THE SURINAM TOAD. 149 



Very little is known of the habits of this Snake, but it is thought to burrow in loose 

 ground. 



The colour of the Atractaspis is blackish green above, shaded with orange-brown, and 

 orange-buff below. It is a small Serpent, rarely measuring more than two feet in length. 



THE BATKACHIANS are separated from the true reptiles on account of their peculiar 

 development, which gives them a strong likeness to the fishes, and affords a good ground 

 for considering these animals to form a distinct order. On their extrusion from the egg, 

 they bear no resemblance to their parents, but are in a kind of intermediate existence, 

 closely analogous to the caterpillar or larval state of insects, and called by the same name. 

 Like the fish, they exist wholly in the water, and breathe through gills instead of lungs, 

 obtaining the needful oxygen from the water which washes the delicate gill-membranes. 

 At this early period they have no external limbs, moving by the rapid vibration of the 

 flat and fan-like tail with which they are supplied. While in this state they are popularly 

 called tadpoles, those of the frog sometimes bearing the provincial name of pollywogs. 

 The skin of the Batrachians is not scaly, and in most instances is smooth and soft. 

 Further peculiarities will be mentioned in connexion with the different species. 



These creatures fall naturally into two sub-orders, the leaping or tail-less Batrachians, 

 and the crawling Batrachians. The leaping Batrachians, comprising the frogs and toads, 

 are familiar in almost all lands, and in England are well known on account of their 

 British representatives. 



The tongue plays an important part in separating the frogs and toads into groups, 

 and in the first group the tongue is altogether absent, these creatures being in consequence 

 called Aglossa, or tongueless Bafcrachians. 



THE first of these creatures, the XENOPUS of Western and Southern Africa (Dactylethra 

 Icevis], is remarkable for possessing nails on its feet, the first three toes being tipped with 

 a sharply pointed claw or nail. The family is very small, comprising only one genus, and, 

 as far as is known, two species. The colour of the Xenopus is ashy brown, veined with 

 blackish brown. It is rather a large species. 



THE celebrated SUEINAM TOAD has long attracted attention, not for its beauty, as it is 

 one of the most unprepossessing of beings, but for the extraordinary way in which the 

 development of the young is conducted. 



When the eggs are laid, the male takes them in his broad paws, and contrives to place 

 them on the back of his mate, where they adhere by means of a certain glutinous secretion, 

 and by degrees become embedded in a series of curious cells formed for them in the skin. 

 When the process is completed, the cells are closed by a kind of membrane, and the back 

 of the female Toad bears a strong resemblance to a piece of dark honey-comb, when the 

 cells are filled and closed. Here the eggs are hatched, and in these strange receptacles the 

 young pass through their first stages of life, not emerging until they have attained their 

 limbs, and can move about on the ground. 



The skin of this, as well as of other batrachians, is separated from the muscles of the 

 back, and allows room for the formation of the cells, being nearly half an inch thick. 

 The full-sized cells are much deeper than long, and each would about hold a common 

 horse-bean, thrust into it endways. The mouths of the cells assume an irregularly 

 hexagonal form, probably because their original shape would be cylindrical, were they not 

 squeezed against each other. 



When the young have attained their perfect state, they break their way through the 

 iover of the cells, and present a most singular aspect as they struggle from the skin, their 

 aeads and paws projecting in all directions. In the museum of the College of Surgeons 

 oiay be seen some very good specimens of the Surinam Toad, some being entire, and others 



