TOAD. 
35 
cannot help denying our belief of what appears so 
exceedingly unnatural. That an animal, however 
tenacious of life, should exist for many years en- 
closed within a solid body, and in a space no larger 
than itself, deprived of air, food, and motion, ap- 
pears too marvellous to be credited. 
We cannot quit this genus without noticing the 
most extraordinary of all its species. The Surinam 
toad, Rana Pipa Linn., exhibits a phenomenon 
which is not to be equalled in the whole range 
of animated nature. The young, instead of being 
produced in the common manner, are hatched in 
the back of the female, from whence they are ex- 
cluded completely formed. For this purpose she 
is provided by nature with a certain number of 
cavities, or cells, which open outwards, and are 
about half an inch deep. Dr. Shaw says it was a 
long time supposed that the eggs in this extra- 
ordinary animal were produced in the dorsal cells, 
without having been first excluded in the form of 
spawn. It seems however that this is not the case ; 
for Dr. Fermin, to whom we are indebted for the 
most accurate observations on this animal, has 
proved that a still more wonderful process takes 
place, and that the spawn after being excluded is 
received into the open cells of the back, where it 
remains till the little toads have arrived at ma- 
turity. Dr. Fermin declares that at a certain pe- 
riod of this process a little live toad is to be found 
in each of the cells, which is an exact resemblance 
