GUINEVERE THE MYSTERIOUS 145 



mighty gulp of the strange thin mediLun that cov- 

 ered the surface of her liquid home. 



At midnight of this same day only three things 

 existed in the world — on my table 1 turned from 

 the Bhagavad'Gita to Drinkwater's Eeverie and 

 back again; then I looked up to the jar of clear 

 water and watched Guinevere hovering motion- 

 less. At six the next morning she was crouched 

 safely on a bit of paper a foot from the aqua- 

 rium. She had missed the open window, the 

 four-foot drop to the floor, and a neighboring 

 aquarium stocked with voracious fish: surely the 

 gods of pollywogs were kind to me. The great 

 fins were gone — dissolved into blobs of dull pink; 

 the tail was a mere stub, the feet drawn close, 

 and a glance at her head showed that Guinevere 

 had become a frog almost within an hour. Three 

 things I hastened to observe; the pupils of her 

 eyes were vertical, revealing her genus PhyllO' 

 medusa (making apt our choice of the feminine) ; 

 by a gentle urging I saw that the first and sec- 

 ond toes were equal in length; and a glance at 

 her little humped back showed a scattering of 

 white calcareous spots, giving the clue to her 

 specific personality — bicolor: thus were we in- 

 troduced to Phi/llomedusa bicolor, alias Guine- 



