tails, the 

 tadpoles are able to cHmb on to their backs, where they adhere by 

 suction. Now, burdened with twelve to eighteen tadpoles, the parent 

 frog wanders off in search of a larger puddle, to which she confides 

 her offspring. These frogs, which are often handsomely marked in 

 black and grey or black and red, are known as Tree-climbers, 

 although they spend most of their time on the ground. 



That these remarkable methods of caring for their young are 

 innate is shown by other frogs, which have even been provided with 

 special organs for the better safeguarding of their young. In the 

 so-called Purse Frogs the male arranges the eggs on the back of 

 the female, and here they remain, according to their species, either 

 until they hatch, or until the female deposits them in the water. 



In order to ensure that the eggs shaU remain where they are 



placed, one species of frog, the Goeldi, has developed a fold of skin 



surrounding the back, forming a sort of dish (Fig. i8), 



while in another species this fold of skin so completely 



overgrows the eggs that they lie concealed in a 



sort of rucksack, where they are provided with 



oxygen by special and peculiar respiratory organs 



(Fig. 1 9) . When they are fully developed the skin of 



the back splits (and what with her split skin, and the 



Fig. 19.— The eggs underlying it, the female has a monstrous 



Purse Frog, the appearance), and the brood falls out. 



back covers the ^^ ^^^ northern part of the South American 



eggs. {A portion continent lives a toad which is known as the Pipa. 



IS cut and turned It is an aquatic species. This reptile is calculated 



"^ ' to increase the aversion which many people feel 



for the toad ; for the whole of its back is as though eaten through, 



perforated like a honeycomb, and from the cells tiny legs are 



s 273 



