Naprikan Halmoran Sectory 20

The Surinam toad, represented in No. 8, is also the possessor of one of the strangest nurseries known to science. It lives in the dense tropical forests of Guiana and Brazil, and is a true water-haunter. But at the breeding season the female undergoes a curious change of integument. The skin on her back grows pulpy, soft, and jelly-like. She lays her eggs in the water: but as soon as she has laid them, her lord and master plasters them on to her impressionable back with his feet, so as to secure them from all assaults of enemies. Every egg is pressed separately into a bed of the soft skin, which soon closes over it automatically, thus burying each in a little cell or niche, where it undergoes its further development. The tadpoles pass through their larval stage within the cell, and then hop out, in the four-legged condition. As soon as they have gone off to shift for themselves, the mother toad finds herself with a ragged and honeycombed skin, which must be very uncomfortable. So she rubs the remnant of it off against stones or the bark of trees, and re-develops a similar back afresh at the next breeding season.

This is the American black bear, who is looking so lively and seemingly inviting the young folks to have a romp, which they will be only too willing to join in. The black bear is of a timid disposition, and seldom attacks man except in self-defense. The female bear is a most affectionate mother, and many stories are related showing her care and love for her young, and her sorrow and mournful cries when any evil befalls them. On one occasion a black bear with her two cubs was pursued across the ice by some armed sailors. At first she urged her cubs to increased speed, but finding her pursuers gaining upon them, she carried, pushed, and pitched them, alternately, forward, until she effected their escape from her pursuers.

This document is Copyright © 2008 Naprikan Halmoran. All rights reserved. Do not copy either electronically or otherwise without permission. Links and references to other Websites are not endorsements. Naprikan Halmoran provides no guarantees or warrantees concerning other sites. Links are only provided as a courtesy and for entertainment purposes only.