Amongst a number of Clawed Toads imported in the spring one female became swollen with eggs, but as they did not show signs of wanting to breed, a pair was put into the tropical tank {149}in the Cambridge Botanic Gardens, a transfer which had the desired effect. Eggs were laid, and more during the following nights; they hatched out within thirty hours. The whole brood was lost, before any of them were older than a few days, since they were attacked, beyond the possibility of a cure, by a _Saprolegnia_ or some similar pest. _Hymenochirus_, represented by one species, _H. boettgeri_, has been discovered in the Ituri, German East Africa, and in the French Congo, and has no doubt a much wider distribution. It is scarcely 1½ inch long, and is easily recognised by the toothless mouth, the half-webbed fingers (hence the generic name), the incompletely webbed toes, the third of which is longer than the fourth, and the absence of sensory muciferous canals in the skin. The three inner toes are, as in _Xenopus_, furnished with small black claws. The skin is rough, beset with small granular tubercles. The general colour above and below is olive-brown. The vent is, as in _Xenopus_, produced into a spout or semi-canal, but is devoid of dorsal flaps of skin. _Pipa._–This Neotropical member of the Aglossa is quite toothless, but the jaws of the adult have horny substitutes. The only species is _P. americana_, the famous Surinam Toad, chiefly known from the Guianas, but undoubtedly extending much further, having recently been reported from the neighbourhood of Pará. The general shape of this creature is very peculiar. The head is much depressed and triangular; the eyes are very small; the skin forms several short, irregularly-shaped flaps and tentacles on the upper lips and in front of the eye, and at the angle of the mouth. The tympanum is invisible. The pupil is round. The fingers are very slender and free, ending in star-shaped tips; the toes are broadly webbed. The whole skin is covered with small tubercles and is dark brown above, while the under parts of the very flat and depressed body are whitish, sometimes with a dark brown stripe along the middle line. In the female the skin of the back forms growths for the reception of the eggs, and in these the young undergo their whole metamorphosis. {150}[Illustration: FIG. 30.–_Pipa americana._ Surinam Toad. × ⅔.]