THE TOAD. 



S89 



The water toad is not so large as the other; 

 but both equally breed in that element The 

 size of the toad, with us, is generally from 

 two to four inches long ; but in the fenny 

 countries of Europe I have seen them much 

 larger, and not less than a common crab, 

 when Drought to table. But this is nothing to 

 what they are found in some of the tropical 

 climates, where travellers often, for the first 

 time, mistake a toad for a tortoise. Their usual 

 size is from six to seven inches : but there 

 are some still larger, and as broad as a plate. 

 Of these some are beautifully streaked and 

 coloured ; some studded over, as with pearls ; 

 others bristled with horns or spines ; some 

 have the head distinct from the body, while 

 others have it so sunk in that the animal ap- 

 pears without a head. 1 All these are found 

 in the tropical climates 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 coun- 

 tries ; 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 pipa, or Surinam 

 toad, is too strange a creature not to require 



an exact description. There is not, perhaps, 

 in all nature, a more extraordinary phenome- 

 non 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 maturity. 



The pipa 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 



1 Among this 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 cinereous, 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 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 appear- 

 ance, it is likewise clothed all over, except the head and 

 feet, with short sharp spines. 



flat and broad ; the head small ; the jaws, liks 

 those of a mole, are extended, and evidently 

 formed for rooting in the ground : the skin of 

 the neck forms a sort of wrinkled collar: the 

 colour of the head is of a dark chestnut, and 

 the eyes are small : the back, which is verv 

 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 

 seem ; they are the animal's eggs, covered 

 with their shells, and placed there for hatch- 

 ing. 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 confinement. 

 They are of a reddish shining yellow colour ; 

 and the spaces between them are full of small 

 warts resembling pearls. 8 



This is their situation, previous to their 

 coming forth ; but nothing so much demands 

 our admiration as the manner of their produc- 

 tion. The eggs, when formed in the -ovary, 

 are sent by some internal canals, which ana- 

 tomists have not hitherto described, to lie and 

 come to maturity, under the bony substance 

 of the back ; in this state they are impregna- 

 ted by the male, whose seed finds its way by 

 pores very 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 pipa is seen travelling with her wondrous 

 family on her back, in all the different 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 beginning to rise through 

 the skin ; here peeping forth from the shell ; 

 and there, having entirely forsaken their pri- 

 son ; some are sporting at large upon the par- 

 ent's back ; and others descending to the 

 ground, to try their own fortune below. 



Such is the description given of this strange 



8 It is now demonstrated that the female lays its egss 

 after the manner of toads, but that the male, fastened oti 

 her back, fecundates them, and then places them on the 

 back of the mother ; she then repairs to the water, where 

 her skin swells, and forms rounded alveoli, in which 

 these eggs are lodged, to be subsequently disclosed. The 

 pipa lives in the fresh waters of South America, and 

 sometimes in the obscure parts of houses at Cayenne 

 and Surinam. The negroes are said sometimes to use 

 the pipa as food. 



