Marvels of the Universe 



597 



An ugly-looking creature at the best is this curious toad, which is one of the larger members 

 of the group, and is easily recognized by its depressed and triangular head, with small, beady eyes, 

 and some protruding flaps or filaments of skin on the upper lip, at the gape of the mouth, and 

 in front of the ej^es. Very distinctive, too, are the star-like expansions on the tips of the front 

 toes, which are quite separate from each other, and, likewise, the fully-webbed hind toes, each 

 armed ■\%ith a claw. The skin covering the back of the broad and depressed body, like that of the 

 head, is dark blackish-brown in colour and dotted over with small tubercles, but on the under surface 

 is whitish, sometimes with a brown line along the middle. Each of the tubercles, or papillae, on 

 the skin of both surfaces of the head, body and limbs is armed with a minute horny spine, some 

 of them being also pro\aded with a poison-gland at the base. There are likewise four rows of 

 larger poison-glands on both aspects of the body. 



If the mouth of one of these toads be opened it will be seen to be completely devoid of both 

 tongue and teeth, although the place of the latter is taken in the adult by horny plates. The lack of 

 a tongue — although not of teeth — is shared by an allied African family of frogs. 



These Toads inhabit the hottest and dampest districts of the Guianas and Brazil, and never 

 volimtarily leave the water, although during the dry season, when many of the ponds and pools 

 give out, they are compelled to bury themselves in the mud. They awake, however, with the 

 coming of the rainy season, and then commence the business of spawning in the flooded forests, 

 where they are at this season exceedingly difficult to find. 



In the spawning season the skin of the back of the female becomes very much thickened and 

 softened, and serves as a receptacle for the eggs, which are stuck into it like currants on the top of 

 a cake. It was formerly believed that spawning occurred on land, and that the male took each 

 egg singly and buried it in 

 the skin of his partner ; 

 but in the spring of 1896, 

 two of these Toads spawned 

 in the London Zoological 

 Gardens, when it was seen 

 that the process took place 

 in water, and that, by a 

 special arrangement, the 

 female is enabled to de- 

 posit the spawn on the 

 lower part of her own back. 

 The eggs are then pushed 

 forwards, one by one, by 

 the male, and gradually 

 pressed down so as to 

 cause them to sink into the 

 soft and yielding skin until 

 they become completely 

 buried. When develop- 

 ment has taken place, the 

 young toad becomes en- 

 closed in a pocket-like 

 cavity furnished with a 

 thin lid, like the hole of a '"" *' the sensitive plant. 



tVSiQ-doOT spider * the lid ^^^ stalk has been touched and the whole plant is disorganized 



, . -, . , 1 - • 1 8" electric shocU. or even a thunderstorm will cause the same effect 



which is of a shining horny i„i,.tion will exhaust its responsive faculties. 



[S. Leonard Bas/iti. 



Fire, an anaesthelic, 

 though continued 



