THE SMOOTH-CLAWED FROG 
has gone down to posterity as having kept Horace awake 
during his journey to Brundusium. 
THE PLAATHANDE 
The examples of Pipa in the Zoological Gardens were 
separated from some frogs in another and neighbouring 
case by a tank, in which a few tortoises disport them- 
selves. The two frogs are also separated in nature by a 
more considerable tank, also full of turtles, the Atlantic 
ocean. On the American side lives the Surinam toad, 
and on the African the plaathande of the Dutch colo- 
nists, known to science as Xenopus or Dactylethra levis, 
the “smooth-clawed frog.” The two frogs and a third 
and less known genus are commonly associated together 
into a group called Aglossa, on account of the absence of 
a tongue, and by virtue of other peculiarities which give 
them an isolated place among frogs and toads. Like 
Pipa, Xenopus rarely leaves the water, and our illustra- 
tion shows its characteristic pose when doing nothing in 
particular, a form of action in which it is a proficient. 
It has a flat back when it can be induced to sprawl awk- 
wardly about upon dry land, and does not sit up in the 
perky fashion of Rana, or even of the lugubrious Bufo. 
The latter present an appearance of a breakage in the 
back, which is really due to the projection forwards of 
the bones of the hip girdle. While most frogs are noisy, 
Xenopus does not by any means make the welkin ring. 
No sleep would be averted by these marshy frogs. The 
very ghost of a croak, described as “ Tick-tick,” and not 
the virile “ Brek-ek-ek-ek coax coax” of Southern 
Europe, of to-day as well as in Aristophanes’ time, is all 
that they produce. And even this requires the tender 
passion for its excitement. It is only in the breeding 
season that the frogs make vocal the neighbouring 
glades. Another characteristic of the lower amphibia 
shown by the Plaathande is its habit of laying eggs not 
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