CUTANEOUS INCUBATION 133 



period of incubation as during that of hiberna- 

 tion; but Howes found the small intestine normal 

 and full of food-material in an assimilable condi- 

 tion, the large intestine fully charged with excreta, 

 and the stomach distended with small beetles and 

 diptera ; and he adds that the alimentary viscera 

 in general were those of a healthy animal in full 

 diet. Howes thought that Espada was mistaken, 

 but it seems possible that both conditions, hunger 

 diet and full diet, may occur. 



In contrast with the* foregoing examples of 

 buccal incubation on the part of the male, we 

 may quote cases of cutaneous incubation on the 

 part of the female, as also in the male, both in 

 fishes and batrachians. In the Lophobranchii 

 or Pipe-fishes the cutaneous incubation of the 

 eggs by the male attains a high degree of per- 

 fection within the family Syngnathidae ; in the 

 allied family Solenostomidae the ventral fins 

 (absent in the Syngnathidae) are enlarged and 

 combine together to form a brood-chamber, with- 

 in which the eggs are borne upon cutaneous 

 discs, but in this case the female performs the 

 parental office. In the Siluroid genus Aspredo, 

 which occurs in Guiana, Dr Giinther described 

 the remarkable mode in which the female takes 

 care of her ova, carrying them, after oviposition, 

 attached to the spongy integument of the belly, 

 as the Surinam toad Pipa carries her ova on the 

 back. But a closer analogy than the Surinam 



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