THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



cant habits of primitive care for their offspring. 

 Sometimes it is the males, sometimes the females, 

 that carry the eggs round with them. The male 

 of the European "Obstetric Toad" has the habit 

 of taking the spawn from the female, wrapping it 

 in strings round its hind legs and taking great 

 care to protect it. The female of the Pipa of 

 South America, on the other hand, carries it. c , 

 eggs on its back, having little pockets in the skin 

 of its back in which the eggs gradually mature 

 and in which the young hatch. Among other 

 toads, the skin has developed large hatching 

 pockets in which first the eggs and later the 

 young animals are carried about in just the same 

 way that we observe among the land duckbills 

 and the marsupials. Furthermore, various 

 glands of the skin play an important role among 

 amphibians. Everyone is acquainted with those 

 glands of the toad which excrete a sharp juice 

 serving as a protection against enemies. But 

 such glands as those play a role in the formation 

 of the pockets of the Pipa. It is not a very far- 

 fetched idea that the young animal hiding in such 

 a pocket might also begin to lick the excretions 

 of its glands, which need not necessarily be caus- 

 tic, but may serve as nutrition. If that is so, we 

 should find ourselves at once at that stage which 



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