

ter. In this ftate they are well known by the name 

 of tadpoles, and confift of a very large body, with no 

 appearance of legs, but furnifhed with a very re- 

 markable fin-fhaped tail, and on each fide the breaft 

 is a fet of ramified branchiae, or refpiratory organs. 

 After having lived for a considerable fpace in this 

 ftate, with little other change of appearance than an 

 increafe of fize, the ramified parts drop away, and 

 the fore-legs appear ; thefe are foon fucceeded by the 

 hinder ones, and the animal (till continues to inhabit 

 the water in which it was hatched ; it is ftill furnifhed 

 with the tail, which at this period of its growth makes 

 a confpicuous appearance ; but, after fome weeks this 

 alfo fhortens by degrees, and the animal, having at- 

 tained its perfed figure, ventures upon land, and 

 from that time is at pleafure an inhabitant of either 

 element. 



Such is the change (with fome few variations as to 

 the figure and difpofition of the fpawn in the different 

 fpecies) which the animals of this genus undergo in 

 all the kinds which belong to Europe ; but in South 

 America we have an inftance in a fpecies of this fame 

 genus, of one of the moft extraordinary particularities 

 which the whole compafs of Natural Hiftory can ex- 

 hibit ; for in this animal, (which is called the Pipa, 

 or Surinam Toad,) as if by a caprice of nature, unpa- 

 rallelled by any other known animal, and diametrically 

 oppofite to the eftablifhed laws of production in other 

 creatures, the young are produced, perfectly formed, 

 out of cells, or hollow tubercles placed on the back of 

 the female. This fpecies therefore forms an excep- 

 tion 



