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-thaped tail, and on each fide the breaft 
is a fet of ramified branchiae, or refpiratory organs. 
After having lived for a confiderable 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 ftill 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 ihortens by degrees, and the animal, having at¬ 
tained its perfeCt 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 difterent 
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 eftablithed 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- 
t-ion 
