PIP. A disease of poultry. See Rohr.
PIPA (Neo-Lat., from the native name of the Surinam toad). A Smith American frog (family Pipid:e), the 'Surinam toad' (Pipe Americana), celebrated for its extraordinary method of carrying its eggs in the skin of time hack. It is a peculiar, ugly-looking creature. The whole skin is covered with small tubercles, and is dark in color cm the upper surfaees, but whitish on the under side of the body. Every where the skin bears papilla., each with a liltle horny spike, and many with a poison gland at the base. The back of the female is furnished with numerous cells or ponehes. in which the eggs fire hatched and the young undergo all their transformations. It was not until the process was observed by Bartlett, who watched captive specimens in London (Proceedings of the Zoologi cal Society, London. 189(i, p. 595) that the method of placing the eggs in this curious nursery was understood. Late in April, 1896, Bartlett noticed that the male pipe toads were becoming very lively, and were constantly heard uttering their metallic, ticking call-notes. On examining them, two of the males were observed clasped tightly around the lower parts of the bodies of females, the hind parts of the males extend ing beyond those of the females. (In the follow
ing morning the keepers arrived in time to wit ness the mode in which the eggs were deposited. The oviduct of the female protruded from her body more than an inch in length, and the blad der-like protrusion, being retroverted, passed under the belly of the male on to her own !awl:. The male appeared to press tightly upon this protruded bag, and to squeeze it from side to side, apparently pressing the eggs forward, by one, on to the back of the female. Ilv this movement the eggs were spread with nearly uniform smoothness over the whole surface of the hack of the female, to which they became firmly adherent. When the operation was com pleted the males left their places on the females. and the enlarged and projected oviduct gradually disappeared. The eggs are produced in the early part of the rainy season, when these highly aquatic frogs have plenty of water about them, and at that time it is very di11ic•ult to capture them. In the dry season these frogs collect in swamps and ditches, and sometimes conic close to or into houses. Consult Cadow, Amphibia and Reptiles (London, 1901).