The Dawn of Mind 217 



sometimes make for a particular spawning-pond from a consider- 

 able distance. But an examination of their brains, occupying a 

 relatively small part of the broad, flat skull, warns us not to 

 expect much intelligence. On the other hand, when we take frogs 

 along a line that is very vital to them, namely, the discrimination 

 of palatable and unpalatable insects, we find, by experiment, that 

 they are quick to learn and that they remember their lessons for 

 many days. Frogs sometimes deposit their eggs in very unsuit- 

 able pools of water; but perhaps that is not quite so stupid as it 

 looks. The egg-laying is a matter that has been, as it were, 

 handed over to instinctive registration. 



Experiments in Parental Care 



It must be put to the credit of amphibians that they have 

 made many experiments in methods of parental care, as if they 

 were feeling their way to new devices. A common frog lays her 

 clumps of eggs in the cradle of the water, sometimes far over a 

 thousand together ; the toad winds two long strings round and be- 

 tween water-weeds; and in both cases that is all. There is no 

 parental care, and the prolific multiplication covers the enormous 

 infantile mortality. This is the spawning solution of the problem 

 of securing the continuance of the race. But there is another 

 solution, that of parental care associated with an economical re- 

 duction of the number of eggs. Thus the male of the Nurse- 

 Frog (Alytes), not uncommon on the Continent, fixes a string 

 of twenty to fifty eggs to the upper part of his hind-legs, and 

 retires to his hole, only coming out at night to get some food and 

 to keep up the moisture about the eggs. In three weeks, when 

 the tadpoles are ready to come out, he plunges into the pond and 

 is freed from his living burden and his family cares. In the case of 

 the thoroughly aquatic Surinam Toad (Pipa), the male helps to 

 press the eggs, perhaps a hundred in number, on to the back of the 

 female, where each sinks into a pocket of skin with a little lid. By 

 and by fully formed young toads jump out of the pockets. 



