132 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



black wrigglers filling puddles and swamps of 

 our northern country. These were slow-moving, 

 graceful creatures, partly transparent, partly re- 

 flecting every hue of the spectrum, with broad, 

 waving scarlet and hyaline fins, and strange, 

 fish-like mouths and eyes. Their habits were as 

 unpollywoglike as their appearance. I visited 

 their micaceous pool again and again; and if I 

 could have spent days instead of hours with them, 

 no moment of ennui would have intervened. 



My acquaintanceship with tadpoles in the past 

 had not aroused me to enthusiasm in the matter 

 of their mental ability; as, for example, the in- 

 mates of the next aquarium to that of the Red- 

 fins, where 1 kept a herd or brood or school of 

 Short-tailed Blacks pollywogs of the Giant 

 Toad (Bufo marimis). At earliest dawn they 

 swam aimlessly about and mumbled ; at high noon 

 they mumbled and still swam; at midnight they 

 refused to be otherwise occupied. It was possible 

 to alarm them; but even while they fled they 

 mumbled. 



In bodily form my Redfins were fish, but men- 

 tally they had advanced a little beyond the usual 

 tadpole train of reactions, reaching forward to- 

 ward the varied activities of the future amphi- 



