sness of
power of synchronous rhythm coming to ape men: it seemed a spark of
tadpole genius--an adumbration of possibilities which now would end in
the dull consciousness of the future frog, but which might, in past
ages, have been a vital link in the development of an ancestral
Ereops.

My Redfins were assuredly no common tadpoles, and an intolerant
pollywog offers worthy research for the naturalist. Straining their
medium of its opacity, I drew off the clayey liquid and replaced it
with the clearer brown, wallaba-stained water of the Mazaruni; and
thereafter all their doings, all their intimacies, were at my mercy. I
felt as must have felt the first aviator who flew unheralded over an
oriental city, with its patios and house-roofs spread naked beneath
him.

It was on one of the early days of observation that an astounding
thought came to me--before I had lost perspective in intensive
watching, before familiarity had assuaged some of the marvel of these
super-tadpoles. Most of those in my jar were of a like size, just
short of an inch; but one was much larger, and correspondingly
gorgeous in color and graceful in movement. As she swept slowly past
my line of vision, she turned and looked, first at me, then up at the
limits of her world, with a slow deliberateness and a hint of
expression which struck deep into my memory. Green came to
mind,--something clad in a smock of emerald, with a waist-coat of
mother-of-pearl, and great sprawling arms,--and I found myself
thinking of Gawain, our mystery frog of a year ago, who came without
warning, and withheld all the secrets of his life. And I glanced again
at this super-tad,--as unlike her ultimate development as the grub is
unlike the beetle,--and one of us exclaimed, "It is the same, or
nearly, but more delicate, more beautiful; it must be Guinevere." And
so, probably for the first time in the world, there came to be a pet
tadpole, one with an absurd name which will forever be more
significant to us than the term applied by a forgotten herpetologist
many years ago.

And Guinevere became known to all who had to do with the laboratory.
Her health and daily development and color-change were things to be
inquired after and discussed; one of us watched her closely and made
notes of her life, one painted every radical development of color and
pattern, another photographed her, and another brought her delectable
scum. She was waited upon as sedulously as a termite queen. And s