52 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Deviation from the usual course of nature. 



At a certain period of incubation, if it may be so 

 called, in each of these shells is found a little live 

 toad, an exact miniature in all respects of its pa- 

 rent; but how it finds subsistence there (for the 

 creature has no adhesion to the parent, but may 

 be easily taken out, as- from a case, and again 

 replaced without injury) does not seem as yet to 

 be fully ascertained. Mr. Ferman, who has de- 

 scribed this animal, declares himself to have been 

 an eye-witness to the procedure. The eggs are 

 generated within the female, who, when they 

 have attained the proper degree of maturity, de- 

 posits them on the ground. The male amasses 

 together the heap, and deposits them with great 

 care on the back of the female, where, after 

 impregnation, they are pressed into the cellules, 

 which are at that period open for their reception, 

 and afterwards close over them. The ova remain 

 in the cellules till the second birth, which takes 

 place in somewhat less than three months, when 

 the young emerge from the back of the parent 

 completely formed. During the time of con- 

 cealment they undergo the usual change of the 

 rest of the genus into the tadpole state, which 

 they entirely put off before their final extrusion. 

 The flesh of the pipa, (according to Madame 

 Merian,) is highly relished by the negroes of 

 Surinam ; and as they never find any inconve- 

 nience from it, it cannot therefore be 

 unwholesome. 



