THE FROG KIND. 



707 



a head.* All these are found in the tropical 

 clim.ites, in great abundance; and particularly 

 after a shower of rain. It is then that the 

 streets seem entirely paved with them ; they 

 then crawl from their retreats, and go into all 

 places to enjoy their favourite moisture* With 

 us the opinion of its raining toads and frogs 

 has long been justly exploded; but it still is 

 entertained in the tropical countries; and 

 that not only by the savage natives, but the 

 more refined settlers, who are apt enough 

 to add the prejudices of other nations to their 

 own. 



It would be a tedious, as well as useless 

 task, to enter into all the minute discrimina- 

 tions of these animals, as found in different 

 countries or places; but the Pipal, or the 

 Surina;ii Toad, is too strange a creature not 

 to require an exact description. There is not, 

 perhaps, in all nature, a more extraordinary 

 phenomenon, than that of an animal breeding 

 and hatching its young in its back ; from 

 whence, as from a kind of hot-bed, they 

 crawl one after the other, when come to ma- 

 turity. 



The pipal is in form more hideous than 

 even the common toad ; nature seeming to 

 have marked all those strange-mannered ani- 

 mals with peculiar deformity. The body is 

 flat and broad ; the head small ; the jaws, 

 like those of a mole, are extended, and evU 

 dently formed for rooting in the ground : the 

 skin of the neck forms a sort of wrinkled col- 

 lar : the colour of the head is of a dark ches- 

 nut, and the eyes are small : the back, which 

 is very broad, is of a lightish gray, and seems 

 covered over with a number of small eyes, 

 which are round, and placed at nearly equal 

 distances. These eyes are very different from 

 what they see;ii ; they are the animal's eggs, 

 covered with their shells, and placed there for 

 hatching. These eggs are buried deep in the 

 skin, and in the beginning of incubation but 

 just appear ; and are very visible when the 

 young animal is about to burst from its con- 

 finement. They are of a reddish shining yel- 



Among tliis numerous family there is one, which, for 

 horrid and deformed appearance, probably exceeds all 

 other created beings. This is the horned Toad of South 

 America. The colour is cinerous, with brown stripes 

 The eye-lids project in a singular manner, and give it the 

 appearance as if the eyes were placed at the bottom of a 



NO. 59 & 60. 



low colour ; and the spaces between them arc 

 full of small warts, resembling pearls. 



This is their situation, previous to their 

 coming forth ; but nothing so much demands 

 our admiration, as the manner of their pro- 

 duction. The eggs, when formed in the 

 ovary, are sent by some internal canals, which 

 anatomists have not hitherto described^ to lie 

 and come to maturity under the bony sub- 

 stance of the back ; in this state they are im- 

 pregnated by the male, whose seed finds its 

 way by pores veiy singularly contrived, and 

 pierces not only the skin but the periosteum. 

 The skin, however, is still apparently entire, 

 and forms a very thick covering over the 

 whole brood ; but as they advance to maturity, 

 at different intervals, one after another, the egg 

 seems to start forward and bourgeon from the 

 back, becomes more yellow, and at last breaks, 

 when the young one puts forth its head : it 

 still, however, keeps its situation, until it has 

 acquired a proper degree of strength, and 

 then it leaves the shell, but still continues to 

 keep upon the back of the parent. In this 

 manner the pipal is seen travelling with her 

 wondrous family on her back, in all the dif- 

 ferent stages of maturity. Some of the 

 strange progeny, not yet come to sufficient 

 perfection, appear quite torpid, and as yet 

 without life in the egg : others seem just be- 

 ginning to rise through the skin ; here peeping 

 forth from the shell ; and there, having entire- 

 ly forsaken their prison, some are sporting at 

 large upon the parent's back ; and others de- 

 scending to the ground, to try their own for- 

 tune below. 



Such is the description given of this strange 

 production by Seba, in which he differs from 

 Ruysch, who affirms, that the young ones are 

 bred in the back of the male only, where the 

 female lays her eggs. I have followed Seba, 

 however, not because he is better authority, 

 but because he is more positive of the truth of 

 his account, and asserts, assuredly, that the 

 eggs are found on the back of the female 

 only. Many circumstances, however, are 



pair of sharp-pointed horns : the head is very large, and 

 the mouth is so enormous, as to exceed half the length of 

 its body. To add to its loathsome appearance, it is like- 

 wise clothed all over, except the head and feet, with short 

 sharp spines. 



50 



